Do you see it?

1
As a novice photographer joining blipfoto was one of the best things ever I could have done. It became a blessing in its most literal sense: an unmerited gift that changed my life from within.
 
2
After the first few days of photographing our dogs and sharing the pictures with the community, I soon realized it wouldn't be very satisfying to keep taking pictures of our pets at home (at the time, I considered taking my camera with me on our daily walks too dangerous, convinced that my brand new Nikon would attract unwanted attention from ill-intentioned people). The mere commitment to publishing a picture a day forced me to leave the house more often and to have the camera always with me in the car, just in case I saw something interesting I could share with a wider community.
 
3
At first I felt like I was constantly on a hunt, looking around impatiently and not quieting down until returning home with the trophy for that day. It was a good thing for a start, because it led me to see beyond the potholes right in front of me, to lift my eyes and see what was happening on the sidewalk, to observe the faces in the windows of the houses I drove by, and even to look up to the dueling kites in the sky.
 
4
Soon the initial fear of not finding game I could shoot down with my camera was replaced by the experience that I was surrounded - if not by beauty - by lots of interesting subjects. I just needed to have my camera with me and be awake: to be alert not only to the immediate danger that potholes represented to the integrity of my car, but to the fact that these potholes were only one element in a much larger picture.
 
5
When I think of my Dad in my childhood, I always see him with his Voigtländer dangling from his shoulder. Only now do I begin to understand how profoundly his camera affected his perception of the world he lived in. Only now do I begin to imagine why he photographed certain things the way he did - like a cow being freed from a mudhole during a drought, or a woman washing clothes in a river. The camera helped him see beyond the sheer necessity of the moment.
 
6

My camera (in combination with blipfoto) enabled me to see more by making me more aware. There is a kind of quiet cosmic humor in many little things, in many otherwise irrelevant scenes. When I detect it, I try to capture it with my camera. Releasing the shutter is like saying "Thank you".