In fact, I actually didn’t like the class very much, and my walking away afterwards with barely a passing grade proves it.

Hand-held light meters, aperture settings, shutter speeds, dark rooms, and different film ISO’s- none of it made any sense to me back then, not one bit, which is why I struggled through the entire class and couldn’t wait for it to be over.

Even though the actual skill of taking a good photo eluded me at first, the overall concept of taking photographs and being able to show other people what I saw at a later time always resonated within and intrigued me, and it still does to this very day.

It’s interesting to note that, despite a very poor showing in my photography class, the one thing I always wanted to do, well, ever since my college days, that is, was to be an outdoor writer/photographer so I could share the things of this world that astonished me with others, hoping it would astonish them also.

I know what you are thinking because, honestly, it has crossed my mind a million times, too; it sounds pretty absurd that someone who flunked every English class he ever took and barely passed his one and only photography class could somehow end up doing both of those things for a living someday, even if it means selling t-shirts one blog reader at a time.

But that’s just how I roll and, trust me, it makes no sense to me either.

.

Over the years, I had a few articles published here and there, a tiny bit of success I’d surmise, but it was nothing of any real substance, mind you.

Nothing really happened until the invention of the internet, and my dream of becoming an outdoor writer took its first real breath with the realization I didn’t need to convince a publisher to get my idea out there; I just needed a website, an internet connection, a way to monetize my efforts, and a whole lot of drive and determination to do it myself.

Being a professional photographer, by itself, was never really on my radar; it was the concept of sharing the written word with a few photos to help enhance the story that encouraged me to keep photographing and getting to where my images were, at the very least, decent enough to publish.

Needless to say, I’ve taken an immeasurable number of photographs over the past 40 years, with a good number of them on the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge auto tour route, and I’d like to say it has taught me a thing or two about how to capture a fair photo, but, as strange as it might sound, it’s not the ‘how to take a photograph’ that I think’s the most important part of photography but the ‘why we should take a photograph’ that should stand out the most.

I was reminded of this notion just last night, in fact, as I was walking with the setting sun to my right, shown below, and my thoughts turned from the troubles of the day to what an interesting scene that was being laid before me, and somehow, someway, even with just a phone at my disposal, I had to photograph the moody sunset before it was gone forever

.

What I want to infer here, if for nothing else, is the greatest benefit of photography isn’t the photograph itself, no matter how good the resulting image is, but the actual process of photography.

You see, taking a photograph is more than just pointing a camera and pushing a button, a lot more, in fact.

First off, there’s the time spent just finding something interesting enough to photograph, which in and of itself can be hard enough to do, especially if you’re limited by what camera you have at your disposal.

Next, once a subject is found, composing a pleasing scene takes a bit of thought, as well as understanding how to capture the available light so the image really pops.

All of these things take time to process in our minds and work out through the camera lens, and it’s that thought process alone, from start to finish, that is the true benefit of photography.

Taking a photo is very therapeutic for the mind; it really is, and I can say that from decades of personal experience standing behind a camera.

.

Spending time looking for something to photograph and working out just how to capture the image takes our minds off of things from our daily lives that might be troubling us- the anxieties and stresses we all have if we are honest with ourselves- and allows our minds to rest for a minute or two while we work on capturing the image in front of us.

I am a firm believer there are times we need to just step away from the woes of daily life and rest our minds for a spell, and photography is a great way to do just that because to take a great photograph you really need to focus, no pun intended, on the task at hand, and that means our minds can’t dwell on what might be troubling us when we are actively taking photographs.

That is why I try to take at least one photograph a day, even if it is just an average sunset from the neighborhood on my nightly walk.

Sometimes, the images are pretty good, and I am able to use them in a blog post; other times, they are just digital fodder for a few social media posts, and then there are the times I don’t even post the images but occasionally show them in person to friends.

Either way, the benefit of taking a photograph is the same: rest for a weary mind, and why I believe the process of photography is highly beneficial for our mental state and could help us each and every day.

I also found this to be true with playing a musical instrument, but photography is something anyone can start and succeed at almost immediately, whereas playing a musical instrument takes time to develop enough skill to drive the inherent frustration away.

If you have a phone, then you have the means to take a picture, and it doesn’t have to be a wall-banger of an image either; the process of taking photographs, by itself, is worth far more than any image you will ever take.

I try to take at least one photograph each day, not for the image itself but for the mental rest it provides for the few moments I am trying to work out how to capture the scene before me.

If the image can be useful for a blog or social media post to help sell my t-shirts, that is icing on the cake, but the real benefit of photography is just resting the mind for a few moments while enjoying what nature has to offer us.

.

I can honestly say I’ve never really felt stumped with a camera in my hands; pictures just seem to present themselves out of the blue without much or any effort at all on my part.

They sort of, and to be quite honest here, just kind of happen, and it’s been that way for as long as I can remember.

Wouldn’t it be nice if writing were that way?

Seriously, writer’s block has me against the ropes most days, and it gets pretty frustrating at times that I don’t have the same inspiration with a pen in my hand as I do sitting behind a camera.

The only way I can describe it is that a so-called mental alarm goes off in my head when I see something interesting, and I have to stop and take a picture to turn off this cerebral notification.

If I don’t oblige it and ignore the alarm, the missed opportunity will eat at me until something else presents itself, which causes it to go off again, much like the morning alarm clock does for both you and me when we hit the snooze button and don’t get up right away.

Even if it is just documenting something unique, definitely a valid and useful reason to take a picture, I have never had trouble finding something to photograph, and there are a few broken and worn-out cameras on my shelf to back that claim up.

