Discover your voice, cultivate mindful awareness, and inspire creative growth with photography
In The Mindful Photographer, teacher, author, and photographer David Ulrich follows up on the success of his previous book, Zen Camera, by offering photographers, smartphone camera users, and other cultural creatives 55 short (1-5 pages) essays on topics...
Read More
Discover your voice, cultivate mindful awareness, and inspire creative growth with photography
In The Mindful Photographer, teacher, author, and photographer David Ulrich follows up on the success of his previous book, Zen Camera, by offering photographers, smartphone camera users, and other cultural creatives 55 short (1-5 pages) essays on topics related to photography, mindfulness, personal growth, creativity, and cultivating personal and social awareness. Whether you’re seeking to become a better photographer, find your voice, enhance your ability to “see” the world around you, realize your full potential, or refine your personal expression, The Mindful Photographer can help you. You will learn to:
•Awaken your creative spirit
•Find joy and fulfillment with a camera
•Improve your photography
•Express your deepest vision of the world
•Learn to be more present in the moment
•Deepen your capacity for observation
•Gain insight into your self and others
•Cultivate mindful seeing
•Use your camera as a tool for change
•Enhance your visual literacy
You can read this beautiful, richly illustrated book in order, following its inherent structure, or you can dive into the book anywhere that appeals to you, following your own stream of interest. No matter how you read and work through the book—many of the essays contain exercises, working practices, and quotes from well-known photographers—you will learn to deepen your engagement with the world and discover a rich source of creativity within you through the act of taking pictures.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
Seek Resonance
Camera Practice
Avoid the Merely Pictorial
Pictures are Not About Pictures
Visual Learning
First Sight; Beginner’s Eye
The Camera in Your Hand
Seeing from the Body
It’s All About Hormones
Attention and Distraction
Keep the French Fries
Becoming Good
Audience
Fitting into the Flow of Time
Catch the Wave, Not the Ripple
Of Time and Light
In Space
Finding Your Mojo
River of Consciousness
Why Selfies?
When to Put the Camera Down
Mindful Sight
Creative Time
Minding the Darkness
Potency of Metaphor
Mapping the Internal Terrain
What Helps?
Analyzing Your Images
Sift, Edit, and Refine
Sequencing
Experiment
Become the Camera
Music of the Spheres
InSeeing
Fifty/Fifty
Creative Mind and Not Knowing
Trust Your Process
Digital Life
Steal Like an Artist
Art is a Lie that Tells the Truth
Use Irony Sparingly
Embrace Paradox
When to be Tender, When to Snarl, When to Shout, and When to Whisper
Sharpness is a Bourgeois Concept
Learn to Love the Questions
The Wisdom of Chance
Awake in the World
The Cruel Radiance of What Is
Hope and Despair
Companions on the Way
Coherence and Presence
Wholeness and Order
Creative Intensity
Sea of Images
The Power of Art
Read Less
Gloria
I am comforted at the beginning of this interesting book when the author says that most of his students are not looking to be professional photographers. Neither am I, so I’m happy to know that this book will suit me. Ulrich also explains that each essay stands on its own, so that you can read the book’s chapters in any order. Given the way I read, diving in and out of books, that is brilliant.
I’m happy to read that the author believes that mindfulness practice and photography are so interrelated. I do meditate, but I’ve never actually connected it to my photography. So much to learn! The book is worth it just for his seven principles of camera practice! He repeats them here, though he first introduced them in a prior book. Excellent tips, tips I would like to carry with me :-).
Who could not want to read a chapter called “pictures are not about pictures“? The author posits that photographs, for example, reflect our inner selves and can evoke feelings, thoughts, in the viewer. Raises photography to a higher meaning. And maybe for me, most salient, the best photographs are not about the equipment you use but about your state of mind when you make the photograph. It’s an excellent book on photography that has a chapter titled “when to put the camera down”, and it’s telling that he begins by criticizing the lack of privacy. He especially pointed to cell phone cameras which just about everyone has and use just about everywhere.
“A sequence of images is only as strong as its weakest link.“ A great beginning to the author’s chapter on editing our photos. Ulrich suggests looking at your photos globally, as thumbnails, before you begin editing, so that you can spot themes, recurring colors and forms, etc. That’s not something I have done but I am certainly going to give it a try. Of course, he suggests we be mindful when we reveal photos, not necessarily rational :-).
And how could I not love a book with a chapter called “Sharpness is a bourgeois concept“! Turns out it’s actually a quotation from Henri Cartier-Bresson, And the chapter is fascinating to read and think about. He especially warns about over-sharpening and I agree with him.
Not only does this book contain fascinating subjects I have not seen elsewhere covered, the writing is well done and carries you through the book without effort. You will want to read the next c
jefforns
This is a very different, but informative book for me. My extensive photography library is filled with books about cameras, lenses, composition, processing and light. This book is about thinking and seeing what is in front of you as well as what you should really be thinking. Mr. Ulrich, in his writing, asks you to think and visualize before you press the shutter button. It is a rich feeling if you follow his thinking and process.
I would highly recommend this book to any photographer who already knows how to take and process images and wants to add the ‘why’ to the process. It is easy reading by chapters and you can skip around the book and still find the entire thought process