I’ve noticed that I can no longer look at the world around me without a photographer’s eye. So much so that I don’t realize I’m doing it until someone reminds me. Like when I comment about the way something simple looks so complex or the mundane looks somehow illuminated, I will often get either a blank stare – huh? or someone’s light bulb moment—wow! I would have never noticed that but now that you mention it…

For the most part when I turn my lens to the subject at hand I like to think that I am choosing or even controlling how I capture it; the point of focus, the compositional framing, the direction or intensity of the light. But the flipside and perhaps the balance is that I gladly and willingly rely on the help of the mystery of the medium itself. For me, this magic is what breaths life into my work, not me.

And sometimes even when I think I know what I am creating in a photograph, the subject, the light, the alchemy of all of it mixed together in some kind of creative stew brings tastes and smells that I could have never concocted on my own. Maybe that’s why I’m always hungry for more. It’s always one succulent visual feast after the next.

My favorite photographs are usually those that surprise me. The ones I didn’t see coming. When something extraordinary has developed from the ordinary. An image that draws me in and questions what it is I’m really seeing. Something refreshingly stimulating and curious.

What about you? Do you have images that have brought their own magic? Share with us the shots that challenge your senses and tickle your pallet with mystery and intrigue.