Dewitt Jones
Dewitt Jones is a world class photographer who spent much of his life working for National Geographic. His articles in Outdoor Photographer and his movies and videos have been a source of inspiration for me for a long time. If we have a rainy night at one of my photography workshops (it is hard to photograph stars in the rain) I show his movie Celebrate What’s Right with the World.
I am on Dewitt’s “Celebrate” mailing list and his most recent email really caught my eye. The first thing I noticed is the similarity between Dewitt’s image in the email and my current blog header photo of sunflowers. But it is the message of his email that really got me. It is so good I did a screen capture of his email and I am sharing it here. I will also cut and paste the text of the email. To get on Dewitt’s weekly mailing list, go to the links section below.
******
Stay, This Moment!
We live in a society that seems increasingly centered around fear and scarcity and blame. All forces that close us down, that numb our hearts, that blind our eyes. All forces that would make us believe that the world is a terrifying place full of ugliness and cynicism. Stay indoors! Close the windows! Don’t trust anyone!
There’s a line from Virginia Woolf’s diary that haunts me:
If one does not lie back and sum up and say to the moment,
this very moment,
stay you are so fair,
what is to be one’s gain, dying?
No: stay, this moment!
No one ever says that enough.
Stay, this moment! That is the whole reason I’m a photographer — to hold tight those moments I see through my lens that are extraordinary. Those moments when the confluence of light and line, context and content make me say, “Wow!†and “YES!†at the same time.
She’s right though, no one ever does it enough, or says it enough. Even as a photographer, though I deeply know the joy of it, I still don’t open the shutter of my eyes, of my heart, as often as I could. And I need to. We all do.
I just can’t allow myself to be drawn into that giant “NO!â€. Not when I spend so much of my time with my camera saying “YES!†to nature, saying “YES!†to beauty, saying “YES!†to… life. I say “YES!†every time I press the shutter and stay those magical moments so that they might give others the strength to say “YES!†too.
So today I take a vow. I’m not going to “NO!†myself, I’m going to “YES!†myself. I’m going to say “YES!â€, and keep saying “YES!â€, as long as I have eyes to see and strength in my index finger.
Are my images nothing more than random acts of senseless beauty? No, not random. I know very well what I am doing. And no, not senseless – sensible. A much-needed reminder to an increasingly unconscious world of the beauty that surrounds us all.
When we allow ourselves to truly see the beauty of the world, and let that beauty fill us up, it will overflow and spill out into everything we do. In the ideals we hold, the passion and compassion we feel, the way we treat our families, the service we give to our communities…and in every other part of our lives.
We have a great opportunity – even responsibility – to stay this moment, and that moment, and every other moment worth saving and share them with the world in every way we can.
Join me, won’t you, in finding what’s right with our world and making celebration a habit.
Dewitt
******
Links
Join Dewitt’s Celebrate Mailing List. You will receive a weekly Celebrate image.
Dewitt’s Celebrate What’s Right web site.
Dewitt’s TEDx talk.
My article about Dewitt Jones with links to several of his talks.
Purchase Links
Dewitt Jones – Extraordinary Visions
Sunflowers near Keenesburg, Colorado (exit 39 on I-76). Canon 10D, 20mm lens. 1/125, f/16, ISO 100.