“Photography: Finding the Spirit”
Even in a stone there is a movement within, which when we look at it from outside we are not aware of. It seems the embodiment of stillness. —Rabindranath Tagore
Life Energy Photograph by John Diamond, M.D.
I believe that everything has a Spirit. Trees, of course, and water. Also rocks, musical instruments, cameras—definitely. I meditate on them, to feel the Spirit as I do with people. And at times I come close to holism: it’s not that everything, every person, has a spirit—but that each is in its own way a particular manifestation of the Great Spirit. I most often feel this when photographing. Through the lens I see God. Every subject a Burning Bush.
So photography is always making the materialized spirit as obvious as possible. We look at a sunset and the spirit is obvious to us. If we look at someone’s shoe, it seems so much harder to find. But is still there. It is just as obvious, if you know how to really Look. And if you find it in this shoe, in this bit of carpet, in this little crack in the pavement, then you can see it everywhere. And that is the point—to be able to see it everywhere! That is the supreme gift of photography: allowing us to See the Spirit in everything.
Life Energy Photograph by John Diamond, M.D.
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Extract from the book
Beyond the Obvious: Photography for Healing
