Yeah! Take more photos! Taking photos makes you more observant of your surroundings. Pausing and considering things around you gives you perspective. Often I can get too wrapped up inside my head about life and worrying. To get outside of my head, I’ll simply observe and be in the moment.
When I’m not observing and connecting to the spaces around me, I get stressed and worry about things. I’ll get frustrated about work, or that certain things I do in life aren’t working as well as I thought. But those are all things inside my head.
To get outside of my head, it’s literally getting outside. my. head. By looking outside myself. Looking at the spaces around me. And not just looking, but connecting. One way of connecting is through photographing the space from many different angles.
This bricks photo is the result of 20 different photos. About half way through shooting these colorful bricks, I really wanted to shoot them in HDR, so the colors can REALLY pop. But that requires my camera to be steady, because it shoots a couple exposures. If I shake my camera, the exposures won’t be aligned.
So being observant, a metal chair was sitting nearby in the plaza. I dragged the chair over for an impromptu tripod to steady my camera. So now, I was able to connect with the space but not just photographing it, but by interacting with the objects in the area.
All this is to get outside my head, and connecting with the space. This connections brings calm to my life.
That interaction gets carried even further when I share the photos online, and when people share appreciation for the photos.
When you engage with your surroundings, you simply worry less. It all starts with observing, and then taking an action in the space. In some cases the action is photographing. Sometimes the action is moving a chair. Sometimes the action might be simply hop-scotching along the bricks. But there is always an action that gets followed up by the observation.
In general, slowing down and enjoying life is a good thing. 🙂