Passion

I am very fortunate…more fortunate than others I tend to think.  Maybe we all feel unique in some ways and tend to think we are more of this or that than others around us in some specific way. More fortunate, more unfortunate, more unusual, more unique, more real, more insightful, more talented, more knowledgeable, more this and more that.   In spite of all my mores I am most impressed with the more passionate.  Through my life experiences I have found passion about many things and I have seen other bloggers with their specific passion.  A few that come to mind when in think of passion are Tani and Red Willow.  I pick those two out because they came to their passion for photography the same time I came to mine.  They both were passionate. 

Like me they were out there looking for the perfect picture.  When I thought about them I could just see them scanning their environment and being able to distinguish what was going to make a memorable picture and what was not something that the viewer would remember five minutes after seeing the picture. 

I remember once when Tani posted pictures of a parade in her home town.  It was some years back but I remember getting myself in the moment staring at those pictures. I could see her framing the picture.  Knowing where the edges of each picture was. Framing it just so.  Getting it right in her viewfinder, looking up the make sure the background was just perfect and when that cloud moved to frame the perfect background or when that person had a unique human expression that displayed some kind of familiar emotion only then did she snap the picture and the shot displayed the perfection and passion. She was good because a lot of her pictures were of moving targets.   Many variables played in the creation of the picture and she had to almost do the picture on instincts because everything had to come together in a fraction of a second.  Unlike a painter with a canvas and weeks to create her masterpiece; she had to respond and get it set up very fast.  They were not staged pictures.  They were real pictures she posted that day and many other days. Go look at her pictures.  They are full of meaning and life.

Then I looked at Red Willow’s pictures and they were all perfect. Go look at what I mean.  Red Willow may have taken a picture of a meadow, a bridge, a flower, one of her animals, snow, ice, water, a tractor and they always reminded me of that book Bridges of Madison County. That guy drove around from county to county getting pictures of bridges.  Like Red Willow he put a lot of thought into lighting, shading, texture, depth of field, and many other factors.  He was there with each picture at a very deep level.  He saw the beauty in every shot. He reveled in the beauty and it took on great meaning and significance.

As I look at Red Willow’s pictures I can see her there framing the picture, taking into account all the various factors, waiting for the breeze to move that blade of grass or leaf just so and then snapping the picture.  Hoping the bee or cow did not move. The sense of accomplishment when that image is in the camera.  The grace and patience it took to capture it and the going back if you were unable to get it right.  The waiting for the right conditions and you immediately know when you got it just right. It feels like that home run or that perfect piano recital.  It feels so good, so human and you want to share it with everyone around you and want them to get a fraction of those hard won good feelings by just looking at the picture.  It is a spiritual experience. I know that sounds shallow but it really is a spiritual high.  Whenever you capture such beauty it is spiritual. It takes on more meaning because you caught it and froze it in time to last forever.  A perfect snapshot of that moment. 

I have caught some of those perfect moments and I go back and look at them frequently.  I might have taken a thousand pictures before I got it but I got it. I was passionate about getting it eventually.  I once got a perfect rainbow.  Another time I got perfect shots of an armadillo.  I had sat motionless on a rock for almost an hour before he came to me. I got that perfect shot of a baby and mother deer together.  I got a perfect shot of a tornado bearing down on me.  I got many perfects due to my passion.  I kept going back to get that spiritual high.   I was like a drug addict.  I lay on a forest floor for hours just for the opportunity to see a deer pass by.   I stood motionless for an hour waiting for that dragonfly to land on the branch I was focused on.   I watched the fisherman morning after morning waiting for the rising sun to reflect on him and getting the picture as he was lifting the pole so the fish broke the surface of the water.  Another time I watched a man and his small son wade fishing and got that perfect moment as the sun was rising and the father grasped his son’s hand.  I got that perfect moment when the old man was bait casting.  I got it just as the cast net landed in a perfect circle on the surface of the water.  A fraction of a second later it would have disappeared below the surface of the water. And many more perfect moments.  I was just so fortunate.  More fortunate than most.