Little Book of Contemplative Photography: Seeing With Wonder, Respect And Humility (Justice and Peacebuilding)

What a great book. I recently taught a class on photography as a spiritual discipline and had a hard time finding anything written from a Christian perspective. (By contrast, there seems to be an endless supply written from a Zen Buddhist perspective.) Howard Zehr is a distinguished professor of restorative justice at Eastern Mennonite University and he found that his work was so cerebral that he craved something more intuitive. He tried meditation with little success until someone suggested that since he was visually oriented he needed to find a visual form of meditation. He had a longstanding love for photography and suddenly saw that photography and meditation could be the ticket to the kind of meditative process he was looking for. While the book is fairly short, it is packed with great tips on how to duplicate the process in your own life.

I just love this book. Howard Zehr lays out the practice and path of contemplative photography in a short 75 pages (for only $4.95, too!) in a straightforward, entertaining, and logical way. As a contemplative photographer and a teacher of contemplative photography in the Miksang Buddhist tradition, I am indebted to the author for this wonderful offering. Contemplative photography is about seeing, about joining with the world, about dropping our agendas and simply learning to relax and appreciate the arising moment. It is not, as Zehr points out, about taking a shot, creating an image, or manufacturing a photograph.Howard Zehr presents photography as an opportunity to "stimulate our imaginations, to develop our intuitive and aesthetic sensibilities, to gain new insights. It is an invitation to stop and look and be refreshed." With simple descriptions of the process and straightforward exercises, he clearly outlines the path of contemplative photography.

What a lovely book! I plan to start my day with readings from this special book because it makes me smile and helps me “see.” But don’t be fooled by this Little Book — its depth is staggering.

Zehr guides photographers toward a new relationship with the subject matter of their photography. Bringing awe, gratitude and mindfulness/heartfulness to each photograph can not only create a positive influence on your photos but also on everything you see. Step-by-step suggestions and practices ease the photographer along the path. Highly recommend this little book.

I took part in a group that followed the format in the book and it was a wonderful experience.

What a delightful book! I read it quickly and then decided to read it meditatively, one chapter at a time, trying to apply its wisdom to my own photography and my own spiritual life. Zehr captures the essence of photography as relationship, using few words, lots of excellent illustrations, and a distinctive concept. You will see the world differently after you read it.

I learned about this book through the Meditation on Both Sides of the Camera book. They are excellent companions and serve as "instructionals" to take photography deeper into the soul.

There's not too many pages to this book, but it does offer some very mindful exercises. It will help me look at photography from a different perspective.

A fascinating little book that really gets you thinking. The chapter on thinking about how we define "our" photography in itself is invaluable. Highly recommended.

The sort of book you grow with as you adapt and use its ideas and suggestion to open your mind to a gentler way of capturing images/

interesting and thought provoking

Well intentioned and earnest but, I found it rather trite.

O livro é bem estruturado, tem linguagem clara e direta, é bem explicado, e tem um ótimo conteúdo. É bom seguir, sequencialmente, a ordem dos capítulos, do primeiro ao último. É importante, também, fazer os exercícios propostos pelo autor.