Cynthia E. Wood
Therapy
© Cynthia E. Wood
Instagram @cynthiaewood
www.cynthiawoodphoto.com | facebook | Blurb
[May 2008] Taking pictures, like singing and music, has become something therapeutic for me. Whenever I'm feeling sad or lonely or unproductive or uninspired...like I'm just spinning my wheels or turning in circles and getting nowhere...I can grab my camera and go out into the world and it always, always makes me feel better.
Not only does taking pictures thrust me out into the world even when I feel like withdrawing from it, but it makes me see the world again, or anew, and I inevitably end up interacting with it in a way I might not have before. And I see things I might not have seen --not really-- before. There are a lot of people who assert that putting a camera between yourself and the world creates some kind of 'barrier,' or that it disengages you from the 'here and now' because your experience is being mediated by a camera... But I tend to disagree. Rather strongly, in fact.
Take this photo for instance. I drove by an old barracks building out in the Marin Headlands yesterday afternoon, because I didn't know what else to do with myself, so I drove out to the Marin Headlands. Yeah, sure, there were a million things I could have and should have been doing with my precious weekend time, but I didn't want --or couldn't bring myself-- to do any of them. So instead of just turning circles in my apartment, I packed up my camera and got in my car and drove out to a place I hadn't visited in a number of years. As I was driving by this old barracks building, I (barely) noticed a lamp in a window, and the late afternoon light was hitting it in a certain way. I made a mental note of it and kept driving, but then I thought to myself, "No. You should stop. You should stop and get out of the car and try to photograph that lamp and that light -- because it caught your eye."
So I parked the car and walked back down the road and stood on the ground looking up at the window. I took a shot of the lamp --a simple clamp lamp-- but it didn't really come out. I could tell, though, from the way the light was hitting that lamp, that there must have been some wonderful late afternoon light pouring into the space... So I climbed up on the splintery old wooden platform [what are those things called? those old wooden platforms, like sidewalks, that you see in frontier towns and western movies?] to get a better glimpse.
And this is what I saw...this is what I found.
Now if I weren't a photographer, and if I didn't have a camera with me, I never would have seen this incredible little scene, this living still life. Because while the room was completely still and empty, it also felt like it was full of a presence -- either a memory of, or an anticipation of presence...
It's like therapy, for me, these moments...these little discoveries.
Which, I guess, makes this the therapist's chair.
Therapy
© Cynthia E. Wood
Instagram @cynthiaewood
www.cynthiawoodphoto.com | facebook | Blurb
[May 2008] Taking pictures, like singing and music, has become something therapeutic for me. Whenever I'm feeling sad or lonely or unproductive or uninspired...like I'm just spinning my wheels or turning in circles and getting nowhere...I can grab my camera and go out into the world and it always, always makes me feel better.
Not only does taking pictures thrust me out into the world even when I feel like withdrawing from it, but it makes me see the world again, or anew, and I inevitably end up interacting with it in a way I might not have before. And I see things I might not have seen --not really-- before. There are a lot of people who assert that putting a camera between yourself and the world creates some kind of 'barrier,' or that it disengages you from the 'here and now' because your experience is being mediated by a camera... But I tend to disagree. Rather strongly, in fact.
Take this photo for instance. I drove by an old barracks building out in the Marin Headlands yesterday afternoon, because I didn't know what else to do with myself, so I drove out to the Marin Headlands. Yeah, sure, there were a million things I could have and should have been doing with my precious weekend time, but I didn't want --or couldn't bring myself-- to do any of them. So instead of just turning circles in my apartment, I packed up my camera and got in my car and drove out to a place I hadn't visited in a number of years. As I was driving by this old barracks building, I (barely) noticed a lamp in a window, and the late afternoon light was hitting it in a certain way. I made a mental note of it and kept driving, but then I thought to myself, "No. You should stop. You should stop and get out of the car and try to photograph that lamp and that light -- because it caught your eye."
So I parked the car and walked back down the road and stood on the ground looking up at the window. I took a shot of the lamp --a simple clamp lamp-- but it didn't really come out. I could tell, though, from the way the light was hitting that lamp, that there must have been some wonderful late afternoon light pouring into the space... So I climbed up on the splintery old wooden platform [what are those things called? those old wooden platforms, like sidewalks, that you see in frontier towns and western movies?] to get a better glimpse.
And this is what I saw...this is what I found.
Now if I weren't a photographer, and if I didn't have a camera with me, I never would have seen this incredible little scene, this living still life. Because while the room was completely still and empty, it also felt like it was full of a presence -- either a memory of, or an anticipation of presence...
It's like therapy, for me, these moments...these little discoveries.
Which, I guess, makes this the therapist's chair.