Have you ever wondered why your best inspirations come to you in the shower, on long walks, at the beach, or just lying in bed trying to sleep?  I have, and I call it call it

” Mind Stopping.”

It’s a moment when all your random thoughts fade away. Your eternal self debates about what to do, where to go, what will happen, why am I here dissolve and you become very much in the moment. You are inside mindlessly focused on whatever the current experience is taking place, witnessing it, and allowing only your senses to feel it , not your thoughts, to judge it. You stand there for a moment like an antenna taking in sound waves without singling out any particular one, notes that you hear until suddenly you recognize a tune. In photography, that moment, that “Mind Stop” can become one of the best tools in your bag.

This Miami Photographer got to live in Paris last summer, yeah I know lucky me, but trust me, it’s the kind of luck that I worked very hard for. Walking around the city, looking for the typical shots we all see of familiar icons that make this beautiful city the gem she is, I stopped for a while to take a break and relax . I stood on a corner for a while and started to zone out of where I was or where to go next. Across the street at a cafe, sat a man on his cell phone…nothing of great interest. Up the block another man with a cane was approaching while another one was leaving. As I slipped into a mind stopping moment, a scene started to take shape in what appeared to be in slow motion, actors taking their places on a stage for their next scene. Like random pieces in a puzzle, a picture started to come together. Without prejudging it, I raised my camera to fire off a shot. The scene passed on and so did I. Much later when I reviewed my images, I put this one aside. It wasn’t the Eiffel Tower, nor the Arc de Triomphe, nor any of the visual trophies I hoped to find, but the more I looked at it, the more I liked it. The blues and reds coordinated and balanced out a scene of everyday life. It became for me, what Paris is, and taught me a lesson.

There are images that can be found but the best ones are those that find you.

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