Lately I’ve been intentionally slowing down the pace in which I engage life. Though I’ve never been good at being still or meditating, I have found lately that stillness is what I’ve been craving the most. My favorite pastime these days is to sit in what others might call silence and listen to the sounds of the world around me. Crickets chirping; the wind moving through the trees; jets passing overhead; neighbors listening to a ball game on their porch radio. If I can manage to stop thinking about each individual sound, I can start to hear them all as one, and accept my place within it. 

In the act of slowing, thoughts and ideas rise to the surface. Sometimes they take the form of a concept for a photo shoot. When this happens and I decide to pick up my camera, I give myself permission to go off-trail and go at a slower, more intentional pace. I may shoot for a fraction of the time I would have historically shot, but I walk away with richer, more exciting images. 

This shoot with Sondos is case in point. I made myself slow down and explore only one idea. I worked it a few different ways and then called it a wrap, less than an hour after call time. I even made myself dial back my editing process, giving the images little more than a punchier color grade (as opposed to my old method of editing each file 10 different ways and obsessing over which was the “right” way). The older I get the more truth I find in the expression “less is more.”