Nature photography is an art of unpredictability. It is an art of acceptance and adaptability, an art of patience and awareness.
I was surprised, when I visited Mesa Arch in Canyonlands National Park, to find amidst the morning stillness, the gradually warming light, and the echoes of little critters going about their day, a handful of cranky photographers who had travelled hundreds of miles to reach this destination and capture an image that had been photographed thousands of times, bickering with “tourists” who were “in their shot”. A shot they had seemingly waited their entire life to photograph, on which their entire existence depended.
They were so completely absorbed in the idea that what they were about to accomplish far exceeded anything a “tourist” might wish to experience, that they lost sight of anything beautiful around them. And now their picture-perfect memory has been tarnished with the resentment and anger they themselves invoked by their inability to control that which they had no control over.
The natural world doesn’t care about who you are or what you are trying to do. It doesn’t care if you have a lot of money, a lot of friends, a lot of virtual friends, and it doesn’t care about what happens today tomorrow, or yesterday. It doesn’t care if its pictures turn out or if it gets a cut of the profit or if they bring if fame and glory. Nature is a lot like children, only a little less controllable and predictable.