The Hunt
Anyone who has ever picked up a camera, or a paintbrush, or a pen for that matter, soon enough finds themselves in the artistic wastelands, searching for that perfect thing to shoot (photographically speaking), or paint, or write. And we begin this insane hunt for that Tom Mangelsen nature shot, a Joe McNally perspective, or a Chuck Palahniuk, “Fight Club”-ish-type, story. Now, of course, there isn’t anything wrong with a good hunt in and of itself. It’s good exercise. The problem comes when the hunt becomes the primary focus and you stop looking at what’s right in front of you. Such was the case last weekend.
Earlier in the week my brother, John, and I had discussed venturing out to shoot some stuff (photographically speaking). That was it. “Some stuff”. We didn’t really pinpoint what it was we wanted to shoot: rocks, trees, lakes, barns…naked women? No. Just some stuff. Let me rephrase that: Some COOL stuff.
Sunday morning we hopped in his Yukon and ventured towards our destination. Well, first we stopped at Starbucks and then sat in the parking lot with our coffees and flipped through a Colorado Outdoors guide for a good 30 minutes. Finally we decided that we would journey to a 40-year-old plane crash site in the mountains an hour or so outside of Denver. Hell yeah! We had our point of focus.
After, oh, 20 or 30 U-Turns, and the constant mumbling of the phrase “what the fuckin’ shit…?” we finally found ourselves at the point of attack. At least that’s where we thought we were. In fact, we were standing about 50 feet off the shoulder of I-70 looking at a snow-covered stream bed with 45 degree walls on either side of it. It wasn’t what you would call ominous. Perhaps daunting might be a better way to describe it.
I took my first step onto our intended path to photo gold and was immediately knee-deep in old snow. The kind of snow that seems like it was constructed from bits of shattered glass. I looked up ahead of me and saw two things. 1) The grade of the incline was a hell-of-lot steeper than it looked one step ago. And 2) If we were to continue up this path this would be the first of, maybe, 800 similar steps. I pulled my leg up and felt the frozen snow shards melting in my Keen hikers.
“Oh shit!” I heard my brother shout as I turned to see him sink to his waist just off to my right.
“So, you think that maybe we should come back in summer?” I asked.
“Well…The thing can’t be that-OW! MotherFucker!”
“What?”
“My friggin tri-pod just attempted to plunge itself through my liver.”
We continued on like this for another 40 minutes, slipping on cold, wet rocks, and falling sideways into deep-assed snow. The final straw was when my brother stumbled, and nearly tumbled, through the snow and ice into the stream we could hear flowing beneath the white crust.
“Alright, fuck this. The only thing we are going to get here is a torn ACL, or worse. Let’s get the hell out of here. Come back when the place doesn’t resemble fuckin’ Hoth.”
Slightly, but not completely, dejected we tossed our photo gear into the back of the Yukon and climbed into the warm cab. It was only as we were pulling away from the small, unmarked path that it hit me. I’d blown the best photo opportunity of the day. I was so consumed with the great shots we were going to get of this old wreck that I’d kept my camera in my backpack during this whole escapade. Hadn’t shot a single frame of what we’d just experienced because I wasn’t seeing what was transpiring right in front of me. Not to sound too goofy, but I was living in the future and not in the moment.
We made one more pit stop before meandering home. It was the remnant of some old mining village on the route to Central City. And while not the mind blowing images we had envisioned, we still yanked out our cameras and ventured down to see what it was all about.
Brother John shooting some historical trash.
So, the next time I find myself bemoaning the fact that I don’t have a story to write, or have nothing to shoot (photographically speaking), I will promptly tell myself to “shut the hell up and look at what is right under my friggin’ nose.” The magic is usually only an inch or so away.