as i wandered this location within death valley national park, i stopped - as i often do - closed my eyes, and listened. i heard the most beautiful sound ever.
silence.
nothing.
nada.
if you’ve followed me for a while, you’ve likely heard me talk about my experience while out in nature. i stop often to listen; smell; and look up, down and around. all of these experiences help to tell the story of that particular location - to tell the story of that spot. and i try to include that story in any images i may make there.
but there are also experiences that will be remembered for the duration of my life, or at least as long as my mind works well enough to remember. and this moment, this experience, was one of those.
people often talk about quiet and the ability to hear a pin drop. this moment, and the one a number of moments later when i again stopped, closed my eyes, and listened - those moments were so silent a pin dropping would have sounded like a cannon blast.
of all the times i’ve stopped to close my eyes and smell the air, followed by intently listening to the world around me, i’ve never experienced silence like this. there have been times where the birds didn’t cackle, there was no squirrel excitedly warning his or her friends about the intruder in their space, there was no water rushing past or lapping the shore. but there’s always been the slightest breeze blowing past my ear, or rustling the trees or grasses. this was the most pure absence of sound i can remember experiencing in my life, and my god was it gorgeous.
i was, ironically enough, at a photography workshop where one of my photographic heroes, and someone you’re likely sick of hearing me talk about, guy tal was teaching us about making more expressive photos. and he often mentioned the experience of the moment as being incredibly important.
so, how does one impart that experience of the moment into an image? the first thing that must occur is the person has to experience the moment! how often is it that photographers and non-photographers stop just long enough to raise their camera, (or cell phone) point it at something, maybe adjust the lens slightly, snap an exposure and move onto the “next spot”. that, my friends, is not experiencing the moment. that is “wham bam, thank you ma’am” photography - it’s getting a quickie with nature. and here’s the thing - you may get a good image, or even a beautiful image.
but you’ll be missing out on the potential for some of the best memories you may have in your life, because you’re in a rush to “get to the next spot” or perhaps for that wonderful acronym, FOMO.
my dad absolutely adored wolves. on my last trip to yellowstone national park, i went to the hayden valley before sunrise, hoping for some magical light even though it had rained the previous night and looked overcast. i setup on a small hill overlooking the yellowstone river, looking south and made an image. it is for all intents and purposes, a pedestrian, average image, at best. and it’s one of my favorite images that i’ve ever taken. because as i setup and waited for the light to hopefully appear, i heard a pack of wolves excitedly howl a mile away at what i can only guess was a meal. and that moment brought me closer to my father and best friend, who’d passed away about five years prior. it’s the experience that made that moment another that i’ll never forget. my hard drive can crash and any prints i make may burn, but i’ll always have the experience of that moment.
an image for my father
if you crave more meaningful, deeper, more interesting images, chase experiences rather than pictures. put all you have into the composition of those images and the processing and printing of those images to express what that experience felt like. it may be that the light never appears, as it didn’t in yellowstone that morning, but the experience will be far more fulfilling than hundreds of the quickie photos one can make, combined.