Why do I not always take my camera with me when hiking and camping? I have often said that I do not bring a camera with me because I do not want to be distracted. When I start taking photos, I stop seeing what is around me. I start seeing it as numbers and composition. As in, instead of a wonderful flower moving gently in the breeze with radiant orange pedals delicately ribbed, I just look at the black frame around the flower, it position, and the numbers on the side telling me exposure, shutter, and aperture. I am no longer seeing the flower. I no longer smell it, or feel that indescribable sensation of actually being with, and experiencing, a beautiful flower. I see its form through the lens of the camera but the flower is removed from all contexts and becomes flat. It has already become a photograph as soon as I look through the lens, even before I push the button and capture the light. And the question is: is it better to look at photographs or to actually be there? Dumb question. I doubt there is anyone who will say photographs are just as fulfilling as the real thing. Does a girl thrill at receiving a photograph of roses? They are not the same. We all know that.
So when I am hiking and camping, do I want to spend my time looking through the viewfinder at detached, flat images, or do I want to put the camera away and actually be there?
This becomes an argument of whether it is better to capture ‘memories’ for future use and pleasure, or to fully drink in the moment so that in the future you have better ‘memories’ of the experience? Maybe, just maybe, we have such a hard time remembering past experiences because we were never fully there. How do you remember something you did when your mind was wandering elsewhere? All of us have experienced a wife or a mother talking to us while we were thinking on something else only to have her ask us to respond and we have no idea what she is saying. Are we walking through the forests but not hearing what they are saying?
I can tell you Tom Brown’s view. Each time I step from my car and into the mountains his words are with me. Leave all distractions behind and live this moment. To do otherwise you are robbing yourself of the beautiful experience. You must give up past and future concerns. The past and the future are illusions. They do not exist. All you have is now. So why not be present now?
For most of us, it seems, Saturday is a mad rush to get to our wilderness destination and Sunday is a mad rush to get back. Very little time is actually spent being there. Very little time is spent experiencing…In the “now,” you have no past or future, and everything is experienced freshly. A person without a past has never seen a tree, a mud puddle, or a blade of grass. A person without a future is free of worries and fears and open to whatever may cross his or her path (p.18, Guide to Nature Observation and Tracking ©1983 Berkley).
The motive for the photography comes into question. Am I photographing because the moment and the object are just so perfect that I cannot resist? Is the act of photography furthering my experience of “now?” Or am I asking the following questions: Am I going to remember this? Do I have enough photos for when I get home? Will my friends be entertained and impressed?
If those are my thoughts, then I am wasting my time now and capturing empty photographs for tomorrow. So when friends ask me why I, a photographer, am not bringing my camera along on this hike, I respond that I have stored up enough ‘memories’ for tomorrow and would prefer to actually make some memories today.
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