Everything we see is new?

I was trying to describe to a friend why Thailand was so interesting to me. I told him that "Everything that I saw was new.". As I thought about that statement I realized that no matter where we are, everything that we see is new, the light, the time, the thoughts, it is always new.

We, and I, do not see it that way. Our minds tell us that it is the same: I already saw that; I already took that picture etc. etc. Our minds and our thoughts organize and inhibit what we see. The more I thought about "everything that we see is new" I realized that it illuminates that fuzzy area between what we see, and what we think about what we see. Navigating that border of perception is where we make photographs. Photographs are an interaction between what we see, what we experience, what we feel, and what we think. Even our intentions can determine what we photograph.

Remembering though that, no matter what we think, the actual fact is that "everything we see is new."