Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about why I make images. What’s my motivation to get up at unreasonable hours, explore dusty dirt roads that haven’t been touched in years, or hike for hours in the sun only to never take my camera out? The answers–of course–transcend photography, but I have been able to identify some discrete reasons why I make images. You can read part 2 (beauty) here.
Part 1: Perspective
“Good and evil do not exist in Nature.” — Spinoza
So far this year, I’ve landed in Sequoia National Park a couple of times. I didn’t really plan it this way, it just happened. Most people associate the park with its namesake giant trees, which are truly impressive. However, Sequoia’s backcountry is equally awe-inspiring; not only can you find the world’s largest trees here, but also the highest point in the contiguous United States. They’re just a short 72.2 mile hike from one another (a day hike for some–Leor Pantilat ran the High Sierra trail in just under 16 hours in 2012).
Whether you choose to focus on the forest or the trees, Sequoia’s landscape is big. On my second trip to the park recently, I was on a solo backpack via the Golden Trout Wilderness. While the scenery here isn’t as well known as some other iconic Sierra locales, the views of the Kahweahs, Chagoopa Plateau, and Great Western Divide are impressive, and the scale of the landscape quickly becomes apparent. While slightly less well-known, the landscape is still rugged. In late May at 11,000′, the temperatures were still chilly and snow flurries reminded me winter might not be willing to loosen its grip quite yet.
Although rugged, I’m hesitant to say that the landscape is unforgiving because it simply can’t be. It’s unresponsive. That’s, I think, why I came here. As Gretel Ehrlich wrote, I needed to be steadied by its indifference. So much of the time, our burdens in life feel very big. However in the grand scheme of things, things are really very different and those big problems maybe aren’t quite as insurmountable after all. Standing in the Sierra or any landscape, I’m reminded of my smallness–my place–in the world.
Paraphrasing Muir, going out is really going in, and there’s a unique comfort to be found in a visiting a place that simply just is.
I make images in places like this to regain my perspective, to remember that I’m part of something bigger. This isn’t to say that my worries and cares are diminished, but that’s the challenge: can we not make something more than it is, while at the same time not make it less than it was? Can the images we create answer this challenge? Can photography become a practice in self-awareness and in helping us to gain perspective?
