Love what you photograph. Photograph what you love.

Too often we are so enamored of our cameras as intricate little (metaphorical) puzzles that we come to subconsciously believe their purpose is provide the entertainment of puzzle solving, not image making. When we make images we seem to forget that our highest and best use of our cameras is as tools to interpret and share not only what we see but how we see it. Our initial impetus to buy and learn how to use a camera is usually the result of something new and special in our lives. That could be new insight or knowledge about a subject (the idea driving photojournalism) which we feel needs to be shared, or the arrival of new life or new love. The original embrace of the camera comes from the desire to show and share, and to prove that we were here with our own, unique sense of what is beautiful; what should be visually interpreted and preserved.

Try as we might to destroy the world by wringing from it every ounce of profit and plunder we can't stop beauty from continually swirling around us in our everyday lives. We can notice it, appreciate it, gain refuge from the knowledge of its existence, and try to share it with other people thru our cameras.

Sometimes we have to quiet our thoughts in order to see beauty more clearly. Sometimes we have to subdue our need to master a craft in order to understand more completely its real magic and its real reason to exist.

Just a few thoughts on a hot but happy day.