Carpe Imago

There is a lesson that life keeps trying to teach me and I'm clearly struggling to grasp it.... when a picture presents itself you had better capture it because it might never be there again. This sounds simple right? Well, for some reason it gets complicated when you are out in the world.

Every image is made by the photographer capturing a unique moment in time. Of course, some moments are don't seem very unique, especially when the subject seems static. An interesting barn, a snow covered tree, a mossy rock wall - all these seem like they'll always be there when you want to photograph them. Think again.

Unrealized Image

This lesson is readily adaptable to other facets of life but since my passion is photography that is where I notice it most often. The first time life tried to teach me I was in college at Clarkson University. It was the end of the fall term and I was on my way home from a nighttime calculus final exam. It had been snowing most of the day and as I walked back to my dorm I noticed the trees along the sidewalk had collected a huge amount of snow. The street lamps weren't very tall and backlight the trees rather than shining down from above. I could immediately visualize the final image. BUT... I was tired. I had more studying to do for tomorrow's final exam. I didn't feel like coming back with my camera and tripod. I rationalized not making the image that night - its a tree. It isn't going anywhere and this is Potsdam afterall; it will surely snow again.

Well, it did snow again but the tree was gone. I went home for winter break without getting it done. And then the 1998 ice storm destroyed those trees. All of them. All of the trees along that sidewalk were gone when I got back to campus five weeks later.

That was December 1997. Life gently reminds me of this lesson every now and then, including last week. There was this great old barn not far from my home and right across the street from a nature park that I often hike in. The roof of the barn had a gaping hole in it that roughly aligned with the sunrise. I knew it could be a great picture with the red sunrise glowing through the barn roof. But I dragged my feet never really getting around to it. The barn was finally demolished last week. Maybe to try and teach me this lesson once and for all fate had me driving by the old barn just as then were hauling away the first huge dumpsters of pieces.

Carpe Imago.

-FD-