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Capturing Moments: Photography as Meditation




Part of photography is capturing moments, between people, space, structures, and time. I’ve focused my photography on urban and vast landscapes but love to get lost in experiences people share. In addition to my work on the Camino, in downtown Tulsa, I offer All Souls Church my photos to document and capture the stories of our church, the latest being with my All Souls community at Tulsa Pride in 2019.

I look back to sharing my story with the UU World, how I’ve also used photography as a meditation as I’ve passed transitions in my life. I wanted to share my story again with All Souls.

Photography as Meditation

Originally posted on uuworld.org on January 1, 2018.

Moving to Tulsa, Oklahoma, from the Boston area in 2000 was a tough transition. My husband, Rev. Marlin Lavanhar, was called to be the senior minister at All Souls Unitarian Church, and I was pregnant with our first son. Lots of life, cultural, and geographical changes at once! All Souls and the wonderful congregation were key to my survival. They also helped me launch some of my own projects: the All Souls Acoustic Coffeehouse (bringing some of the New England folk music to Tulsa) and later becoming a founding board member of the Tulsa Children’s Museum.

Two years ago, to help mark my fiftieth birthday, I decided to hike part of the Camino de Santiago in Spain. I was at a crossroads in my life, having just finished my career with the Children’s Museum and wondering what I was going to do. With the usual “to-do list” gone and the time to reflect while walking for two weeks, I found an answer: to pursue my lifelong love of photography. In the past I had always talked myself out of my dream; there was always going to be someone with better, more expensive, and fancier gear, and more experience, so why bother?

It was fairly easy to take a beautiful photo while traveling through the picturesque towns in the north of Spain.

Back in Tulsa, however, I ended up focusing my lens on the urban and industrial landscape I’ve always loved being in old places and imagining the history that took place there. I love the way time affects objects, the smoothness of old stairs and cobblestones, the patinas of rust and peeling paint. The Japanese have a term, wabi-sabi, to describe the beauty and richness that is inherent in old, imperfect things.

As I began focusing my lens on these subjects, I not only started seeing more and more of them, but I began feeling like I was on an exotic trip just while walking around downtown Tulsa with my camera. I would experience the same excitement I did when discovering a new country while walking through an alleyway in Tulsa and finding another unique angle or a close up of a rusty bullet hole.

As Brene Brown puts it: “I don’t have to chase extraordinary moments to and happiness—it’s right in front of me if I’m paying attention and practicing gratitude.”

My photography has forced me to pay deeper attention and at the same time has increased my gratitude for my current homeland. For me, photography has become a meditation of sorts. When I get behind the lens I get into the “zone.” I couldn’t be happier to be on this journey of photography and to be continuing to grow and develop in this field that has
helped me see the beauty that exists all around me, no matter where I am.


Anitra Lavanhar is a member of All Souls Unitarian Church and avid iPhone photographer. Her photography has compelled her to pay deeper attention and increased her gratitude for her immediate surroundings. She teaches classes using iPhone and smartphone cameras throughout Tulsa. You can see more of her work and find a class at anitraseye.com.

Read more about her travels with All Souls including the Pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago and with the Sienna Project building a school in the Guatemala Highlands in honor of her late daughter Sienna.

2 Comments

  1. Great article. I share your passion. 🙆‍♀️❤️

  2. Dr. Ann Frances Ellis

    Anitra, I love this and I love your photographs. I think what you have found is what I am seeking, as I move out of my comfortable, beautiful condo and go out into the world more naked so as to see the sacred again. I want life to be a meditation again, as it once was, and to live in the wonder of it and of the earth. To see what was always there, to see the spirit and beauty within everything. To find the wonder and joy of being alive. To be like a little child again. Thank you for showing a way to accomplish this. Blessings to you.

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