The Edge of the Frame

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I spent two decades with a camera to my eye. A heavy lens, a black viewfinder, the world reduced to a small, perfect rectangle.

The job of a photographer is not to capture reality. That is a common misunderstanding. The job is to create a composition. To decide what matters. You choose your subject, your light, your moment.

And you choose what to exclude.

This is the most important decision of all. The untidy corner of the room. The bored expression on a distant guest. The rain lashing against the window just out of shot. You crop out the noise to tell a clearer story.

It is an act of exclusion. Necessary for a beautiful photograph. Potentially damaging for a well-lived life.

Cropping A Life

I saw this in my clients then, and I see it in my clients now. People who are masters of composition.

Their lives are a collection of immaculate images. The successful exit. The seat on the board. The flawless family holiday, captured and shared. Each frame is carefully curated to broadcast capability, happiness, and progress. The story is one of unerring focus.

This focus is a formidable tool. It builds businesses. It drives careers. It moves you from one achievement to the next with remarkable speed.

But the viewfinder is a tyrant. It demands your full attention. And so, everything outside that small rectangle begins to blur. The things you decided were not part of the main story. A curiosity you never pursued. A friendship that wasn't nurtured. A quiet but persistent feeling that the story you are telling is no longer entirely your own.

The energy required to hold a life in a tight, perfect frame is immense. The picture looks calm. The effort behind the camera is anything but.

This is the work that often brings people to me. Not because the picture is wrong, but because the effort of holding the frame has become exhausting. They feel a strange sense of dissonance. A gap between the life that is seen and the life that is felt.

Adjusting The View

I no longer carry a camera. But I still work with framing.

The work is not to smash the frame. It is not to discard the picture you have so carefully composed. It is to gently, deliberately lower the camera from your eye.

To just look around.

What has been happening at the edge of the frame? What has been waiting patiently in the periphery for your attention? What happens when you stop composing, and simply start noticing?

Often, what we find is not a crisis. It is not a secret desire to burn it all down and move to a remote island. It is smaller, and quieter than that. A forgotten part of yourself. An unanswered question. A different definition of a good day.

The most capable people I meet have simply been looking at one thing, brilliantly, for a very long time.

They just need a moment to see the rest of the room.