Even in nature, things we think of as static....aren't. Mountain ranges are a good example: they are continuously evolving. Some changes, like the Teton Range adding a few millimeters in height every year, are difficult to detect. (At that rate it'll be awhile before anyone pulls out the proverbial growth chart to record a new mark.) Other transformations, such as rockfall, are abrupt and readily apparent. Early in July, another substantial chunk of Grand Teton’s second tower collapsed (the first section fell in 2022). Especially when viewed from the north, the peak's modified profile is quite visible.
Few things endure forever.
In this day and age, however, impermanence is ever more pervasive - and embraced. We have largely abandoned so many things to the ether. Consider the written word, physically notated via pen on paper. I treasure cards and letters received and saved over many years, some from people near and dear to me who have since passed away, such as my parents. Texts cannot possibly compare.
For many, personal music collections are electronic: we stream and file share but don't hold the albums in our hands. The same is true of books. Access is rented and can be revoked at any time. As for dust cover and album cover art, who sees it?
Even our attention is diminished. Smartphones are omnipresent distractions preventing us from existing fully in the moment. Life is already short; our phones seduce us into missing even more of it.
When we switched to text messages, we gave up the lasting imprint of a loved one’s hand guiding ink across paper. Tempted by screens, we relinquish a genuine, grounded connection to the physical world.
We’ve surrendered presence and permanence for convenience – but convenience can be a clever thief.
Nature photography sits right at the intersection of these losses as a powerful counterweight. Photographs have always been precious to me: captured moments in time that will never be repeated. Now, in a world increasingly filled with simulated experiences and provisional access, photographing the landscape somehow seems even more important. In a way, it represents an act of quiet rebellion: a deliberate choice to experience nature and bear witness to what is undeniably, unalterably real.
The fact that we employ a digital medium to capture physical impermanence is, of course, somewhat ironic. Still, the process of making a photograph is intensely tactile and grounded: it requires us to be physically present in a real place, under a real sky, reacting to real conditions that will never happen in exactly the same way again.
For the photographer, much more than a fleeting instant is captured, for we remember everything involved in the making of each image: the hike to and from the location, the conditions that day, the waiting, how we felt, the people we encountered. We recall so much more than a single moment. In this way, I suppose you could say photography slows down time, if just a little.
Of course our photographs themselves become physical artifacts when they’re printed: something tangible.
Real connection leaves a trace. Whenever I hold a cherished, time-honored card, note or letter in my hands, seeing the familiar curves of handwriting, there is a physical bond – even if the person who wrote it is no longer living.
Our photography creates connections, too.
We cannot stop the mountains from shifting, nor can we stop time’s relentless march, but we can choose to be fully present in nature. Our digital images are collections of bits and bytes, but the process of making them is undeniably physical and the prints are tactile realities.
Even when the final product is not a physical print, there is a permanence to what was created: it lives in our memories of the experience, and in the lasting truth of what was witnessed.
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