Unexpected Gifts

I read about photographers who approach their photography as a successful CEO might prepare for a meeting of the company board of directors: plan the work and work the plan. I understand and admire the strategy; photography doesn't seem to work that way for me. It's not that I don't think ahead of time or go to a location with a pre-determined subject or point of view. More often than not, I am surprised by what or who I find. I practice pre-visualizing only to find other gifts await. Mindful photography for me means more than using my mind to learn my gear or learn about the natural rhythms of the places and critters I love to photograph--although I do all that to try to be prepared when I go. Mindful photography means having an open mind and heart to respond to the moment as it is. I often find myself longing for more time to photograph, wishing I had hours to spend in a given spot, or the chance to revisit sites day after day to learn even more about who comes where, when. My life--as I suspect is true of many of you--includes what I've come to call touch-and-go photography. I squeeze in precious minutes around necessary tasks. I let those minutes touch my heart and I go back into the daily refreshed and inspired.

Here are three of my favorite gifts I never saw coming.

After a late fall nor'easter, I went to the beach, intent on the wrack line, a treasure trove of whelk egg cases, skate cases, broken shells, small driftwood fragments. I kept my eyes downward toward my feet when a persistent impulse insisted: look UP! I finally listened, looked, and received this "Sky Smile" -- an upside-down rainbow directly overhead. Seconds later it was gone. 

This is also an "after-the-storm" image. I'd hired a pilot so I could photograph the Currituck Light from the air.  As we flew north I noticed huge clumps of sea foam, one of which looked like a misshapen heart. As I watched and photographed, the heart came into perfect form. Seconds later, the shape changed. By the time we reached the lighthouse, the sun's angle made the photograph I'd originally envisioned impossible. I'm convinced I was in the air that day to receive--and share--this greater gift. 

In January 2013 a group of local nature photographers made our annual trek to Lake Mattamuskeet. This would be my first time at the lake before dawn. I imagined vibrant winter skies, glowing oranges and pinks in sky and water. Instead, the day dawned with dense fog rather than golden morning light. The fog turned out to be the gift. The cypress trees, seemingly suspended in space, mesmerized me. I photographed them from different angles with different lenses at different times of the morning. A year later, this photograph would win the Gold Medal for landscape photography in the inaugural World Photographic Cup: definitely a gift I never saw coming!

Cabin Fever

Lately I, along with many artist and photographer friends, am suffering a long case of Cabin Fever. And it’s only January!  We’re not snowed in or iced in, as are our neighbors to the north and west. We’re grayed-in and rained-in and therefore somewhat reined in (pun intended).

Funny term, cabin fever. When I think of “cabin” I immediately free associate woods and wood, cozy, warm, inviting, blanket, fireplace and mountains.  Those are all exciting and comforting words for me. Some readers may instead conjure sand, relaxing, colorful, beach towel and ocean.

For whatever form your Cabin Fever takes, I offer up these treasured moments and memories.

Cabin Rockers, North Rim, Grand Canyon

Western North Carolina

Old Cape Cod

Hatteras Village, NC

Sealed...with Gratitude

Harbor seals herald winter on the Outer Banks, as Osprey signal spring's official arrival. 

Probably prompted by yesterday's minimum temperature of sixteen degrees, the season's first harbor seal hauled out to rest on the (comparatively) warm sand of Kitty Hawk this afternoon. As the shadows lengthened and the tide crept in, the seal went back in the water and swam away south. For the past several years, harbor seals have come ashore along the Outer Banks for a few hours to a few days in order to warm themselves and snooze in the sun. NEST volunteers typically place signs in the area asking folks to give the seals a wide berth and let them rest. This is a situation where a telephoto lens comes in handy. 

Healthy seals rest in a position that would send me running, make that hobbling, to the nearest chiropractor! The "banana" pose is a sign of a healthy seal, and this one stretched and rolled and raised its hind flippers multiple times.

 

Here is a first look, from several houses to the north.

Yes, they look cute. No, you may not go up to one. 

The only way to approach them is via binoculars or a long lens--for their safety and yours. 

Big yawn. 

Shortly after the tide came in, the seal left the beach. Nap time over. 

Essences of Winter

As owner along with my husband Pete of a fine art gallery and frame shop on the Outer Banks of NC, I've made friends with many painters these past nine years. Painters--like writers and musicians--begin with a blank. A blank canvas, a blank paper, an empty page, silence. Into this space they pour themselves, their visions, their words, their melodies.

Photographers are polar opposites. We begin with an overload of input, all our eyes can see in any given direction, all our ears can hear. Our challenge is to edit from the get-go, not after a first draft or initial sketch. Out of all this stimuli, where is the story? What cries out or whispers gently for attention? What is the essence here?

Sometimes the entire scene properly framed can communicate the essence of a place or a season. Sometimes the essence is much more subtle and better told through distilling an image that contains very few elements. Take winter. (The forecast with windchill for tomorrow morning is single digits, so I have "essence of winter" on my mind tonight.)

Our winters, even our worst ones, contain plenty of days over 50 degrees, and enough days in the 60s and above to make us believe in spring all winter long. If we do get a snowstorm, accumulation usually is under an inch or two and rarely lasts longer than a day. We don't have iconic snowcapped mountain peaks and frozen waterfalls.  So how can a photographer get to the essence to tell a winter story of the Outer Banks?

This illustrates an example of a scene with multiple elements, all of which help define the sense of place that is the mid-Atlantic coast. Sand fence does duty as snow fence, seaside grasses are covered with white powder which balances with the white foam of a wind-driven ocean. 

Here I went searching for something subtler. Spanish moss is native to the southeast coast; the limit of its northern native range is coastal Virginia.  The contradiction of a plant associated with the deep south bearing a weight of snowfall creates a vignette of winter in the south. The fact that the snowy moss resembled a heart is what drew my own heart to the story being told here through very few elements. 

Neither approach is superior. Photographers, as their artistic compatriots, must exercise the power of choice and discernment to tell their stories well.