Living in the present is hard for me. This is one of the reasons I love having adventures, they bring me into the moment, in fact sometimes they force me into the moment.
Now I LOVE photography, I am a sucker for Intsagram, but I especially love historic photographs, I could stare at the people and places in old photos all day long (I am a nerd).
Yet for a while I found myself leaving my camera behind when I went on trips. I had become so focused on the need to get a photo to tell a story or show a product (the life of working for a magazine, you live and breath content) that I wasn’t enjoying where I was. The photo became yet another distraction from being in the here and now.
In a world filled with social media and the constant pressure to appear a certain way in the news feeds of people you hardly know. I was struck by how this is pulling us away from actually enjoying the moment. That amazing moment we are so keen to share with all those jealous onlookers has been lost for ourselves. The clip below from The Secret Life of Walter Mitty hit me when I saw it. I got it, it was what I had been living.
I write all this not to put photography down, like I said I love it. I love that it can capture a moment so you can share it. Just don’t get so caught up in the sharing that you forget to enjoy it yourself. Take some trips without a camera. It makes it all yours, or yours to share with whoever was there to experience it with you. There is no thought of the camera, you can be fully immersed in the moment. It is pretty wonderful, but that’s just me.
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