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Meditation Can Be / Doesn’t Have To Be A Religious Experience


Meditation isn’t a religious practice. The origin of some meditation practices cannot be traced to a religious practice. While many meditation practices do originate from religious traditions, they can be repurposed for secular life. You don’t need to have a religious practice to benefit from meditating. Regardless of whether you do or don’t incorporate a religious component into your meditations, you will experience physical, mental, and emotional benefits by meditating.

Meditation can enhance your religious practices. All religions practice some form(s) of meditation. Forms of meditation not included in your religious tradition can be used to enhance your experiences both in your daily life and within your religious – simply change the iconography before you practice the meditation. Whether you meditate to increase your compassion for others by visualizing Christ or Buddha or something non-denominational, compassionate action is the end result.

Meditating benefits everyone. Whether your meditation practice is or is not religious is up to you. It’s your practice.

Find more on Mindfulness here.

What Is Meditation ?

What Is Meditation ? Any activity that develops awareness is a form of meditation. Repeated practices of meditation help people gain more control of their awareness, including its duration, quantity, and quality. If you want to become more aware of more things, if you want to sustain that awareness longer, if you want to be able to influence the quality of your experiences and your responses to them – meditate.

Much more can be said about meditation (and I will say more later), but it’s important to make one’s understanding of meditation as simple (not simplistic) as possible. A simple perspective makes meditation more active, personal, and even creative, opening up many more possibilities.

Find more on Mindfulness here.

Help Portrait Needs Your Help


“After three years, 25,000 photographers, 56 countries, 700 events, and giving away nearly 170,000 portraits to those who are less fortunate, the amazing success of Help-Portrait has never been more evident than it is today.”
Now Help Portrait is ready to take it to the next level – but they need your help to do it.
Whether you give or participate or both, you can make a difference.
Find out more about help portrait and how you can help here.

Snapshots From Italy


Every year I travel with my son and wife to visit her family in Italy. In between moments at the beach, visits to family members houses, and long meals I steal a moment here and there to make photographs, sometimes lagging behind, sometimes rushing ahead, other times ducking around a corner. The environment is very different from the ones I work in professionally. I use this as an opportunity to explore other interests. I find periodically getting out of my comfort zone and exploring other subjects in other environments helps me be a more versatile artistically. The things I learn along the way can later be transposed to my professional work.
How does play inform your image-making?
Here’s a selection of recent images of Italian walls, doors, and windows.
(All of these images were taken and processed with an iPhone.)
 Learn more about iPhone photography in my column on the Huffington Post.
Learn more in my digital photography and digital printing workshops.
 









 

The History Of Photography – Beaumont Newhall


“The history of photography is Beaumont Newhall! Throughout most of the 20th century he has seen a central figure in the movement to have photography recognized as an art form. It might also be said that he created the “history of photography” as a distinct and respected field of study. As a founder and father of the history of photography, photographer, curator, art historian, writer, scholar, teacher and administrator it seems as if there has been more than one Beaumont Newhall. Beginning in 1938 at the Museum of Modern Art, he created the first retrospective exhibition of the 100-year-old art of photography. This documentary highlights some of Beaumont’s experiences of being a lifelong friend, mentor and confident of many photographers now in the annals of history.”
Beaumont Newhall’s The History of Photography: From 1839 to the Present is the first classic history of art photography.