Five Days of Black & White – Day 2

I would like to thank Lore from Snow’s Fissures and Fractures for nominating me for the “five days of black and white photography challenge”. She is a terrific writer and a talented photographer. She is really creative with presenting her photos. I learnt a lot about photography from her, thanks Lore. 🙂

For Day 2 I would like to share a statue of Buddha.

Buddha at home

Although, I do not practice Buddhism but I love any statue of Buddha. I have a small wooden statue of Buddha at home. I just love its calm and serene look.

Every morning I look at this statue for some time. However, during those busy days I might skip this ritual. Whenever something is troubling me or I feel depressed I look at this statue and get a feeling as if someone is sitting in front of me. (Call me mad but I feel the presence).

Here, I would like to share a small story with my dear readers.

I was learning reki at the time when I bought this statue. I automatically felt inclined towards owning a statue of Buddha for myself. My teacher had two big marble statues at her place.

I started inquiring and found that the metal and stone pieces were way too expensive. So I thought that a wooden one would be fine. I looked for it…some were big, too big…some were small, too small. I found this sitting at a corner and it was just the size I was looking for. Somehow this was the only piece.

I bought it. I kept it at a higher place. But I was not completely happy. I felt the carving was not good – but I had already bought it. I continued with my reki and meditation. I was not practicing my ritual then – of looking.

On the last day of my reki course I looked at the statue. It looked as if the image was carved perfectly well. For a moment I felt that it would have been carved from looking at the real person…its lips, eyes, the glow on face…looked human, shall I say or more artistic.

I shared my experience with my teacher. The answer was simple,” You have changed your perception towards the statue and that’s why it looks beautiful to you.” Yes, that day I learnt one of the life’s most important lessons – you need to change your perception in order to look at things differently and only then can we see the beauty and sometimes the hidden meaning of things.

For today’s challenge I would like to nominate Suyash Chopra. He is a brilliant photographer. Once you are at his blog you would feel that you are breathing along the photo itself.

I would love to see you participate. I would also totally understand if you would decide not to participate for any reason.

The rules of this challenge are:

1. For 5 consecutive days create a post any past or present photo in black and white.
2. Each day you invite a new photographer to join the fun.