Viewfinder Quotes

“At the top, I put the camera's viewfinder to my eye and slowly turned, the way my grandmother had taught me. From every vantage point something remarkable filled the screen- clusters of wild red columbine, fallen boulders forming geometric designs against the wall, crusty green lichen gnawing on rocks, a Baltimore oriole popping from a thicket of brush, and, at my feet, a grasshopper clinging to a stem of purple aster. I could spend a day here and barely scratch the surface. The sun felt warm on my shoulders as I bent down to capture the blossoms of yellow star grass, the feathery purple petals of spotted knapweed, and the lacy wings of two yellow jackets as they alighted on tiny white blossoms of Labrador tea. By the time I finished taking photos of a monarch butterfly resting on milkweed, I realized an hour had passed.”

“At the top, I put the camera's viewfinder to my eye and slowly turned, the way my grandmother had taught me. From every vantage point something remarkable filled the screen- clusters of wild red columbine, fallen boulders forming geometric designs against the wall, crusty green lichen gnawing on rocks, a Baltimore oriole popping from a thicket of brush, and, at my feet, a grasshopper clinging to a stem of purple aster. I could spend a day here and barely scratch the surface. The sun felt warm on my shoulders as I bent down to capture the blossoms of yellow star grass, the feathery purple petals of spotted knapweed, and the lacy wings of two yellow jackets as they alighted on tiny white blossoms of Labrador tea. By the time I finished taking photos of a monarch butterfly resting on milkweed, I realized an hour had passed.”

“Later, Jenny would say she seldom knew what she would take a picture of when she picked up a camera, that she only knew once she peered through the viewfinder, as if the photograph had finally found her.”

“For me the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity, the master of the instant which, in visual terms, questions and decides simultaneously. In order to "give a meaning" to the world, one has to feel oneself involved in what one frames through the viewfinder. This attitude requires concentration, a discipline of the mind, sensitivity, and a sense of geometry.”

“She fell silent, remembering the jolt of envy and longing she’d felt when she’d framed the Browns in her viewfinder. Now, weeks and miles later, it was another jolt for Bryan to realize she hadn’t brushed off the peculiar feeling. She has managed to put it aside, somewhere to the back of her mind, but it popped out again now as she thought of the couple in the bleachers of a small-town park.Family, cohesion. Bonding. Did some people just keep promises better than others? she wondered. Or where some people simply unable to blend their lives with someone’s else, make those adjustments, the compromises?When she looked back, she believed both she and Rob had tried, but in their own ways. There’d been no meeting of the minds, but two separate thought patterns making decisions that never melded with each other. Did that mean that a successful marriage depended on the mating of two people who thought along the same lines?With a sigh, she turned onto the highway that would lead them into Tennessee. If it was true, she decided, she was much better off single. Though she’d met a great many people she liked and could have fun with, she’d never met anyone who thought the way she did. Especially the man seated next to her with his nose already buried in the newspaper. There alone they were radically different.”For more quotes visit my blog: frommybooks.wordpress.com”