This past weekend I drove out to the desert to do a few things one of them was simple.

Decompress.

Its a funny thing when you set your mind to decompressing, you almost have to work at it. Given any down time I have this primordial urge is to grab a pen and form lists.

I will scribble on just about anything that can stand up to the furor of my sharpie. The proverbial cocktail napkin,  receipt or business card work well.

This weekend was not about lists it was about about new connections and friends, the kind of friends you can tuck away in your back pocket, because the just “get” you.  It was about being in the company of young and uber talented photographers like Ryan Heffernan at the PDN’s 30 during the Palm Springs Photo Festival and marveling at what it must be like to be so talented and have that direction so early in life (sigh). It was about keeping my mind open to new forms of inspiration and listening for the subtle clues like messages that seemed to be delivered just for me. It was about starting new projects and leaving old ones behind.

Making myself stop and look around is hard but as someone said to me early this year “Life is short but it is also very wide” when I think about that I literally want to take a step back and trade my macro lens for a wide angle and take a GOOD LONG look around me.  I have a feeling that what we are all searching for is all around us.

I’m curious how do you look at life? Through the scrutiny of a magnifier or a wide angle lens?