What is Beauty?

I would like to take this opportunity to welcome our guest blogger, Kim Stevens from Picking Poppies. I "met" Kim wandering around this great big beautiful blog-world and fell in love with her images and her thoughtful writings. Then I really "met" Kim when I traveled to Galveston, TX to visit my brother and sister-in-law in April.  Kim and I scheduled a "meet-up" day and it was then that I truly got to know Kim and how lovely she is "in-person."  Our day was too short together but hopefully we will meet again (her family is from my area).  Be sure and visit Kim's blog and her flickr gallery...she does amazing things with macro photography.

What is beauty?

It's unique and it's all around us and not just in the viewing of it. It's in the moment and it's in our everyday, and it's not just in what we see, but in what it whispers to us if only we open ourselves up to it. It's the experience of all our senses that moves and inspires us and that touches us in the deepest part of our souls. And the wonderful thing about photography is that it allows us to share that found beauty with others.

My camera has enabled me to see the world around me in a unique way and not just through the lens but in such a way that I now see beauty where I may not have noticed it before. The world, and the people in it, the places and things are like a symphony and all I have to do is tune in to it.

But in order to do this I had to start making dates with myself and making the time for beauty. Because sometimes it happens by itself, but all too often it is easy to get caught up in the day to day schedules of life, the things that need to get done but can wait. There will always be a list of chores and errands to run but unless we take that time, it will go on without us.

The kind of beauty that we have to fit into our day or we would miss it entirely, like the rising of the sun . . .

. . . and  it's usually where we least expect it, like the wildflowers along side the road while at a standstill, stuck in traffic . . .

. . . or simply the way the light falls across something ordinary, transforming it into something extraordinary.

We all see beauty so differently and come to it with a different perspective and because of that we give each other a different point of view and new ways to approach life and all that surrounds us.  And for me more than anything, when I make a photograph I'm trying to capture my experience of being fully present in that moment. The photograph then becomes secondary to my experience. I have found that in my photographic journey beauty isn't just in the things we know but in the things we don't understand, the things waiting for us to simply discover them.

How do you fit beauty into your life? Are you taking the time to listen to what it whispers to your heart? Thank you to the Focusing on Life team for giving me the opportunity to share a little of me with you today!  Kim