Every Day

I write everyday. It's not necessarily coherent, or understandable, and most of it isn't for the world to see. I write every day because I want to.

I've learned that it helps me to work through things, and it keeps me sane. By writing it on paper, it is no longer part of me. It gives me distance from the problem. It allows me to step back, to move on.

I take pictures every day. I'm still learning what this means to me. It is something I want to do because I love it and it calms me and allows me to forget the world and its problems.

The idea came from 365 Days, which is taking pictures to share. I elected not to participate because I foresaw the pressure I would put on myself.

I need to find a place of comfort that allows me to pick up my camera everyday because I want to, not because I have to.

That feeling of "have to" comes solely from me.

So I pick up my camera, suspending it carefully from my neck, every day, when I want to. When I see the beauty in the world around me that must be captured and preserved. I adjust the f-stop and ISO and shutter speed to let light in.

I pick it up with heavy hands, because I know I need to see the beauty. That today it isn't jumping out at me, that I will need to look in the unexpected places, finding the hidden joys.

I don't think about all the metaphors my camera embodies as I am looking through the viewfinder. I just see my world, the light and the dark, old and new. I strive to take a good photograph.

What I have learned is that taking a good photograph entails more than having the right exposure and white balance and composition. Little pieces of me come through. My mood is preserved in the 10.1 megapixels. As I find ways to take photographs for me, because I want to, I am finding the pieces of me that are transfered into my photos are the lighter pieces. The joyful pieces.