The reason I’ve never had any trouble finding things to photograph is, simply put, I don’t actually photograph for an audience, per se.

In other words, finding something I think someone else would enjoy is not what causes me to push the shutter button, not in the least, it has never been my motivation and never really will be either.

Don’t get me wrong, however, I truly love the challenge of photographing unique moments in nature and sharing them with the world on my Bear River Blogger website, but when that mental alarm goes off, it’s solely because I think the scene is mesmerizing and the moment has to be captured before it’s gone for good.

Maybe the best way to describe it is I’m some kind of digital hoarder, of sorts, that has to document everything I see that is of interest to me.

The hard part is when I do share a few of the images, a tiny portion of what I photograph actually gets shared by the way, with the masses and nobody connects with them.

Honestly, that can be kind of an emotional buzzkill, to say the least.

Even though I photograph for myself, first and foremost, there isn’t a photographer on the planet, myself included, who doesn’t like the validation of people loving what they have captured and shared with the world.

But living behind a camera has to be more, far more, in fact, than taking pretty pictures and sharing them on the internet or on a gallery wall for praise, or photography burnout would be much more common, I would say.

I think far more than wooing the masses with compelling images, we, as photographers, need to use our craft to express ourselves with the camera in our hands, just for the sake of seeing something we think is unique and capturing it for no other reason than to say we did.

If you photograph for validation from the world, always seeking better and more unique images, it will be a short journey, one most likely headed for burnout someday, but if you photograph for yourself there will be a lifetime of discoveries and you never have to fear losing your passion for this craft.

My time behind a camera has passed the mark of 40 years now, and I can say there have been a few times I have felt photography burnout creeping in because I was hyper-focused on my website, and the constant pressure of always coming home with better and more interesting images started to take a toll on me.

And let’s add to the pressure and face a bit of reality here.

Unfortunately, there is an unwritten phenomenon in the photography world, and it revolves around competition and trying to be better than the guy next to you who is also holding a camera.

I’ll shamefully admit, the competition bug once found a way inside of my head many years ago, and it was awful, fueling jealousy of other photographers that were obviously better than me, which is a realization every photographer has to swallow someday or they are headed for disaster, trust me on that.

That is when it wasn’t fun anymore and I had to start photographing once again for myself and not worrying if anybody “gets it” or not when they viewed one of my images, and I definitely had to squash the jealousy that kept me from connecting with and making friends with like-minded people.

This is why I will go to my grave saying the bulk of your photographs have to be for you and nobody else, or burnout will pay you a visit like it did for me.

An example of this was just yesterday when I got home from one of my rock-kicking walks where I stroll down the road about a half-mile and back again, all the while focusing on and kicking a small rock to help declutter my mind and unclog the writer’s block

.

When I reached the driveway, I noticed the moon was being caressed by a few small clouds, and it was just mesmerizing so I ran inside, changed lenses as fast as I could, and spent 20 minutes on the side of the road waiting for the moon to reappear as the small clouds floated by.

I’m certain passersby thought I was out of my mind as it wasn’t obvious what I was photographing, but I didn’t care; my photography alarm went off and I wanted to take a picture of it, so I did.

That is the true joy of photography, seeing something that personally moves you and trying to capture what you saw.

It’s only icing on the cake if others see it too.

The cake itself is when you successfully photograph the scene while enjoying the process of photography, and at the end of it all, you don’t worry one bit if anybody else understands or even likes your image or not, because you photographed it for yourself, the way it should be all along.

Now get out there and photograph something just for yourself, you’ll be glad you did.

As I sit here locked in a perpetual staring contest with my laptop, a dilemma most writers face at one time or another I assure you, my mind starts to wander and the question soon arises, “Am I a writer or not?”

I mean, seriously, writers write, don’t they?

A legitimate question to truly and sincerely ask myself I would argue because, well, all I seem to do lately is stare at an empty computer screen, hour after hour, day after day, and, sadly, I have to admit, even week after grueling week.

Sometimes I break up the monotony for a spell by perusing through thousands upon thousands of unused bird and nature photographs stored on my computer’s hard drive.

These are pictures I’ve taken over the past two decades, maybe even longer, on countless trips around the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge auto tour route that I routinely sort through in hopes of finding some kind of inspiration to cause me to, figuratively, of course, put pen to paper, as it were, but when that loses its luster, back to the staring contest it is.

Oh, how I miss the days when writing was nothing more than grabbing a pen, a spiral notebook, and finding a quiet place to record your thoughts as they poured out like water.

There are even times when I try to get the proverbial juices flowing by taking a solitary walk, literally letting my mind wander as I kick a small rock up and down the road for a half hour or so.

I just got back from one of those rock-kicking strolls, in fact.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to be an outdoor writer/photographer, even though my grades in both my high school and college English classes would say otherwise.

Interestingly enough, achieved success in my one and only photography class back then is just as embarrassing I hate to admit, barely passing the class by the skin of my teeth.

But, somehow, here I am.

We won’t do the math to establish any kind of corresponding number, mind you, but it’s been many, oh so many years since high school and because of the internet, I am now photographing and writing on my Bear River Blogger website about my one true passion, birds and many of the other creatures found in nature on the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge and surrounding landscapes.

Being a newbie here and this is, in fact, my first official Substack post, I just had to get my fingers typing again, despite it ending up being such a short offering.

I do sincerely want to be known as an outdoor writer someday, and to do that I need to get writing again, even if it is just a few paragraphs to get the words flowing once more.