Essential Instructions, day II

Saturday was day two of the workshop Essential Instructions for looking and seeing. In my former blogpost I explained about the flash of perception, yesterday was all about the visual discernment. 

This is apparently the most difficult aspect of Miksang contemplative photography: understanding what you see from a still, open and grounded mind, looking with appreciation and then expressing your perception with the elegance of a fencer.

What really helps to become quiet is mediation. Meditation brings you to your own self and creativity. That is what we are doing in the workshops: we train our minds to become quiet and to express our fresh perception correctly. 

In determining the visual discernment we encounter our obstacles, like boredom, photographic ambition or even excitement. Whatever the obstacles are, we can always turn back to looking.

We stayed longer with the looking yesterday and I took a whole lot less pictures than I normally do. I really made connection with what I saw, determining what it is that I saw, appreciating and giving expressing. 

Before clicking the shutter we determine the following:

• where does my perception start and where does it end?
• what belongs to it and what does not?
• is the format landscape or portrait? 

Then you determine the technical aspects: the depth of field, ISO, etc. and click the button. The last part is the easiest part, you just have to know your camera. But knowing yourself and trusting what you saw, is a different piece of cake!