One day my husband looked at me and asked – in a tone that landed somewhere between teasing and exasperation, "Do you always think about everything in terms of taking a picture?"
I had to laugh. Of course I do! (By the way, I’m pretty sure that was a rhetorical question. He had to have known the answer…)
If you stick with photography long enough, at some point it stops being a hobby and instead becomes an all-consuming craft that changes how you perceive and interact with your surroundings. Photography has a way of getting under your skin – in the very best sense. Once flipped, the proverbial “switch” is always turned on.
Suddenly, you are no longer just walking down the street; you’re taking note of the geometry surrounding you - for instance, the afternoon sun slicing through a coffee shop window and painting a polygon of gold on a wooden table inside. A casual weekend drive becomes an immersive experience. Your eyes scan the cloud bank overhead, or you notice a beam of sunlight slicing through a canopy of trees.
You don't enjoy these experiences or the scenery less than a non-photographer – if anything, you appreciate them more, because you are an active participant. Often, there’s a desire to stop and capture whatever caught your eye. If you don’t have your camera with you, you wish you did.
This is the wonderful obsession: an acute awareness that transforms the world around you from an unobtrusive backdrop into a living canvas of light, texture, and form.
But photography is also demanding. It’s early mornings and late nights – starting and ending the day in darkness. It can require extensive travel followed by long hikes to access locations. It’s waiting in less than ideal weather: cold, rain, wind. It's work.
Yet, so often the end result of these challenges is a kind of magic. Sitting beneath the mountains in the darkness before daybreak or waiting on a windswept ridge, experiencing absolute stillness.
In a world that demands perpetual activity, slowing down to match the pace of the earth.
Putting yourself in a frame of mind to accept whatever gift the natural world is offering at that moment. You're not in charge; nature is.
These things are priceless.
You notice the myriad small details surrounding you: things like the way dew clings to a spiderweb for only a few minutes before the sun burns it away, or how the morning color temperature rapidly shifts from cool blues to warm golds, or a pattern in the sand created by backwash that lasts only a minute.
Time spent in nature is a deep grounding in mindfulness and presence. It improves mental clarity. It is balm for the spirit.
The discomforts of the trail and the weather become a small price to pay for the privilege of witnessing the world wake up, or go to sleep, or battle the elements. Your camera becomes an anchor, pulling your mind away from the noise of daily life and locking you firmly into the present moment. You aren't just enduring the cold or the long hike; you are co-existing with the conditions, earning the right to see and experience what most other people don’t. It turns a simple walk in the woods into a restorative dialogue between your inner world and nature.
This begs a question: Why do you do it?
Is it the thrill of the hunt? The hit of dopamine when the conditions are aligned and you know you caught lightning in a bottle?
Is it the challenge of creative problem-solving?
Is it because you enjoy storytelling?
Maybe it's because you're a collector: of moments that fill you with emotion, or fleeting combinations of light, elements and scenes that will never again happen in exactly the same way.
Or is it because the camera gives you a deeper connection to the natural world? A reason to look closer, to stand still longer, and to truly belong to a landscape rather than just passing through it? An opportunity to establish a relationship with nature that you might not otherwise have had?
It might be some combination of all these things.
Once bitten by the photography bug, there's no going back. I can't think of anything more wonderful.
If someone who knows you well has ever turned to you with a bit of exasperation and asked if you can't just "turn photography off" for a while, I’ll bet you reacted just as I did when my husband said it.
Why in the world would we do that? The earth is far too beautiful, and filled with disparate, fascinating, and all-too-often fleeting nuance, to be looked at with ordinary eyes.
"Photography is an itch that won't go away. No matter how much you scratch it."
Dara McGrath
In Local News
If you want to make one last run into Yellowstone with your vehicle, the clock is ticking. Drop what you're doing and go! The west, south and east gates will close Sunday in preparation for the winter season. Be sure to check road conditions before heading out. You might encounter slick surfaces and/or some closures due to snow and ice.
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