This is the third of several guest posts where blog visitors answered the question  “How has photography had a positive impact on your life?,” a question I’ve been exploring in my recent series “Why Photography?.” Marcie responded with this essay.

It’s something I’ve thought a lot about…so when asked to write about photography…and what it is…and why I practice it daily – I jumped at the opportunity.

Why photography?

A very good question.

I could go back in time and tell you about my very first Kodak instamatic camera..and how I carried it with me everywhere capturing life as I saw it from my knee-high point-of-view. My first ‘real’ camera – I received as a gift from my father while still in high school. It wasn’t long before I went about catching all of my moments of great significance and importance, and before I fell in love with the process of developing and printing in a darkroom. Watching the black and white prints emerge, as if almost by magic. Time taking on a whole new rhythm and beat.

Fast forward.

College…marriage…a career…kids.

Not for a moment did I stop recording my ever-changing life and especially that of my childrens’. It wasn’t until more recently that my passion was re-ignited, this time with a new and different focus.

This more recent story began with an unlikely pair of Pekin ducks, who were intended to live a domestic life, but were abandoned by their owners in a pond not far from my home. It was they who sparked my interest and prompted me to pick up my camera and record – not just my children’s world  – but that of the world around me.

I’d been walking the same path, always in a hurry get to wherever it was I thought I might be going. There was always somewhere I needed to be, someone I needed to see, something I needed to do. So focused on the destination, I was missing out on the journey. It was on this path that these ducks magically appeared. They – the pair of them together – became my daily muse…my inspiration and focus. White beauties in an ever-changing landscape on this singular quiet pond in the heart of the suburban town in which I live.

Quickly – this became not only about the ducks…but a daily exercise in recording the world as I viewed it through my camera lens. The ducks – sadly – met their untimely demise at the first of winter. With wings clipped and unable to fly…they froze in the first of the storms. But – I persevered and continued onwards. There was more – I was certain – yet to be found.

The ‘practice’, as I have come to know it, is about finding the new and extraordinary in the everyday ordinary. It is about nurturing presence and awareness, and recording what is. It is not necessarily about perfection. It reminds me that there is hidden magic in the details, if I actually stop and take the time to look and see what it is I’m looking at.

But then – why photography…and not some other creative form of self-expression?

Photography focuses and grounds me.  It forces me to pay the closest attention to detail. To shadow and light. To composition. To figure and ground. To balance. It acts as a quiet meditation. When looking thru my camera’s lens..the world stops. There is calm centered peace within. With my feet on the ground..and my eye to the camera’s lens – I see all…and only what it is that I am looking at. There is only me. The sound of my breath…my heart beating…an internal quiet where there is nothing other than this day.

Photography acts as a teacher. Through it – I’ve learned to identify flora and fauna and avians that I previously knew nothing about. I’ve learned that by sitting quietly and observing, I can anticipate and thus capture the behavior or movement that might come next. I’ve learned patience and persistence and perseverance. I’ve cultivated a sense of gratitude for whatever opportunity is presented, and an appreciation for that day.

I like to believe that I ‘practice’ photography, that with my camera-in-hand, I enter a place of surrender and acceptance. Never controlling or contriving or manipulating a situation to suit my imaginary needs. This is what ‘is’. Today. This moment will never happen in quite the same way ever again.  Simply observing and capturing ‘it’ as ‘it’ presents itself before me, is what it is all about for me.

It’s a ‘practice’ that is – at times – as much about looking inwards as it is about looking out at the world. It passes through me. It’s not something that is tangible or teachable or easy to explain. It’s something that is felt somewhere deep within and beneath my core. It’s at the moment of perfect synchronicity – that I cock and click my shutter’s lens. That instant I’ve then captured and recorded for all of eternity and longer than that.

Photography challenges me. It pushes me to change and grow…to adapt…to learn new computer languages and skills…to keep on top of this ever evolving world of technology. It provides me an opportunity to play..to go out in the world and have fun with my camera. To create humor in a humorless situation…or to ‘render’ my world differently from the one in which I live. By shifting my perspective and changing my point-of-view..I can transform a scene from one to another.

There are all sorts of other reasons to have chosen to embrace this ‘craft’..and not some other. These – that I’ve mentioned –  are just a few.

Thank-you for asking…for joining me here in my answer. This too has been one other exercise in exploring what photography is all about.

For me.

Marcie Scudder lives and photographs (mostly) in the Boston area. She publishes a daily photograph on her website Daily Practice.