Connection

My favorite part of my most recent photography outing didn’t involve my camera at all. People often talk about landscape photography as an escape from the busy world. And while this is true, I think escape is more of a temporary effect. You have to return to the chaos of regular life after all. There is no escaping that. 

I like to think of landscape photography as less of an escape and more of a connection. While it is true that I do not think of the “outside” world when I am out making my images, it is not so much that I have left it behind, but that I have entered someplace new and yet familiar. There is a sense of comfort once I have set out to experience a place and to photograph it. Immersion in a place is where the connection happens. It is less a connection with the place but more with yourself. Here, there are no distractions, no emails, phone calls, or deadlines. It is yourself and a moment. A moment that is your own, that will be experienced uniquely by you. A connection that reveals some of yourself to you. This is a connection between yourself and your own thoughts. Your perception of the environment you are currently surrounded by. 

I think this connection is where our “style” or “meaning” in our images comes from. Technique is necessary, but the connection to the place is what determines which technique is needed in the moment. The resulting image is, for me, about the connection had in that moment, a connection that may never happen again, not in exactly the same way, at least. 

These are the moments I like to stop and appreciate where I am and what I get to do. Photography is a wonderful gift that motivates me to get out and reconnect with myself. I had this moment on my last outing. It was a rainy day, and I had been out for hours already. I had just put my camera back in the bag and was about to head further down the trail when I stopped. No reason; I just stopped and stood there. I closed my eyes and listened to the rain bounce off of my backpack and my raincoat. I felt the cold breeze on my neck and my damp hat on my head. There was nothing else, no sounds, no thoughts, no distractions. Just me and a connection to where I was.