Widening the Lens
a writing prompt for you
Welcome to Writing in Company. A special welcome to those of you who have joined just in the last few weeks! This is a community for you, whatever your experience with writing. It’s an invitation to write about what matters—grief, gratitude, grace, and more. Each week I share some words and a writing prompt, meant to be jumping-off points. Use the prompts however you like—to journal, to draft thoughts for your own writing project, as meditation or prayer ideas, or for another creative endeavor. You can always look back through the archive for more ideas. Grab your pen and paper, and let your words loose on the page.
I heard a speaker at a meeting at least fifteen years ago, and I’m still thinking about his talk. It was Dewitt Jones, a photographer with National Geographic turned public speaker, and he was good at both. He combined his talk with images he had taken in his work around the globe.
My memory all these years had been about what he learned from shifting his perspective, and changing his lens. He would be on a river, or a mountain, or in a crowd, and thought he was lining up for one shot, but when he was patient, and looked again, and was open to changing his perspective, a whole new photo came into frame. Sometimes he had to turn around to get the real picture. Sometimes he had to zoom in, or zoom out. Sometimes he had to get underneath something. Sometimes he had to push past the disappointment of missing what he thought he wanted to capture, and see what there was to celebrate still in front of him.
It sounds like writing to me. Also living. Especially in a world on fire…
I went down a rabbit hole on YouTube trying to find you a brief clip with his memorable images and ideas, like
“There’s more than one right answer.”
“Change your lens, change your life.”
“Celebrate what’s right in the world.”
How to shift from a world based on scarcity and fear to one based on possibility.
Why the real question isn’t “Did I get what I came here for,” but rather “What will I be given today? And will I be open enough to recognize it?”
I watched a lot of Dewitt Jones online, for you. Free short clips are too short, some are too old and the images are fuzzy. I’ve decided to advise patience, like he does, so, if you can, take 18 minutes and watch a more recent TedX talk he gave. The writing prompt for today, is below the video.
a writing prompt
Bring to mind a photo of someone that matters to you, real or imagined. Maybe you are in it, or maybe the photo is of someone you have lost, in a place that no longer is.
Notice the details. What are the objects in the photo? What time of year is it? What time of day?
Now, widen the lens a bit. What is just outside the frame? Or what happened before or after it was taken? Who took the photo, who has kept it, and where? If you shifted the lens just a bit, what would you see?
When you are ready, begin writing to a person in the photo with: In this one, you are…
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Photo + graph = writing with light. I write with words and with light, and I continue to write (with light and words) to "In this one you are. . ." Thank you for this thoughtful light-ful prompt today.
When the original "Celebrate What's Right with the World" video came out (all those years ago!), I was so taken with Jones' message that I actually paid a gazoodle of money to purchase the rights to show it. I used it with a number of church groups and individuals, and I've treasured it--the images, the message, the whole presentation--ever since. Thanks for the reminder of this good work, Julie, and for sharing it more widely.