Letting Go...

...of the 'perfection' idea.  Bit by bit.  Piece by piece.  So very hard for me. 

Where we get water for the caribou at our base facility is down a long steep hill that ends at a creek.  The first year, we ended up having to get water from town because the creek dried up (even though it rained all. the. time that year).  But the second year, we had a family of beavers move in and they built their dam right at our watering station giving us a very nice pond.  They are our friends, although sometimes they scare the crap out of me when I don't see them and they slap their tails in the water (very shrubby down there and home to moose and bear...so large, unexpected noises sometimes make me jump...I'm human). 

It takes about 30-40 minutes to water since our little pump has to push water uphill for a substantial distance...water pressure at the top is less than stellar.  During this time I either just sit quietly trying to breathe, write in my journal, or more recently, have been doing yoga poses during that time, focusing a lot on core strength and balance (the caribou are quite intrigued by these contortions and generally watch me the whole time unless I lose my balance and then they are startled away!).  But the past week or so, every time I've walked down that hill, I see all the flowers in bloom and think "I should have brought my camera out'.  Never mind that it is just a few minute walk back to get it.  Finally, the other day, I went back and got it because I was running out of time to take those photos (flowers moving past prime and I'll be heading into the bush soon). 

I am one of those people, with a digital camera, that if I can, will obsessively check the pictures I've taken before moving on to a different subject.  Are they in focus?  How is the lighting?  etc.  I don't think this is bad...and in some situations (like with the owl babies), I want as 'perfect' of a record of that moment as I can get.  But a few months ago, I read an article that suggested using the digital camera as a film camera and not looking at any of the shots until you get back to the computer.  I thought about this a lot.  Obviously the main point was to improve your photography by thinking more about what and how you are photographing instead of taking a million pictures that aren't well thought out.  But the more I thought about it, I realized it also goes hand in hand with some of the ideas surrounding the dangers of always striving for 'perfection' that I've been thinking about/journaling lately.  So I've been doing that recently:  taking shots and relying only on my intuition of what makes a good photo...but also learning to let go of the disappointment when I realize after the fact that I didn't quite capture it or don't have a single in focus shot in the bunch.   Because it just doesn't matter.  And because we learn more from our failures than from our successes.

I loved shooting film and keep telling myself I need to go back to my old Minolta.  But in the meantime, shooting this way, I've recovered some of the joy of photography that I lost in aiming for 'perfection'.  That delight in seeing some great shots show up and being more proud of them than I've ever been when I get 'that one' but only after 50+ consecutive shots where I'm not really thinking...I'm just shooting on auto-pilot. 

For now, I'm only sharing one of the images.  And it's the one I'm most pleased with.  It's a simple, 'everyday' flower (wild rose -- Rosa acicularis) that is past its prime.  Not only am I pleased with the technical aspects of the photo, I love the chaos I see in it.  The colors of the flower already fading, the petals in disarray and in a different direction than the disarray of the stamens and the disarray of the leaves. 

It reminds me that imperfections can be beautiful. 

It reminds me how much I can gain from challenging myself.

Happy Summer Solstice everyone.  Up here in the far north...I'm grateful that we've reached the point that days will start getting shorter.  I miss the dark and the stars...by August, I'll be able to see them again. 
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Now playing:  Stairway to Heaven sung by the Wilson Sisters (of Heart)

(I just saw this recently though the recording is several years old...I've watched it several times already and each time I get goosebumps it's so good.  There are songs that I feel should not be remade [American Pie, The Boxer, Sweet Home Alabama, Landslide...and many more] and Stairway always fell in the category.  But this version...it gives me chills.)

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