INTRODUCTION from DEEP FOCUS

 

This book is about how a small device for capturing images can transform your life. A camera can change your blood chemistry, alter your brain wave speed, boost your immune system, regulate your breathing and hack into the matrix of your mind faster than taking the ‘Red’ pill. It can show you things on earth you have never seen before. It can change how you live. It can make you mindful of relationships you never thought existed. It can make you fearless and compassionate.

 

But it’s not about the camera. 

 

It is about you. It is about becoming more consciously aware of your true self, and at the same time fully awakening one the deepest of human creative urges … to make images.

 

In the history of human kind there have been certain technological advancements that have jump started revolutions, in agriculture, literacy, printing, mechanisation, medicine, transport, electronics, information and computing. In the long time line of innovation the convergence of a camera and a phone was not just a smart idea it was a smart evolutionary step for us to take. Why? because at the very heart of what makes us human is the desire to see images, to make images and to share images. 

 

The fact that ancient petroglyphs and symbols etched on hidden rock faces, and deep in caves thousands of years ago still stimulate our imagination is testament to the deep connection with the image as art, as a silent visual language, and as a means of bridging the gap of time between humans on earth. A camera like a phone is a discreet connection device. Photographs communicate. It is said a picture tells a thousand words, but a camera does more in that it can reconnect you with you. Not by taking the ubiquitous selfie but by awakening a deep connection to your inner self.

There are approximately 300 million photos uploaded to Facebook everyday, there are 40 million photos uploaded on Instagram every day. The internet archives probably trillions of images all created by humans wishing to record something of their world to share with somebody else. Why do we do this? What are the physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and evolutionary benefits in the practice of making an image, and specifically making an image with a smart phone or digital camera? How can the act of image making with a camera help us to access a state of consciousness that not only allows us to make better images but to be more conscious mindful human beings?

 

The why we make pictures has a lot to do with the primacy of visual information over any other sense modality. 2/3 of the brain is devoted to vision related processing, this isn't surprising as a picture of something provides an instant form of communication. Photography captures an instant representation of reality, and throughout its brief technological evolution (since it superseded painting as a primary visual source of information) it has proven to be a very powerful medium. 

 

But I see the practice of photography has another profound value, for our psychological, emotional & spiritual wellbeing. In the same way that the ancient Zen arts of Japan (calligraphy, tea ceremony, archery) were practiced to achieve a momentary Satori - a heightened awareness of Self. Photography has the same potential to shift you to higher dimension of awareness. 

It has to do with a creative state of mind that merges activity with awareness in a unique way which is called the Flow state. Flow states are be generated in photography when you practice mindfulness with a camera. Mindfulness amplifies your attention, by being less mentally distracted you can access better focus in the outside world to capture  images, but with mindfulness you also focus deeper inside yourself. This access to inner capture is Deep Focus.

 

In the state of Deep Focus the subject of photography is you and not the thing you are recording. In Deep Focus you begin to see  the image you have made in your camera is as much a record of you, of your state of mind, of your awareness, as it is about the thing you have photographed.

 

I believe that a camera is a creative tool for changing consciousness, but we tend to focus on the things  photographed, or the camera itself, and not on the subtle psychological changes that are happening to us at the decisive moment of capture. 

 

Photography can be as complicated as your technical knowledge of your camera, and most DSLR cameras these days are extremely complex, just read the manual. In its simplest form photography requires that you point and shoot. But in the act of pointing and shooting there is a liberating opportunity for your mind. The German traveller philosopher Eugen Herrigel wrote in ‘Zen and the Art of Archery’ that when you experience the arrow releasing you, from the bow, it is then that the practice of Kyūdō (Japanese Zen Archery) has liberated you from your mind. The connection is interesting, for we speak of shooting an arrow and shooting a photograph. A great shot applies to both.

 

In our contemporary world, technology has given us a wonderful connection to information, and yet we find that we are often overwhelmed by the disruption and distraction of a 24/7 information tsunami. Our attention is not deficit, it is just limited, and the more we superficially connect with each other, the more we become disconnected from ourselves. We suffer as a society because of this, caught up in an endless craving for true and meaningful connection in technology, and yet never being fully present to the decisive precious moment with anything, If we are not connected to ourselves we cannot connect to each other.

 

The camera technology in a smart phone device I believe is the perfect tool to disconnect to reconnect. To disconnect you from an endless stream of mindless distraction and to reconnect you with your fully present inner self. In this respect a camera is a time machine for it returns your mind to the here and now from anxious thoughts lost in the future and the past. Photography is an immediate event, it is about capturing a decisive present moment in space and in time. The very act of shooting a picture gives you an opportunity to be fully present with the world and to liberate yourself from a state of distraction. When you are distracted you are not focussed, and like looking at a blurry unfocussed photograph, you don’t see what is really there. 

Once you begin to deepen your experience of Deep Focus, you will see that better images will emerge from your digital device. Images that in their own personal way express you.

 

 

A camera can change your life.

But it’s not about the camera. 

 

Martin Wetherill 

Rome MMXIV