Well, I’m back after a couple of health issues that knocked me for six but I’m back to near normal now so I thought a post was well overdue. Thing is…when you’ve got time on your hands, albeit enforced, it gets you thinking…which is exactly the situation I found myself in. And what dawned on me is something that we are all guilty of but maybe are not honest enough with ourselves to admit it. Let me explain:
To start…we have a couple of friends with whom we occasionally go for a walk in the countryside. And right from the get-go they never stop talking…which is fine by me but there’s something crucial here… They miss the sheer pleasure of quietness, looking and just letting nature work its magic. And that got me thinking about when we’re out taking images of wildlife and nature.
Sometimes, dare I say most times, we become so absorbed in taking photos and looking out for the wildlife – birds etc, that we miss so much that can only be accessed by stopping, being still and just looking at the world around us. To make the point, I watched a TV program about a couple of friends who go fishing together. The program is centred around catching fish (obviously) and friendship. To cut a long story short one of the characters remarked that they spent so much time concentrating on catching fish and chatting that they missed the beauty of the place they were in. So, they stopped fishing and a few moments of silence were filled with the joy, peace and beauty of nature around them.
This is where I think we’re going astray sometimes with our photography. We concentrate so much on taking the photo that we miss the ‘where we are‘. Even if we go on a photo walk I would suggest that most of our attention is focussed on looking for our quarry. And although we might say that we do in fact see the beauty of nature around us, I believe that it’s a secondary issue to our photographic goal.
So here’s the thing: next time you’re out taking photos, stop, put the camera at the back of your mind and become absorbed in your surroundings.
Stop catching fish and start catching nature.
Happy snappin’ folks
Meter The Light 