The Zone
Photographing is like listening to music. When listening to music you can be completely absorbed by it. It can make you feel happy, sad, groovy, or whatever other feelings the music gives you. The rest of the world disappears for a moment, it’s just you and the music.
Taking pictures can have the same effect. When you are outside, walking around, looking, and being open to everything around you, you are in the moment, in the now. When something catches your eye, you start composing in your head, bring the camera to your eye, and take the picture you imagined. At that moment the camera itself isn’t important. It’s the moment, the object, the situation, and you. That’s what matters. Now you can continue walking or focus even more on the object or situation, and take more pictures. You are in the flow, or in the zone. It happens naturally. You are having fun and being aware in the now, not distracted by everyday worries.
Talking about distractions: I try not to look at my images while I’m out shooting. It is called Chimping, looking at the LCD screen to see if the shot was a success or not. It takes you out of the moment and it could well be that you’ll miss the next moment because of this. I have all my cameras set to not display the image after taking a picture. I’ll watch my stuff when I get home or I’ll go for a cup of coffee and then look at what I’ve got, or what I didn’t get, most of the time. Not chimping has another plus: it saves battery life.
Photography shouldn’t be a struggle. That’s why it is important to know your camera. When you are familiar with your camera, it doesn’t distract you from taking pictures. Of course, you are aware of the settings and you can change them on the fly, but it doesn’t distract you. Simple is good in this case. One camera and one lens are all you need. When you don’t have a choice, it gives you better focus and fewer things to worry about. It will give you the ability to get into the flow much quicker.
And then there are times when all of this fails. You thought you were going out to take pictures but you just don’t feel it that day. Nothing is interesting and you have no inspiration. If that happens to me I put away my camera and try to enjoy just being outside.
And, on one of those days, I found this video from Eyexplore on YouTube where the photographer talks about mindfulness, flow, and being in the zone. A great YouTube channel with a lot of photography knowledge. Maybe you’ll like this video too.
Thanks for reading.
