Look for the Other Side

Look for the Other Side
By the quiet counsel of the Earth

In every photograph, there is a secret: the story changes when you move your feet. Shift your stance, and the light falls differently. Step to one side, and shadows reveal their quiet truths. Such is the way of photography, such is the way of life.

I once wandered the desert plains of Utah and met a great stone I named Prayer Rock. At first, I approached it plainly, my camera steady at eye level. The rocks lay distant, their wind-smoothed faces speaking of centuries of desert breath. They were beautiful, but quiet, too quiet.

Later, I walked to the far side and lowered my gaze to the earth, tilting my lens upward. Suddenly, the rock rose like a mountain in prayer, its edges sharp and defiant against the sky. From this side, the wind had not softened it. Its stance was bold, almost fierce.

Both images were true. Neither lied. Yet each told a different story.

Life often asks us to see in this way, to remember that there is more than the face first shown to us. Sometimes the difference between sides is vast, like a canyon split by ages. Other times it is as delicate as the difference between morning light and the glow before dusk.

But here is the challenge: our minds, like hurried photographers, often stop after the first shot. We take in one version, one truth, and believe it to be the whole. We forget that by walking a few steps, by seeking the other side, our understanding may transform completely.

In the great conversations of our time, we are told to choose right or wrong, for or against. But wisdom whispers: the world is rarely so narrow. To see only one angle is to miss the fullness of what is. And when we cling too tightly to our side, we risk turning the beauty of difference into the bitterness of division.

So, I ask you: when was the last time you set down your certainty and stepped to another vantage point? Have you ever listened not to answer, but to truly hear? Have you looked at someone not as they appear from the side you know, but from the other, where the light touches them differently?

A great photograph is not born from the first glance, but from the willingness to explore. A great life is the same.

Pause. Walk around. Look for the other side.

You may find, as I have, that truth is not a single image but an album, each perspective a necessary page. And when you hold them all together, the story becomes whole.