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Brrr!!! It has gotten COLD in Idaho this week! We did get a little bit of snow, for which I’m very grateful, but I don’t think I was quite mentally prepared for it to be this cold yet! But winter seems to be settling in, so I guess I’ll gear up and get ready for the long haul!
It has been so rewarding to share posts from my co-workers throughout the year. Each has had a different perspective that has really helped me appreciate and be grateful for different things in my own life. But I do have to say that I’ve really been looking forward to a guest blog post from our contributor today, hoping he might share some of his photography with you! His photos are AMAZING! And we all got lucky, since that’s what he chose to write about.
Let me introduce, Mike Dixon, one of our production team members. His words pretty much speak for themselves. He writes:
Ten or eleven years ago, I picked up photography again in earnest. It has become my passion, my hobby and, to some extent, my profession. It has completely changed the way I see the world around me. It has made me very much aware of what is right with the world. For this, I am thankful.
Human nature and our fast-paced lives have trained us to be very focused and we have become people that live our lives getting from point ‘A’ to point ‘B’ to point ‘C’. We have trained our brain to take snapshots of our surroundings and file them away. We pull up these snapshots as we go through the day and see only what is needed or what is expected to complete the trip or task at hand.
We throw out or ignore 95 percent of what is going on around us, and we miss so much. What we do see is the stuff we need to survive or to complete a task, and in a lot of cases these things tend to hang out on the negative and stressful side of life. Hence, our lives become negative and stressful.
In my photography, especially my nature photography, I have learned to slow down and reboot those amazing and powerful peripheral senses we all have. I have learned to take the ‘not so direct’ routes and explore those places and ideas that are always there but often ignored.
I have learned to enjoy the process of getting to know a place or a person. I ask questions and yes, rocks and trees are very good conversationalists. I have found that the best pictures are seldom where I expected them to be, and that they are almost always behind me or off to the side.
I read a study some smart people did a few years back. I am not real sure how they are aware of what a cougar or a horse sees or how they think, but it makes sense. In short, they say that a cougar is very focused and has a ‘predator’ way of looking at the world. This allows it to lock in and focus on its prey so it can more successfully bring home dinner.
A horse, on the other hand, has a very broad sense of its entire surroundings. They have the ability to take in their world and let it fade to the background, always aware. A predator focuses on one noise… one point. A horse focuses on the ‘silence’ and looks and listens for things that break that silence. This skill helps them to not become someone’s lunch. Pretty cool concept in my opinion.
We, as smart and powerful humans, have the ability to function both ways, but today’s society has trained us to spend most of our time in predator mode. I have learned to live more of my life as a horse, and as long as you can avoid the cougars, it’s a much prettier world when viewed through the eyes of a horse.
You should try it. It takes a while. Most of us have to completely rewire our brains.
I guess, in short, I am grateful for photography and the way it has taught me to see my world. I am grateful for the beautiful and varied people, places and things that surround me. I am grateful for what is behind me and to my side. I am grateful for ‘what is right with the world.’
Thank you so much, Mike, for both your beautiful photography and also your words of wisdom. I really enjoy your ‘fresh look’ at the world, and resolve to try to slow down a little in my own life and see what’s around me in a more positive light.
And for those of you who would like to see some more of Mike’s work, click here to visit his new Facebook page. You won’t be disappointed!
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