Forcing myself to keep my eyes opened!

I already wrote this post in a previous blog where I used to write posts both in English an in Italian, I am closing the English side there and "moving" it on PhotoN Message.

In a previous post I told you how some of those friends and relatives were surprised to "discover", through the picture I was showing them, that there was something of beautiful even where they didn't notice any beauty.
It was very pleasant to see their smiling faces and their surprised eyes. I loved this!

It was during the following months that I realized how easy was to "lose" those "beautiful" details of our reality, an example?

It was the 16th or 17th July 2004, when I was walking in a park in Rapallo (Genoa) and I heard a loud twitter. I looked around for some minutes and at the end I found a very little bird on the street...so I bended on it an tried and after I got surprised by the fact that it was "so small" I tried to take some pictures...It was too dark there so I hadn't been able to take "good picture" but this little bird made me able to notice something else...

As soon as I bended down, the passersby turned curious too and at the sight of the little bird they smiled and went away smiling... I was surprised, because during those minutes I spent to find the source of that twitter I had seen no one else trying to find the source of that sound...
It seemed like, for those people, it was a "too small" detail of the reality to care about.

That day I realized that the simple act to just focus my attention on something, made some one else want to focus on it too and appreciate that detail of our reality.

Reflecting on this event I realized that what happened to those passersby could happen to me too! This scared me a little, I didn't want to be blind, to close my eyes in front of reality!
In order to avoid, as much as I could, this behavior I tried to do my best in forcing myself to look at the world that surrounds me... I am not sure if I can do it often enough, but I am sure I am still trying...

That day, I understood that taking picture was a good way to "force" myself to look for the world (even smallest and hidden) beauty!