Day 338 / 703 – This almost didn’t get taken. I was pretty stressed for time, and we had to get back to San Francisco so Meg could get to work on time. A 4 hour drive in California into a major city can easily turn into a nightmare.
Luckily, Meg was smart enough to stop. We took a few minutes to roam away from the car and this was one of the results.
The point here is pretty simple: good things happen when you take the time. It’s something I have to remind myself. When I’m on a trip, I want to move on to the next thing, I want to make sure I maximize the things I see, rather than take the time to do it right, or to do it well.
Time is the friend of the photographer. Whether it’s taking the time to think, to pause, to consider about your shot, to get the settings just right, or even showing up at the right time, time is your friend. Even the ‘value’ of a photograph seems to go up the further from the time it was taken we get.
Almost all of my shots that I like the most, I took a little more time to get that shot. I didn’t just raise the camera, shoot, and move on. I have posted plenty of shots here that I rushed, that I pressed my time. And still, sometimes I rush things more than I need.
Sometimes you have to. Like the time I took a picture of a cow in Florida, then heard a shot fired. The cows heard it too, as they started running. That’s a good time to move on quickly.
I need to remind myself to slow down, that the time spent is worth it. And you would think that, with all the times it’s worked out, I wouldn’t need to remind myself. But I do. I think a lot of work is rushed these days, and we aren’t giving our best to what we make. We aren’t giving our work the time it needs to truly be great, or failing that, better.
More on this topic soon.