The cold and snowy conditions are really starting to make these avid campers a bit stir crazy! I decided to beat the winter dull drums by revisiting some of my favorite nature photos and giving them a new “twist”. Hope you enjoy!
My husband has been very encouraging about my love for taking pictures. He bought me a Canon Rebel EOS for our wedding and a very nice Sigma 18-200mm lens for our anniversary. I am beginning to think he should take up the hobby as well…he always manages to get awesome pictures from just his cell phone camera! For this daily prompt I’ll show you one such picture…tables turned…photographing the photographer!
This week’s photo challenge asked us to get nostalgic. What first came to mind was our trip last year to Gettysburg and Antietam. You can’t help but feel nostalgic visiting historic places and, in my opinion, you can feel the “weight” the land holds in memories. There were also a few unique things that happened to us while visiting. My camera had unexplained problems that looked like a thin black arching line through many of my pictures. It was a new camera and lens and the problem has never occurred again! We both sensed various energies while there including a heaviness walking up the stairs in the Jenny Wade house and a random name that popped into my head (Charles Collins) who I later found out was a turncoat from Pennsylvania. In any case, we found the trip so special that we cannot wait to return…maybe even in the next few weeks! I hope the trip is as special as the first.
The great-horned owl sitting in the tree in broad daylight along the bike trail. The red-winged blackbird fanning its wings atop a hay bale in the field. The blue butterfly that stopped for a mere second on atop a black-eyed Susan. The face of my dog mid-dream while I scrambled to get the camera. All these and more…photos that I would love to have but was unable to capture in the moment. Call it photographer’s remorse or a bad case of Sod’s law, it seems that I always manage to see the things best worth photographing when I have either left the camera at home, or it is not ready in time. And I am an amateur, I can only imagine what it feels like for a professional! It used to really bother me (and quite honestly, still does) but I have come to the realization that I can’t allow such missed opportunities to blind me from the “big picture”. If I am to be perfectly honest, some of the best moments I have encountered in nature have been somewhat obscured behind the camera lens. Whether it is trying to find the perfect angle, lighting etc. who knows what I may have missed just by watching. Recently, I have enjoyed taking walks in nature with my husband and two dogs, not attached to my camera waiting for the next photo-op. It is nice to observe, relax and enjoy all of God’s creation. Never mind the dozen or so birds that were posing perfectly for photos along the way. So I will continue to look for those moments I can capture that make me smile, appreciate God a little bit more, or even make me wonder…whether they be on the camera or just in my mind’s eye.
crazy4camping 