Paying Attention

“Don’t look back. You’re not going that way.” 
Henry David Thoreau

“You can’t go back in time, and regret is pointless. The crucial thing is to start paying attention now.”
Michael Foley

I’m not one for resolutions (never can keep them) but, as the years pass, you become more acutely aware that your personal time has limits and you’d best make the most of it, so these two quotes struck a chord with me.

They are from the photography book I was given for Christmas, “One Photo A Day Keeps The Doctor Away”, which contains suggestions/ challenges for daily photos and relevant thought provoking quotes as inspiration. It’s author’s view is that photography can be an antidote to today’s busy and stressful life styles and help you live more in the present.

The suggestion I followed today was to look more closely at things by moving more slowly and taking time to stop still, hold your breath for a few seconds, pay more careful attention to your surroundings then take a photo of what you see.

We’d taken advantage of the dramatic change to blue sky and crisp temperatures by heading to Stourhead, where the light and shade on the patina on this temple’s columns caught my attention.

The extra of one of the statues outside the Pantheon at the other end of the lake seemed an apposite illustration of the quotes!