Contemplative Photography

One of my favorite courses till now is the Buddhist Art course taught by Diane Denis. Although we were not able to physically attend the class, virtually it was as effective and fun as a physical class could be. In the midst of lockdown and corona, I was able to finally escape through this project for this course. It was my final project and I chose contemplative photography as a medium to explore my artistic and contemplative field. Contemplative photography refers to having clear perception and being aware of the surroundings and your mind. It is about seeing clearly and reflecting upon the responses you get when you decide to click a picture. There is lot of aspects one needs to be aware of. In contemplative photography, one clearly sees what is in front of them. With that, one practices to be free from conceptual elaborations and discover the sensory world. Without any expectations for the results and judgments, one is fully involved in that particular moment. For this, one doesn’t need to be talented or extraordinary, the things we do in our everyday life itself are an expression of art.

Chogyam trungpa “Art is expressing basic goodness and basic beauty. And the principle of art is the idea of trust, absence of lying and relaxation.”

The development of these principles results in genuine feeling about us and creates genuine arts. Contemplative photography is pretty much similar to this theory of waking up and seeing clearly. When you go out there for photography; you don’t try to find the most beautiful thing but rather most attentive thing. And then when you photograph without being attached to the standardization of beauty and the object. We can generally find so many artistic things in our everyday life and activities. Art in mundane or everyday life refers to being aware of one’s own surroundings and the activities one indulges in everyday living. One doesn’t try to find the most beautiful thing in their surrounding but something that really took their attention and then photograph it. When a person tries to find extra-ordinary things, and separate their daily life and artistic process, that is when they miss the important source of creativity in their life.

~Pema Choedon Lama