Favorite Place to Photograph

Dear Bubbles:
What’s your favorite place to photograph?
~Countless People

Dear Countless People:
If you had asked me this question 15 years ago, I would have quickly and concisely spewed a list of greatest hits of iconic locations: Acadia National Park in Maine, the Grand Canyon in Arizona, the Columbia River Gorge in Oregon.

When I first picked up a camera in 2001, I thought the secret to making a great photograph resided with external variables. I believed beauty and “the” shot existed somewhere “out there.”  All I had to do was find it—and find it in optimal weather and lighting conditions. I spent a lot of money, airline miles, and time chasing the so-called “right place at the right time.” My trips to these scenic locales absolutely led to unforgettable moments, for which I am grateful. Most of the time, though, I came home from these excursions with memory cards filled with images I didn’t really like.

In October 2013, I visited the rocky coastline along Ocean Drive in Acadia National Park as I had done so many times before. I darted around from rock to rock looking for a good composition. Clouds started glowing a rich pink. I started getting worked up. The voices in my head started reeling: “The light is happening. You don’t have a composition ready. What are you going to shoot?”

I took a deep breath and pulled my eye away from the viewfinder. I looked up at the clouds and felt a jolt of sadness. Not because I couldn’t find a photograph, but rather because I realized in that moment that I had seen the sun rise only through my viewfinder ever since taking up photography. I had not watched a sun rise with my own eyes.

Prior to this revelation, I would have given up on myself. I would have packed up my camera and tripod and left in disappointment. I did pack up my camera and tripod. But instead of leaving, I sat down and watched the sun bathe the granite ledges rimmed with evergreens and birch in rich, orange light. My cheeks warmed. My eyes brightened. My heart thawed. I had been focused so much on chasing light and “nailing the shot” in beautiful places that I had missed out on so many chances to fully experience and feel what I was photographing, to truly connect with a place I had come to love, to feel alive. Yes, I happened to be on the gorgeous shoreline in Acadia. But the sun rises across the globe. I could have felt this way anywhere else. And now I do.

Since then, I’ve thought a great deal about why I photograph. Why do you photograph?

My answer has changed over the 24 years I’ve photographed. It’s not because I love pressing a shutter button or getting published in a magazine or winning contests with my picture—although those have been some of the reasons for photographing in the past. Today, though, it’s not extrinsically-based; it’s intrinsically-based.

The truth is, I connect with moments, not necessarily places. Of course, my portfolio includes mostly landscapes and natural scenes. After all, I fall in love again and again with the experience of being outside among the ravens, cliffs, and rivers which do not care who we are, where we’re from, how much pie we ate for breakfast, or how many photographs we’ve made—or whether they’re any good. Where the expectations, pressures, and meaningless minutiae of the manufactured world get carried away by the wind and the real world reveals the core of who we truly are. Where my inner voice rises above the noise of all the outside ones.

So I no longer go out on photo shoots in places. I go out on experiences: a walk or a hike or a paddle. I carry my camera to help me tell my story to the places I go, but I don’t carry any expectation of making an image. Instead, I wander and wonder.

Or more formally put, I’ve adopted an autotelic approach to my life and thus my creative work. An autotelic approach means choosing to do things for their own sake with no expectation of any end goal or result. Simply discovering things about the world, myself, others, and my craft enriches my life in ways I didn’t previously think possible, beyond surface level beauty and into the depths of my existence.

If I do create an image, it’s because I have witnessed something with awe and wonder. I discovered something and felt some connection, emotion, or story. I had something to say about that moment in that moment even if I couldn’t find the words to describe it. I choose to elevate and celebrate that moment through a photograph (and sometimes in a painting or a haiku or an essay or more recently, a song). For example, I made the photograph at the top of the post while watering my dear friends’ front yard and dog-sitting their two retired sled dogs. It’ll forever remind me of the time I spent with them this summer. (Iris is also one of my friend’s favorite flower.)

My photograph is my way of offering gratitude, a way for me to recognize and honor my place and connection with place—my place in whatever place. My creative expressions also remind me of my privilege of being alive and having the freedom to chose what I do with my time on Earth. My photographs teach me. The “keeper” images, and even my screw-ups, help me learn new things about myself, my craft, my approach, and my world. A photograph indicates I’ve grown somehow, someway.

As Dorothea Lange said: “The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.”

There is so, so much to see in this world, so much more than any of us could take in during our short lives. There is so much magic all around us all the time if we just care to notice it. In our backyards, in our local parks, on the way to the grocery store, on visits with friends, and yes, in picturesque locations too. I’ve learned over time that the most powerful photographs emerge from how deeply curious we are and how courageous we are in celebrating the uniqueness of our lives everywhere and anywhere the journey takes us.

So the truth is, in answering this question: my favorite place to photograph is wherever I find myself in the moment. This isn’t a cop-out. It’s a recognition that I love my life. All of it, the good and bad, the easy and hard, the ugly and beautiful.

Sure, I still love visiting grand landscape locales like Acadia, the Grand Canyon, and the Columbia River Gorge. These places are iconic for good reason—they are stunningly gorgeous. And I believe you can still make your own connections, meaning, and photographs of those places if that’s what you care to do. Go for it!

But if we wait to create images only in these “special” places, we risk missing the miraculous details that unfold around—and within us—all the time. We bring the creative juice anywhere and everywhere we go. It’s not waiting for us elsewhere. The chance to develop special connections, build memories, and grow as humans happens in the present, in the “right here, right now,” not just in the “best” locations. Because every place and every moment becomes sacred when we decide to revere it as such.

So instead of choosing a single favorite place or offer a list, I pick wherever I am in my life’s journey as my favorite place to photograph.

As the poet Mary Oliver suggests in her “Sometimes” poem, “Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”

Be well, be brave, be wild,
~Bubbles

Have a question about photography and/or the creative life? Need some advice? Looking for inspiration? Send your question to Dear Bubbles at colleen@colleenminiuk.com to be possibly featured in a future column post. (If you’d prefer a different display name than your real first name, please include your preferred nickname in your note.)

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