A Day of Bad Photographs
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 10:35AM The other day, the sun came out, so naturally I wanted to go out too, and, of course, I wanted to take my camera with me...
It was 11:40am, and I had a mountain of things to do, so with my new time management skills (ha!), I decided to give myself just 20 minutes to walk outside, and enjoy the vitamin D. Twenty minutes of visual possibilities!
I'm going to cut to the chase here, and tell you that, photographically speaking, it was a bad, bad day.
Before I walked out the door, I tried to take a picture of the bar of soap that my boy had mangled up at bath time. Amazingly, out of the pieces, a heart emerged, and I knew I just had to share it with Chrissy and her game of Heart and Seek.
I couldn't get the lighting right, etc... So, I said, oh heck, I'll worry about it later!
I walked to the end of our lane...no deer, no birds at the bird feeder...nobody except this squirrel, who smiled at me a few times, but wouldn't move away from the curb like I asked him to.
So, I walked...
Into the field, into the woods, down the path...my camera at the ready, but nothing was calling out to me. Nothing was inspiring me. My lens was acting up. I wasn't "feeling" the composition in anything. My shots were coming out too grainy, or too blurry. Are you getting the picture? You are? Because I did not.
It was out of frustration, rather than wisdom, that I said to myself, "You know, you don't have to take a picture. You could stand here in the middle of the woods on this beautiful day, and just...LOOK."
To be honest, it felt a little unfulfilling and unproductive, but I did it. I looked at the trees, and the light filtering in. I listened to the birds, and the silence. I closed my eyes, and filled my lungs with the crisp February air.
My thoughts have been all over the place lately (or always), searching for purpose and direction, and it seemed, as I stood there clearing my head, it made just enough space for all of those things (not on my mind's VIP list) to fall over the rope and tumble right in.
Trying to cut through the chaos, as my uninvited thoughts fell all over each other, I looked up past the trees, and said to the sky, "What do you want me to do?"
And that sky, with all of it's glory and wisdom, just simply said back "You're doing it."
I walked back into my house (30 minutes later than my self imposed curfew), with a camera full of crappy photos, still trying to wrap my mind around that simple, simple thought.
Leave it to the amazing Brave Girls, and their Daily Truths, to set me straight...
It's TRUST. Trust is the concept that I'm having a difficult time grasping. It always had been.
The crappy photos that I took the other day, don't look like crappy photos to me anymore...now they look like lessons. Not a product, but a passageway.
Do you have any big thoughts that you're wrestling with these days?
Reader Comments (5)
"Not a product, but a passageway." Love this. I struggle with the need to 'end up with something' after engaging in an activity. I need more 'in the moment' appreciation. But despite the way you feel about them, I love the photos. The squirrel is simply charming. :)
xo, laura emily
Hi there...found your blog the other day...love your pictures and your writing. Have you come across the Trust Garden blog...just what I needed this morning! Nice to meet you too....x
I meant Trust Tending!
ooh..u love to take pictures too...we do sound a lot alike! :)
It's a journey. It's not about perfection. It's - for me - more about going out there and 'just doing it'...'just feeling it' - no matter what 'it' is. And - I do love your 'bad photographs'!!! They look pretty good to me!