Photography as gratitude practice

When I saw this painter from the coffee shop window where I was having my weekly Monday with Margie, I had to get up from the table and go out to make a photograph. It wasn’t a choice. I had to go. When I came back, Margie asked me, “What is it about photography that grabs you like that?” Gratitude, I said without a pause. 

“Oh, I like that,” she said. “I could do that. I have so much gratitude.” She thought about it for a minute and then said, pensively, “I see what you’re doing. I could do that. I’ve never owned a camera, never used one. But I get gratitude.” 

Yes, yes, I cheered. I said she could use her phone. But Margie is extremely dizzy all the time, and she needs a cane to stabilize herself. “You could make photographs sitting down,” I said. 

“Or leaning against a wall,” she offered. 

“Or in your own apartment,” I nudged.

“Really?” She thought for a moment, and then she lit up: “Yes, I can see that. My feeling of confinement, my boredom and frustration, all that lifts when I tune into my gratitude. The sky outside my windows, for example. I never tire of them.”

Then I thought of The Practice of Contemplative Photography, by Andy Karr and Michael Wood and said I’ll bring it for her next Monday. I suggested she just think about texture, color, pattern. It doesn’t have to be pretty, in fact it’s easier if it’s not pretty. I tried to explain that. Back home I found the place where Karr says, “The main thing is not to look for locations that you think of as ‘beautiful,’ or ‘special’ or ‘photogenic.’ In particular, try to avoid parks, gardens, and natural settings.” A ‘beautiful’ scene sucks us into clichés. Instead, he says, look for color contrast. For line. For texture. For pattern, shadow, and of course, the play of light on surfaces.

She looked out the window at a tree near us. “That tree, for example,” she said. “The bark. The patterns of light and dark, the layers. Yes, this could be a whole new thing for me. Bring me that book.”