"The Game" [Gross and Shapiro - Tao Of Photography - Reflections - pp.48-49]

The “Parson” – we’d say, “person”, which they had in olden days,
Was freed from give-and-take of doing commerce every day,
To be a person in the midst of those whose daily fare,
Meant often losing sight of needs of those for whom they cared.

Of course, that also meant they’d help, encourage, those around,
To rise above the mean and mean to meanings in the round
Of life presented there each day, but focus in the main,
Was “free and easy wandering”, each moment not the same –

And so with us photographers as we live out the ‘Te’,
That “Sparkle” seen in excellence of craft, and in the way
We enter in a world of it, and capture with the light,
Examples life presents to us – as brilliance in the night.

So in our tightening schedules of busy-ness and speed,
Photographers can slow right down, and focus on the need
Our neighbors have for what we see within each task before
Our lens – from free-and-easy-walking – showing us the score.

For then we impact those around with person-hood, as well
As product of that way of life, above their private hell –
“Hey, Parson, could I be like you, excited ’bout my life,
As you in yours, not dying in this mean and mean of might?”

Don’t try to do it all the time, or capture every ‘Te’;
Split-second’s how we do our work within a larger day;
So how ’bout making it a game to catch one moment well,
Within each day – four hundred pix with which to story tell?

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