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Steel Wool Spinning at the Imperial Beach Pier with LensLife meetup, Imperial Beach, California, USA Taken 22 August 2016.
It is a surprising fine line we photographers walk between using our photography to heighten our experience of a place and allowing our drive to photograph a place interfere with our ability to enjoy it. I got in to photography because I already liked to go out hiking. I spent lots of time in forests, on mountains and underground in caves. It only seemed natural after a fashion to start carrying a camera to photograph those places. But before long the drive to photograph those places resulted in me being led around with a noose in the form of a camera strap around my neck. I would finish one photo to immediately turn my thoughts to what the next photo I planned on making was going to be. Getting a pinhole certainly helped break this cycle. I had a camera that had no viewfinder, there was no need to hunker behind it, putting a wall between me and where I was. In addition, I had a camera that had to take long amounts of time to make images. It would hog my tripod for minutes on end, forcing me to do little else but sit there and enjoy the scene around me. I made a five minute exposure once at Lost Lake with my pinhole camera. One of the comments I received asked me how I could be so patient to wait through a five minute exposure. I was like, "really? Is it that difficult to pass five minutes doing nothing on a brilliant sunny day at a beautiful lake in an alpine wildnerness?" Sadly the answer is so often, yes it is. We are so driven to make images so that we will have something to show us afterward what we just experienced.
So in thanks to the camera that helped me learn how to slow down and how to spend more time beside the camera, not behind it, I have this pinhole image from Paris, as well as this song, Lenslife, by the band Fanfarlo.
Just don't let it get away
And one day, I can say that I lived it all
And one day, I can say that I remember it
And one day, I can say that I've got hard evidence.
We have a better chance on paper so we catalogue our lives
Our lenses and our eyes are synchronized now anyhow
Prefer reflections, any things that you can fit within a page
Just don't let it get away,
And one day, I can say that I lived it all
And one day, I can say that I remember it
Imperial Beach Pier Sunset with surfers; Imperial Beach; California; USA. LensLife Meetup. Taken 22 August 2016