ESTABLISHED 2010 - Beyond The Campfire was created to encourage readers to explore the great outdoors and to observe it close up. Get out and take a hike, go fishing or canoeing, or simply stretch out on a blanket under a summer sky...and take your camera along. We'll talk about combining outdoor activities with photography. We'll look at everything from improving your understanding of the basics of photography to more advanced techniques including things like how to see photographically and capturing the light. We'll explore the night sky, location shoots, using off camera speedlights along with nature and landscape. Grab your camera...strap on your hiking boots...and join me. I think you will enjoy the adventure.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Writing and Photography...

There is a quiet nature that fills the air just before dawn...during those moments as the sky grows brighter little by little.  The softness speaks to those who take time to listen...what is said during those times often lingers long after the darkness has faded.  As with most days we soon are caught up in activities that rush about and distract us...but those silent moments...those times when it is most quiet...we always seem to remember with fond reserve.  Words found to describe such times are rare...yet the memories capture the heart of one who has discovered the rarity of those encounters.

I rediscovered such rarity one morning as I drifted across silent waters enjoying a brief and long anticipated escape canoeing the haunts of Shanty Hollow Lake.  It's an odd sensation floating on calm waters in the dark...no real sense of movement.  A hundred or so yards out I coasted to a stop and allowed my gaze to lift upward towards a sky filled with the light of countless stars.  The silence of that moment filled my soul.  For timeless minutes I simply drifted...no wind...no sounds...just the first light of morning to break the darkness.

As I moved on toward that morning rendezvous the stars slowly, one by one, twinkled one last time and faded away.  There was no way to capture the first part of that morning except in words...and in searching for those words I am reminded of the similarities between writing and photography.  Where in writing one seeks to stir the imagination by painting word pictures in the mind of the reader...in photography...one uses light to build an image that expresses emotional visual stories the viewer interprets in their mind.  The thought processes are often the same...to find the right combination of words...or light...to define the subject in such a way that the reader or viewer understands the importance of what you were trying to express.  Writing helps one to become a better photographer because it serves to develop that creative side of the mind...and that in time will lend itself well served.

Keith
at 7:48 PM

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