Slow Photography

Eagle Owl, captive,Miami Zoo. Text and Photographs Copyright 2017 Jim Austin Jimages, all rights reserved. Great blue herons on the beach, Florida USA. Atlantic gulls, offshore, squabbling over a fish. Find. Focus. Frame. These three steps are " The Dance" bef ore we fire the shutter. Clicking the shu tter is the easy part.  The Dance is our practice, our moves , an most importantly, our attention . The secret to adroit dancing is that we are completely involved. While the steps begin in our mind and b rain, we perceive that our body leads the way. Just like skilled dancers, good photographers g et ready, do a series of steps , and then let go. Da ncers and photographers use Ready, Set, Go!  This skill sequence allows u s to quickly shift our attention. I f we c ompare our attention to a chimpanzee, we humans are much more flexible in our attention. Gaurav Patel believes we humans may have traded "speed for some kind of cognitive flexi

The spider is a timeless symbol of patience and persistence.  I watched a spider at work.  It did not complain when wind, rain and time undid its creations; its effort to repair a beautiful, practical web design was deliberate and skillful. When it's web was damaged, it patiently rebuilt, and waited for the flies. Its actions were powerful. As photographers, we might take a strand from the spider's web. Why? Because patience is not only powerful, but a lifelong spiritual reward and a path to find emotional freedom.  "Patience doesn’t mean passivity or resignation, but power. It’s an emotionally freeing practice of waiting, watching, and knowing when to act. " ~Judith Orloff  Slow photography is patient. It means waiting, watching and knowing when to act. It spreads where ever there are photographers who challenge the mindless. Slow photographers discover the power of patience because they care about their craft. The inherent pleasure of deliber

"Iguana, Bahama, come on pretty mama..." When I found my stolen picture on a news website, Beach Boy song lyrics ran though my mind, and somehow morphed to include iguana instead of Bermuda. What follows is a true story, hot enough to warm even a cold-blooded lizard.     The Bahamas Press stole a photograph of rock iguanas that I made in 2005. They posted it above a website article on recovery of stolen Bahamas iguanas.      In the Bahamas, we'd sailed to Allen's Cay in the Exuma island group in Feb 2005. There, we spent two hours making high resolution images of the marine iguanas. I shot low, to include the anchored sailboats in the background and show that this location is a cruising spot.   A  large, head-bobbing iguana came close. When you're approached by a 4-foot long red-faced lizard, who seems hungry, the camera starts to shake a bit. Here is the photo I made, and tagged "Iguana-Allens Cay-Exuma-Jim Austin Jimages" when I published it