It often happens, especially when I’m doing street photography, that I shoot something that happens in the blink of an eye. Somebody does something. A fleeting movement. Or a brief interaction. If I don’t respond quickly, the moment will vanish. Later, when I’m processing the image, I have time to examine it and realize that while I was making the shot, there was a lot happening in the frame that I missed.
I’m walking along Queen Street West when I pass the window of Marvelous by Fred Pastries. A woman in white uniform and white mask is making a confection. Before she has a chance to notice me watching her, before she has a chance to ruin the moment by posing, I raise my camera and take a burst of images. I’m wholly fixed on the way she holds her knife poised above whatever it is she’s preparing.
Only later do I notice everything else in the frame. The reflection of the man passing behind me on the sidewalk. The customers in the background. The colleague talking to someone outside the frame. And the chandelier! Really, I think this photograph is all about the chandelier. In this context, its extravagance strikes me as absurd. Why had I not noticed it when I was framing the shot?
In this age of corporate mindfulness and new-age Buddha-speak, people make a lot of noise about the importance of being awake. The idea of being fully awake is lifted straight from Gautama, the Buddha, as reported by his contemporary followers. I review an image like this and say to myself: “If only I had been fully awake, I would have noticed the reflection, the customers, the colleague, the chandelier.” I scold myself for not being observant enough. After all, I’m the guy with the camera; I’m supposed to be observant.
But there is an upside to being unobservant. Especially in the city, there is a feeling that everything is coming at me all at once. The sights and sounds of the street, the roar of the traffic, the screams of the sirens, all of it ratcheted up another degree by the tiny metal computer in my pocket, with its social media feeds pushing the latest horrors from around the world. If I’m too awake, I risk feeling overwhelmed. It feels to me as if it might be a healthy defense against overwhelm to pass at least some of my time in a state of somnolence. This may be in line with another Buddhist practice: loving kindness. As an act of loving kindness to myself, I allow myself, at least from time to time, to be oblivious to what is going on around me.
