I often get asked for the inspiration behind my images. “How do you arrange your shoots,” “how do you set up your lighting,” “how do you choose your subject matter?” Well…

Here’s the best way to explain it. The human eye registers 30-60 images per second. Think about that: we are actually seeing 2,700 images every minute and 160,000 images per hour. No wonder we get tired! Our brain links all those images into a continual stream of video that never ceases until we close our eyes and go to sleep.

Now think about that last time you went for a walk and during that walk you saw something and had a thought that “that’s pretty” or “that’s weird.” Well, of the thousands of images that you saw, perhaps one was enough to trigger that response. But which image? To mean, that is the first step toward great photography.

My practice is to slow down and rewind whenever I sense an emotional response to something I see. What exactly was it that caught my eye? Sometimes it’s color. Sometimes it’s shape. Sometimes it’s texture. The trick is to identify the underlying detail that catches the eye.

Take the image above as an example. Did I pick out all the petals and leaves? Did I arrange them in groups? Did I take them to the water’s edge and float them just so? The answer to all of this is no. Rather, here is how this image was created.

I was walking past a canal in the Coronado Cays when something in the water caught my eye. There, at the end of the canal, a slight breeze was moving debris along the surface of the water in a slow, wide circle. Amongst a bunch of leaves, a few plastic bags, and a half submerged water bottle, were two groupings of leaves and petals. There was a combination of rose petals, bougainvillea, and even a nasturtium that had fallen or blown from various gardens along the canal.

I framed these two groupings as they slowly moved, changing shapes as they went and waited until they freed themselves from the other debris. It was a slow process dictated by the breeze and movement of the water as much as the amount of zoom I put on the scene. The color combination and shape of the clusters were so pleasing they made me smile as they moved into the perfect arrangement.

Had I not stopped and looked closer when “something caught my eye,” this image never would have been possible. It is not an image I have put up for sale, but I keep coming back to it. For me, it is a calming, and somewhat dreamy piece that mergers my love of the water and a lifetime of gardening. And this is the story behind “Floating.”