gdanmitchell
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 Re: Getting the photo vs the experience of getting the photo | |
Jim Dockery wrote:
I'Back in my 20s, when I was climbing hard, my partners and I debated the merits of bringing along a camera to document our adventures. I had done so since starting out in my teens, but was delving into eastern philosophy and meditation. I found that photos led me to remember those moments more that others, and I wondered if it changed my overall memory/feel of the day. When I couldn't afford film while in college it was easy to get into "the zen of climbing." I was happy to do so, but once I got a real job, and could afford a new camera and film, I got right back into photograph and integrated it into my climbing as an integral part of the whole experience.
I have a long background in outdoor stuff, too — road and dirt cycling (a LOT of the former), backpacking (all told, I've spent enough time in the backcountry that it adds up to several years, cross-country skiing (for decades), and some climbing, though I suspect your climbing experience was deeper than mine.
The role of photography in my outdoor life evolved in some interesting (to me, anyway) ways over the years.
I started very early. (I never took any of his workshops or knew him personally like friends of mine, but I met Ansel and was inspired by him) I started photographing the so-called "natural world" in my early teens, and I started backpacking shortly after that. I always carried photography equipment into the back country: camera, multiple lenses, more film that people could probably imagine today. (On one memorable two-week Sierra trip I started with a 75 lb pack.)
This continued for a long time. But eventually I became more focused on the pure experience of backcountry travel, and the photography began to get less attention. It got to the point that by the 1990s I was carrying only an old Rollei 35 or a little Olympus Stylus... and pretty much just making a few "I was here" photographs — or pictures of my kids once I started taking them along.
So for me, when it became about the experience, the photography almost ceased entirely.
Sometime just before 2000 my interest in photographing these adventures started to return. By 2005 I was well equipped with digital gear, lenses, tripod and all the rest... and while I still treasure the experience of being in the backcountry A LOT, producing photographs in that world became a main focus on its own. Instead of moving from place to place every day and putting in the miles I started staying in one spot longer and working the landscape. (I've stayed in one location for as long as a week in the years since then on multiple occasions.)
While there is joy and satisfaction in making photographs, in many ways it interferes with (or at least radically alters) the pure experience of just bing in those places. And, if you are serious about the photography — and I know many here are — it is actually work. Up well before dawn, out after dark, working in rain and wind and snow. I don't complain, because the work is rewarding, but if I just wanted the experience, I'd leave the camera gear at home.
Now, it is true that doing photography changes the way you relate to your subject, be it a person, a city, or a landscape. I think that we do slow down and look more deeply at our subjects — we must if we are to do more than capture snapshots. We think about the light, the conditions, the season, and over time we learn a lot about our subjects, to the extent that I believe we see things that others miss.
I also have never really understood the folks who profess to get their primary joy from using the gear. To me, the gear is just the tool I use to make the photographs. I manually focus in my landscape work — but it isn't because manually focusing gives me some kind of joy. It is for entirely practical, photographic reasons.
As always, YMMV.
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