During my pursuit of photography and writing, I’ve come face to face with how superficial my life — and dare I say modern life in general — can be. In short, I’ve relearned what I used to know intuitively as a child: that I live in a wonderful world full of beauty I can only appreciate if I have a heart that is ready and sensitive enough to apprehend what is all around me.

Before you click away thinking what comes next amounts to little more than a rehash of “stop and smell the roses,” know that I’m talking about more, much more than that. I refer to a deeper understanding and a more comprehensive insight to go beyond the simple admiration and enjoyment of beauty. I am speaking about not only the scent, but the realization of what that scent means and where it comes from. It is about being on the lookout, actively and purposefully, for the gifts that our world offers, moment after relentless moment.

I was reminded of this on my walk to Starbucks this morning. I had to stop, not so much to smell as to capture spring flowers in bloom under the warmth of cloud-diffused morning light. I had to preserve them in that unique, never to return moment, to reflect thereafter on that moment’s creator and the beauty His art relentless projects into my life.

Recently, I’ve explored this concept in writing Pink Ballerina and Decisive Moment, each a novel depicting a different photographer protagonist (they become friends in Decisive Moment) who struggle to flee their previous lives or deal with their tangled present by not so much by escaping their circumstances, but rather by confronting life’s challenges with a more incisive perspective analogous to that required to plumb the depths of a scene or subject in the making of a photograph. Along the way, in meeting and getting to know these characters, I’ve faced questions about my own life. Am I bouncing from moment to moment in the absence of all introspection? Am I missing, or worse, in the midst of dark times dismissing the beauty I can find all around me if only I open the eyes of my soul?

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