A New Rabbit Hole

July 7: Taking a brief break from gratitude …… well not really gratitude, just writing about gratitude ….. to dabble in a 10-day online course I stumbled on called Begin Deepening.  It’s an exercise in a kind of photography that I’m unfamiliar with – Conceptual Photography.

Conceptual photography is photography that enhances an idea.  Catherine Just, the instructor for the course, takes this simple definition a little further by explaining how photos can be an outward expression of an idea, question, or conversation that lives underneath the surface of your life.  They can contain secrets and stories that no one else knows exist, including you.  She uses self portraits to explore what’s going on inside.

Selfies!  We do that every day.  But we take selfies to document moments in our life that we want to share with others.  See here!  I’m doing this amazing thing with these amazing people and if I don’t take this photo I’m afraid I’ll forget it or I’m afraid people will forget me.  Self portraits are different from selfies in that they are photos that tell a story.  The subject may be your face, but it can just as easily be another body part (like the photo I included in yesterday’s post on grounding) or an object that represents something about you.  It may include or reveal something whose significance you don’t even recognize until after the photo is taken.

A friend recently shared with me an exercise in a class that she’s taking.  In this exercise she was required to find and study a childhood photo.  It was an exercise in becoming re-acquainted with her younger self.  Even if she didn’t know or couldn’t remember the story, a hint of it could be found in the emotion behind her eyes, the stance of her body, the other people or objects in the picture.  The photo is a story of herself.

I find this idea intriguing.  What if I could learn how to take a photo that without any words, told a story about what I was grateful for that day.  Not just the object — like a butterfly — but a feeling of what it is about the butterfly that makes me grateful.  I’m not sure I can do that, but I’m willing to go down this rabbit hole for awhile just to see if it’s possible.  And in the meantime I get to learn about a few fun photo apps.

Today is day one and the theme is reveal and conceal.