Buddha on the Palace grounds in Phnom Penh, Cambodia

New Release Photo of Buddha

Whew! I'm hoping I'm finally out of the woods with the illnesses I've had lately. First, it was Covid in December and then after the holidays in early January, I came down with another wicked little virus. I'm not sure what it was but my sinuses were in agony.

I researched and discovered that a viral sinus infection can last for weeks. I hate taking antibiotics so I decided to wait this one out knowing that if it was viral, antibiotics wouldn't help anyway. I'm glad I waited because it seems to have resolved on its own, but it took a solid couple of weeks.

Are you struggling with being sick too? I've heard there's so much going around right now, from Covid to the flu.  

Between being sick and the cold weather here in the ATL, I've used some of the time to go back through older photos and edit some of them. I'd like to add more photos to my galleries. Whenever I return from a trip, I'm overwhelmed with the amount of photos I have. I do an initial sort-through and eliminate photos for the website because they didn't turn out the way I wanted or sometimes they weren't perfectly in focus. 

Once I've gone through them all, I rate the ones I like the best and work on those first. Then, it seems like I move on to a client shoot or something else and soon forget about all the photos I didn't take a closer look at. 

The above photo of Buddha is one I liked but for some reason never put it on the site. I remember well the moment I took it. I had taken a guided tour around the Palace grounds in Phnom Penh. You don't get to see much of the Palace, but you can walk all around the grounds and go into some exhibit areas. 

One of the things I found interesting was when the guide told me about the different Buddha poses. I've seen lots of Buddha statues but most of them were in similar seated positions. 

At the Palace, many Buddha statues featured lots of different poses. The guide told me to pay attention to the hands and explained all the different hand poses and their meanings. 

When we got to the end of the tour and the guide left, it started raining, hard. I sat down under an awning where I wouldn't get soaked and it happened to be close to this statue. I noticed the hands:

The hands are resting in the lap, facing up. This is the Dhyana mudra position and symbolizes meditation on the Good law and attainment of spiritual perfection. It seemed appropriate to sit and meditate for a while, especially because if I went anywhere just then, I was going to get thoroughly soaked!

I was happy I came across this photo this morning and though I had partially edited the photo before, I went back in and did some more editing. I put it on the website this morning, so it's available now. 

I hope you have a wonderful week!

See you between the raindrops, of which there were a few this morning. 

xoxo,
Susan  

You can find this new release on the site here, and don't forget to use code MEANT2B on checkout for 25% off for my Valentine's Day sale!