A golden-fronted woodpecker visit to my Palo Duro Canyon camp site -- Photo by Pat Bean
“I don’t ask for the meaning of the song of a bird or the rising of the sun on a misty morning. There they are, and they are beautiful.” — Pete Hamill
Day 10
As I was getting my RV travel ready for my trip to Amarillo, I glanced out my window – and then did the thing I so often forget to do. I grabbed my camera. Luck was with me this day for I actually captured the image of the golden-fronted woodpecker visitor through a window from inside my tiny home.
I once was in a canoe coming around a bend on the Green River when what sounded like a loud shotgun blast drew my attention shoreward. Before my very eyes a cliff-side avalanche was taking place. I watched in awe, totally forgetting the camera hanging around my neck.
Such has been my relationship with so many awesome events in my life. The truth is, I carry a tiny even-dummies-can-do-it digital camera with me almost everywhere I go. For those who need to know, it’s a Canon PowerShot SD850.
The canyon has her secrets -- Photo by Pat Bean
I purposely leave it in my pocket most of the time. When I do take it out, I quickly snap a picture and put it back. Having worked often with journalistic photographers, I know it’s not the way to capture award-winning shots. It is, however, my chosen way of seeing the world.
Looking through a camera lens, at least for me, dims the world around me. Mostly, when I think of taking a photograph, I’ve missed the perfect action moment. This time I didn’t.
Copyrighted by Pat Bean
Travels With Maggie: A Golden-Fronted Woodpecker
May 2, 2010 by Pat Bean
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“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters.” — Ursula K. Le GuinPat Bean is a writer, avid birder, hiker and passionate nature observer with wanderlust in her soul. She spent nine years living and traveling in a small RV. She now lives in Tucson with Scamp, a rescue who was supposed to be a Schnauzer mix but turned out to be a Siberian Husky-Shih Tzu mix who is as stubborn as his owner, her granddaughter says. She was also a journalist for 37 years, and can be reached at patbean@msn.com
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I know what you mean about cameras dimming the world. But your words and camera make the world more vivid for me.
Thanks Kathy. I do so enjoy your comments. And I agree that the photos make my stories more vivid, so I do try to remember to take them. At the same time I try to not see too much of the world through my camera lens. I’m a writer, not a photographer.
what do you mean that’s not the way to get award-winning shots? What sort of idiots have you been hanging around with?
That is PRECISELY the way to get award winning shots. Almost all the pulitzer-winning shots I’ve ever seen were grab shots, snapped by someone who just happened to have a camera with them and pointed in the right direction at the right instant.
keep it up– and great blog, by the way.
Well, you know …. Thanks for the kind words. I’m really enjoying doing the blog. It’s my warm up writing exercise. See you later this month.