Guillermo del Toro’s brilliant film, “The Shape of Water” (which to me is a love story), has me seeing the beauty of monsters everywhere I look. This way of seeing really began with my fascination with wabi sabi. Some time ago, I shared this quote.
Wabi Sabi is a way of seeing the world that is at the heart of Japanese culture.
It finds beauty and harmony in what is simple,
imperfect, natural, modest, and mysterious.
– Mark Reibstein, Wabi Sabi
And this quote,
Wabi-sabi suggests that beauty is a dynamic event that occurs between you and something else. Beauty can spontaneously occur at any moment given the
proper circumstances, context, or point of view. Beauty is thus an altered state of consciousness, an extraordinary moment of poetry and grace.
– Leonard Koren, Wabi-Sabi: For Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers
To repeat the last sentence, “Beauty is thus an altered state of consciousness, an extraordinary moment of poetry and grace.” This perfectly defines my entire photographic journey. In constantly seeking “moments of poetry and grace,” I enter an “altered state of consciousness” when I am photographing.
