Beauty Abounds -- Huntsville, Alabama Photographer

Last week on Pinterest I saw a meme which quoted Yann Arthus-Bertrand  as saying, "The earth is art;  the photographer is only a witness."  This statement resonates so completely with me because it's fairly exact in the way I view the world and how I move around in it -- indeed, I've found the very simple act of picking up my camera has forced me to see things even more clearly than I ever did before:  the beauty in a drop of water, steam rising from the dew-soaked earth, catch lights in the eyes of a child, dust motes in sunlight -- and all of it is art, moments that evoke a sense of awe, moments that bring me to my figurative knees.  

I've described it, this magical thing that happens the moment I have camera in hand, as a forced slowing down.  Weather I move around in my own home or step into the out-of-doors, with a client or alone in the woods, we -- my camera and I -- see the entire world all at once, yet through a singular, hyper-focused pin-point of concentrated light.  I see details I never noticed before, details I want the whole world to see because they're heart-stopping in their simplicity, in their raw beauty.

As Dorthea Lange said, "the camera is an instrument that teaches people to see without a camera."  (I saw that on Pinterest too.)