Live To Dream: Let Your Mind Wander and Discover Wonder
Mind wandering explored in this luminous portrait of a young man daydreaming.
Notions like mind wander and to live so as to dream are beautiful concepts that were, very much, in my mind during a portrait photography workshop I conducted in Eltham on the outskirts of Melbourne, Australia.
Letting your mind wander has many advantages such as boosting creativity and the flow of ideas, and promoting problem solving through innovative, out of the box solutions. By letting your mind wander your mood will improve, promoting positivity and reducing stress and anxiety.
Daydreaming is how I let my own mind wander. And my favorite time to daydream is when I’m walking which, inevitably, leads to creative endeavors like photography.
To convey the notion of daydreaming in the above photo I asked the subject to lie down, flat on the ground.
Doing so allowed me to point my camera downwards, from a birds eye viewpoint, isolating the subject from the background and drawing attention to his face.
By asking him to look up and beyond the camera, I was able to suggest that his thoughts were unconstrained by the boundaries of the frame and, by implication, by the world around him.
My favorite photos of Albert Einstein do just that.
I particularly love the luminous quality of the light, seemingly radiating outwards from the subject’s face.
That luminosity has been beautifully emphasized by rendering the original image into black and white.
The photo was made with a Canon 5D mark II camera and Canon 24-105 mm f/4 L series USM lens at a focal length of 75 mm.
The exposure details were as follows:
1/320 second shutter speed
f/4 aperture
ISO 400
Let Your Mind Wander and Daydream
The photos in this post were created on a late autumn day. The overcast weather conditions gifted workshop participants with soft, flattering light that was ideal for making beautiful portrait photos.
I wanted this particular image to explore the notion of daydreaming, an important process for the creative mind and part of the healing process we seem to discard as we get older.
The benefits, to mind and body, of simply blocking out noise and distraction and allowing your mind to aimlessly wander can’t be overstated.
The process must be akin to what happens when we dream, when our subconscious reveals what it deems we need to deal with. from that other reality we call life.
Perhaps your own daydreams take you back to familiar haunts or, alternatively, propel your mind onwards to explore new experiences and new possibilities.
I particularly enjoy these forward looking daydreams.
They take my mind off the stresses of the present, and the sorrows of the past, and sow the seeds for future travel photography adventures.
At the very least, daydreaming allows us all to take a break from the stresses and strains of the world in which we live.
It works for adolescents, and it can work for you too.
Finding time for oneself, particularly when it involves creative expression, is an important part of the healing process.
To that end, I think it’s wise to set aside time to daydream, ideally outside in the natural world.
The honor and intensity of Strider from Tolkien’s LOTR, in Eltham, Australia.
Passing Through Darkness by Dreaming Of Strider
I’m a huge fan of the Lord Of The Rings, both the books by J.R.R. Tolkien and the motion picture adaption by Sir Peter Jackson.
The statue in the above photo reminds me of some of the, albeit larger, statues in those monumental and ground breaking films.
While I believe that Samwise Gamgee was the ultimate hero in the Lord Of The Rings, the character of Aragorn was certainly a favorite.
So, while I had a fantastic sculpture to deal with, what I needed was Aragorn, whom I always preferred in his Strider guise, to bring the composition together.
My subject, another one of the folks participating in the portrait photography workshop, played the part of Strider most admirably.
I was particularly happy with his intense gaze, which I feel imbues the image with extra drama and allowed me to explore the honor and intensity of the character, Strider, prior to him realizing his fate as the King of Gondor.
Find Refuge by Letting Your Mind Wander
I love to take a walk, around the end of the day, and I often find myself nearing home in the gloom.
I imagine myself, as Strider, patrolling the wild beyond the last homely house known, in the common tongue, as Rivendell.
I can tell you that, imagining myself as Strider, has helped me better navigate all manner of difficult situations, both at home and when traveling abroad.
And if that requires me to pick off a few orcs along the way, so be it.
Your imagination is a powerful thing. You can give into darkness and live your life in fear, or tap into your own creativity and dream your way towards a better and safer reality.
It’s good to daydream. Is it not?
But what about Strider, slayer of orcs?
Well, if you’re going to aim, you might as well aim high.
