by Edward Goode, Hive Facilitator
Photos from participants in Contemplative Photography: Poetic Inspiration
It is amazing what can happen as people explore and share through the lens of a camera.
For the last several years, I have been leading groups at The Hive focused (pun intended) on Contemplative Photography. The current session is using poetry as the basis for our themes and our contemplative practice and discussion. Our first poem was by Tracy K Smith entitled Song. The poem doesn’t necessarily speak of a literal musical song but instead reflects on memories of hands and what a person sees in the hands of another (or their own hands). At least, that was what emerged as our group talked through our experience of the poem and “hands” became what we were to capture through the lens.
What emerged from the group was truly sacred, holy, deeply emotional, and honest. I cannot go into the details of what was shared, but the group did give me permission to share the video and the photos. What I can share is that there was an amazing depth of story seen and shared in just the ways that we saw and experienced hands.
There were stories of past struggles and questions about current ones... stories of joys and hopes... intimate insights into peoples’ lives and hands seen in unique ways... a funny story of capturing a photo of a hand on a crosswalk light and stories of the responses of random strangers when one asked to take a photo of their hands. There were hands of the young, of the aged, of different races, and backgrounds... literal hands and figurative ones. And a series of photos that told a story that emerged over a long period of years.
In the conversation there were times of talking and sharing and moments of silence and stillness. There was emotion of loss and pain and laughter and joy. In short, in the fifty-nine hands in the photos was the fullness of life - birth to death and so much in between.
That is the power of what happens when we are looking, when we are seeking to see deeply.
Click here to view a slideshow of these photos along with a reading of Tracy K Smith’s poem, Song.