Miksang means ‘Good Eye’ in Tibetan.
I had no idea that Miksang Photography was a “thing” at all. Then someone on a FB page that I had posted an image on commented that it had a ‘Miksang quality”. Intrigued, I explored further. I immediately connected with this photographic philosophy. As a Buddhist meditator for many years, I attempt to live as much in this very moment as possible, and see things as they really are.
Miksang photography encourages exactly the same thing. From https://www.miksang.com/miksang/ comes the following helpful description:
“If we can place our mind’s attention, our awareness, in our sense of sight, we will see vivid, mind stopping perceptions fully and completely, without distraction. And when that happens, we can connect with what we see deeply and intimately.
This requires stillness of mind, patience, and the desire to really see what is there, so that we can understand how to express what we are seeing with our camera simply and precisely.
This requires stillness of mind, patience, and the desire to really see what is there, so that we can understand how to express what we are seeing with our camera simply and precisely.
Miksang is photography in which we use the camera to express our visual perceptions exactly as we experience them. Because we know how to prepare ourselves to receive perceptions when we see them, and we know how to understand exactly what we have seen, we then know exactly how to express what we have seen with our camera. The resulting image is an exact expression of our eye, mind, and heart as it connects with the perception.”
I have realised lately that I need to slow the whole image taking process down. I tend to be intuitively led, which is no bad thing, particularly when doing street photography. However, taking time to think about what exactly I am seeing that is attracting my interest, and capturing that clearly and simply requires more thought than my usual “shoot and hope” technique.
I have been going through my photographs to pick one that I think meets the Miksang philosophy. Here is one I took earlier this month in Sidney BC Canada:
As soon as I saw the red umbrella I noticed the shapes of the buildings against the backdrop of the sky.
I hope to delve deeper into this school of photography, and will writer further on contemplative photography generally in future blog posts. Just need to get some more of the technical aspects of this wonderful craft under my belt first!
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