The Mindful Photographer

Discover your voice, cultivate mindful awareness, and inspire creative growth with photography

In The Mindful Photographer, teacher, author, and photographer David Ulrich follows up on the success of his previous book, Zen Camera, by offering photographers, smartphone camera users, and other cultural creatives 55 short (1-5 pages) essays on topics related to photography, mindfulness, personal growth, creativity, and cultivating personal and social awareness. Whether you’re seeking to become a better photographer, find your voice, enhance your ability to “see” the world around you, realize your full potential, or refine your personal expression, The Mindful Photographer can help you. You will learn to:
• Awaken your creative spirit
• Find joy and fulfillment with a camera
• Improve your photography
• Express your deepest vision of the world
• Learn to be more present in the moment
• Deepen your capacity for observation
• Gain insight into your self and others
• Cultivate mindful seeing
• Use your camera as a tool for change
• Enhance your visual literacy
• And much more

You can read this beautiful, richly illustrated book in order, following its inherent structure, or you can dive into the book anywhere that appeals to you, following your own stream of interest. No matter how you read and work through the book—many of the essays contain exercises, working practices, and quotes from well-known photographers—you will learn to deepen your engagement with the world and discover a rich source of creativity within you through the act of taking pictures.


TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Seek Resonance

Camera Practice

Avoid the Merely Pictorial

Pictures are Not About Pictures

Visual Learning

First Sight; Beginner’s Eye

The Camera in Your Hand

Seeing from the Body

It’s All About Hormones

Attention and Distraction

Keep the French Fries

Becoming Good

Audience

Fitting into the Flow of Time

Catch the Wave, Not the Ripple

Of Time and Light

In Space

Finding Your Mojo

River of Consciousness

Why Selfies?

When to Put the Camera Down

Mindful Sight

Creative Time

Minding the Darkness

Potency of Metaphor

Mapping the Internal Terrain

What Helps?

Analyzing Your Images

Sift, Edit, and Refine

Sequencing

Experiment

Become the Camera

Music of the Spheres

InSeeing

Fifty/Fifty

Creative Mind and Not Knowing

Trust Your Process

Digital Life

Steal Like an Artist

Art is a Lie that Tells the Truth

Use Irony Sparingly

Embrace Paradox

When to be Tender, When to Snarl, When to Shout, and When to Whisper

Sharpness is a Bourgeois Concept

Learn to Love the Questions

The Wisdom of Chance

Awake in the World

The Cruel Radiance of What Is

Hope and Despair

Companions on the Way

Coherence and Presence

Wholeness and Order

Creative Intensity

Sea of Images

The Power of Art