Contemplative Photography
Still water with a faint wake.
Still water with a faint wake.“Miksang ripples” by Nick Kenrick · CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

The full path

14 weeks through the basic forms

Weeks 00 and 01 are ready, and the rest will follow the same shape.

  1. 00Learning to seeThe flash, discernment and the equivalentReady
  2. 01Color as colorColor on its own, apart from the objectReady
  3. 02Color, againA second color week, using what you learned in the firstComing
  4. 03Patches of light and shadowLight itself as the subjectComing
  5. 04Front light and side lightFlat light and light that models formComing
  6. 05BacklightThin things glow and solid things go darkComing
  7. 06Diffuse light and color plusOvercast color, and a first step past the basic formsComing
  8. 07TextureTouching with your eyesComing
  9. 08PatternRegular and random repetitionComing
  10. 0920 frames of 1 thingMany perceptions of 1 dull objectComing
  11. 10SpaceOpen space as the subjectComing
  12. 11Form in spaceA simple form held in open spaceComing
  13. 12PresenceGiving an ordinary thing room to be itselfComing
  14. 13Closing the circleLooking back over your best framesComing
Rails over water.
Rails over water.“miksang level 2: lines in space (not)” by birdfarm · CC BY-NC 2.0

Sources

  • John McQuade & Miriam Hall, Looking and Seeing: Nalanda Miksang Contemplative Photography (Drala, 2015). The weekly sequence follows this book.
  • Andy Karr & Michael Wood, The Practice of Contemplative Photography (Shambhala, 2011). The 3 stages and many of the exercises come from here.
  • Julie DuBose, Effortless Beauty (2013). Passages marked “translated” come from the Chinese edition, so the English is a translation and may differ from her original wording.
  • David Ulrich, Zen Camera (Watson-Guptill, 2018).
  • Howard Zehr, The Little Book of Contemplative Photography (Good Books, 2005).
  • John Howard Griffin, A Hidden Wholeness: The Visual World of Thomas Merton (1970).

This is an independent study guide with no connection to any school. For teachers and workshops, see Nalanda Miksang.

All sources and quotations →
Light on a white hull.
Light on a white hull.“Miksang” by Nick Kenrick · CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Photographs

Photo credits

The sample photographs come from Flickr photographers and are used under Creative Commons licenses for non-commercial study.

Each photo is credited under the picture, with a link to its license. The credits page lists all 64 in one place.

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