Taking Notice : Paying Attention

I have been a traveler all of my life and a photographer for most of it. I learned that taking pictures is different than what I thought it was. Returning from a trip, I often make presentations and the question most often asked by the audience is, "What kind of camera do you use." It is a rather logical question, but it misses the point entirely. Not only is the camera only a tool, it is often the tool that prevents you from being present. The real trick is to be present, to see well and to use the camera as a way to make your memory as precise as possible. We all would like to be told the magic trick that is going to make our photographs fabulous and garner applause. We dig through technical publications, only to discover that the tools we need to work with are not just cameras, but our eyes, our minds and hearts. This collection of topical essays coupled with hundreds of color images explores the process seeing in new ways. Far from being a technical manual, it is an aid to discovering new topics hidden among the images we come home with. It is an aid to seeing where we are going as well as taking pictures of where we have been.