It was a quiet moment yesterday, late enough and cloudy enough that the light was utterly shadowless and had an interesting feel .. a 'rich flatness'. It had been a somewhat long and unfocused day where I could not concentrate. I finally packed it in at my desk and headed over to a local cafe I've begun to frequent more. Warm enough to sit outside, so I did.
My book sat on the table in front of me. I couldn't concentrate, couldn't focus on 'what to do next', kept getting distracted. I read a chapter in my book. Stopped. I pulled out my notebook. Fussed with my pen. Started to write. The act of writing a list of things to do, sequencing them, thinking about them, studying the words and characters led me into a different mental state. I was grateful to leave the one I'd been in. I closed the book and stuck it in my bag.
Sitting there, meditating and sipping my drink. I felt like I hadn't taken a decent photo all week. The notion came to me "From your seat, what do you see?" so I started to look around intently, but was again distracted. Voices in my head ... "you should read! you should ..." I didn't know what. The camera was sitting on the table in front of me, ready, and I flipped it to video mode and took a long, slow pan starting at my extreme left and running to the right. Forty-eight seconds. I watched that video about ten times: it was easier to 'see', to concentrate using the video than to look at the space around me.
And then for fifteen minutes I made photos, without going more than forty feet. This scene was the first I saw and the last thing I photographed.
You know what is really real when you see it on the video.
