The Stream Less Traveled
Philosophotography #2
The stream less traveled often seems inferior at first.
But follow it long enough and you’ll eventually reach the confluence.
I took a long hike yesterday down an overgrown, fairly unknown trail that follows Avent’s Creek all the way to the Cape Fear River, roughly a four-mile hike out and back. While there, I wrote devotionals by the water all afternoon, stopping from time to time to photograph interesting stirrings that caught my attention. You may notice that these photographs aren’t the sharpest images, but that’s because I shot them with my inexpensive Android phone, partly by choice. Here’s why. A friend of mine recently let me borrow his $500 Canon camera, and I’ve enjoyed using it for certain shots, but, to be honest, I’m too much of a simpleton when it comes to technology, and I find myself fumbling around with all the nobs and buttons and settings and missing quite a few moments because of it. For instance, along the trail yesterday, I came across an adorable little snail slowly crawling along the top of an exposed root, illumined by a thin sunray shining down through the trees; but by the time I’d pulled out the camera bag from my backpack, installed the correct lens, and placed the camera in focus, the snail was already off the root. In my frustration at having missed the moment, I did something awful—almost unforgivable. I snatched up the poor snail in my greedy fingers, placed him back atop the exposed root, and attempted to relive the moment I’d just failed to capture, not caring that Mr. Snail had his own life to attend to, nor considering that perhaps he’d been working hard at the office all day and needed to get home to his wife and kids. Oh, but Mr. Snail had an unbreakable will, and he refused to be a pawn in my little game, and he nobly balled himself up inside his shell right there atop that root and didn’t come back out, which I greatly admire him for.
Maybe I’m just better off with a lower-maintenance instrument, one that I can click really quickly while moving on. In fact, maybe it’s actually a better representation of the scope of the work on the whole, considering that I, too, am just an imperfect, rough-around-the-edges man trying to capture an imperfect, rough-around-the-edges world. It seems I should choose an instrument that contains a bit of grit and graininess in its operation; one that isn’t so sophisticated or high resolution; one that I can carry with me through the forests and creeks and rocky crags and not worry about dropping or getting wet or scratching. And that’s what my Android phone is: a lens that not only takes pictures of the rugged trails but is itself a picture of them.
Considerations like these have grown my admiration for Monet’s work as a painter the older I’ve gotten. Even though I don’t subscribe to all the particular methodological characteristics of the Impressionist school of thought, the idea of Impressionism compels me greatly, because I view it as an attempt to marvel at the movements in God’s great world and catch them in the moment. Technology these days enables us to stage a scene and manipulate the lighting and pretty up all the rough spots and brush away the dirt and debris and broken bottles from the shorelines and soften the worm lines in the tree trunks and blur out the dead leaves on the shoreline. But an impressionist doesn’t buy into all that. He doesn’t paint a fantasy world and call it realistic. He paints the real world and calls it fantastic.
Half of me hopes that someday, if I’m still doing this in ten years, I’ll have a state-of-the-art camera, and a tripod, and a drone, and every possible device I could ever need to catch life’s magical moments from every angle. But another part of me hopes I’ll have thrown away my camera by then, tired of encountering the world through a screen rather than my own two eyes: tired of capturing movements but missing the moments.
Such great insights Seth … and had me laughing over Mr. Snail’s hard day at the office!
Great insight on simplicity. Capturing a specific moment is definitely easier with an instrument that’s more straightforward and easy going. Whether professional or not, any moment is captured - even if you’ve unfortunately missed a specific moment appear in frame.
With photography aside…sometimes there is more worth in just soaking in any moment or view with our own very eyes, rather than being distracted by anything else.
What matters most I think is that, we’re able to enjoy what the Lord has made in accordance to His will. We can stand still in awe and admiration, astonished by the craftsmanship and handiwork of His hands and acknowledge creation that fully displays his sovereignty.