Photography not only requires a firm understanding of how to use your camera and an understanding of visual aesthetics and rules of composition and how light sources play with your subject, but a photographer often benefits from time and patience to see what others do not see – if they are prepared to take time out and take in the ambience to its fullest.

So here are a couple of variations of the same bit of eroded coastal sandstone and shells which no-one else noticed as they walked along the coast – but if you don’t know what to look for or don’t take the time, you will never see….

These were taken with the Olympus OM-D E-M1 Micro Four Thirds camera with Olympus micro ZD 12-40mm f/2.8 PRO lens :

Perhaps a man drooling?

But then look closer and re-visualise it by re-orientating your eye and you get this beautiful simple, relaxing composition:

To me the greatest gift that photography has given me is to learn to see the world differently, to look for beauty in everyone and everything, to see what others cannot see – it is not really about the end photo, it is not about a journey’s end – it is about living life.

It is a form of mindfulness to restore our stressed brains, and really take in the ambience, smell the salt in the air, feel the breeze, see the light in all its glory, and then to look around and see unseen beauty which helps to rejuvenate all those traumatized brain cells.