Not always a photo but always a picture

I didn't take any photos the past week.  I think this is the longest stretch I've gone in two years. I wonder about the reasons -- my camera needs some serious cleaning, I've been busy with the changing routines of the fall season, and I'm still working on edits from summer photos so know that anything I take today won't get looked at for awhile. 

When I woke up this morning, I spent almost half an hour looking out of my favorite window. It's a small,  4 X 4 foot square window high under the roof line that frames branches of a maple tree. All year long that view changes,  but is always beautiful. A year and a half ago I woke up on an April morning to find my budding branches covered in snow. Fortunately, that day I had my camera next to me and didn't have to get out of bed to get this one:



Today, I noticed the first red/orange of the fall change. In my mind, I took a picture of those branches, tilting my head slightly so that the largest branch was placed more on the diagonal. When I finally had the colors, lines and light arranged the way I wanted, I was happy and ready to get on with my day. 

I've done this my entire life -- framed little scenes ... compositions... in ways that feel good, that make me happy. The experience of moving my head or body to make what I see feel better is like breathing. Sometimes I do a version of this while I'm driving with the lines on the road. I've scared myself on a couple of occassions when I realized getting the picture right had taken precedence over my attention to driving and I had to shake myself out it. I no longer let myself go quite so deep while driving. 

It was quite enlightening  and amazing to discover recently that not everyone does this constantlly. It's difficult for me  to grasp this isn't a universal human trait since it's such a deeply ingrained, unconscious act for me to find the pictures and patterns in everything. I wonder what things other people do unconscously that might be completely foreign to me...

So even though I haven't taken any photos this week, I've still made pictures. I always will.