I was born this wild creative being … all of life was a work of art from as early as I remember. Then there was this magical moment when my father bought me my first little camera …

That was a game changer … I had begun the adventure of seeing out of the lens of a camera. I was in love. I started thinking and viewing life from that new made up lens view. It didn’t matter if I had a camera in my hands or not … I pretended I was looking through my lens. I’d close one eye and “see” things like I was looking at them through my camera lens.

Years later, working on my BFA in photography and film making, I met a new challenge … there was so much to learn that I hadn’t taught myself yet … to “see” through my made up lens in black and white and to see lighting differently and to see the balance in any particular view, etc. I even practiced painting and drawing looking at my canvas and my paper through that made up lens. Each day I practiced deeply to see newly.

At one point in time I had worked so much on changing the way that I “saw” things that I even began to dream in black and white with particular lighting effects. I was so proud of myself … I had actually altered my view of the world on multiple levels. I then trained myself to be able to switch the color on and off and change the lighting in my mind, etc. … to be able to choose what I wanted to see through my made up lens anytime I wanted to.

One BIG thing I learned along the way is that there is no “truth” to what I “see” … my view all depends on my lens of the moment – camera or no camera.

We live our lives through a lens … each of us have our own particular lens and even multiple lenses that we use for different situations and people and particularly for ourselves. The dilemma is when we begin to believe that our view, through any of our lenses, is the truth. We forget it is just a lens and that we are not fixed and the world around us is not fixed. We can flip our view of anything … anytime. We get to say how we view everything including ourselves.

How do you want to be? How do you want your life to be?

Is it like that?

If not then it might be time to simply try on a NEW lens!