Snowfall

Last night as I lay in bed I watched the snow coming down, our first real snowfall of the season. To me there is nothing more peaceful than a snowfall. My thoughts immediately turned to the photo you see here. I took this back in the winter of 2006, while my wife and I were on holiday in the Canadian Rockies. I had gone out by myself for a short hike. Traipsing through two feet of snow I came upon this scene. The thing I remember most of this occasion was the complete and utter silence. No sound from a nearby road or highway, no people, no airplanes, just total silence. It was so quiet it was as if you could hear the snow falling. Of course I couldn't, but the complete silence made it easy to imagine that I could hear each and every snowflake coming to rest on an ever deepening blanket of snow. It occurred to me how rare it is these days to find total silence, even when out in nature. It is becoming increasingly difficult to escape the sights and sounds of man. After I took this photo I set down my camera pack and tripod and laid down in the snow for several minutes, staring up at the sky. It was a peacefulness I had never experienced, before or since. I wanted to stay there for hours, reveling in the beauty if it all. To me the photo itself is nothing special, but the memory surrounding it is priceless.

Since I have become a serious photographer instances such as this are rare. One of the downsides of being a nature photographer is how it has changed the way I relate to nature. It used to be that when I came upon a beautiful scene I would relax for a while and take it all in. No more. Now it is all about how to best capture that scene in a photograph. I go to work in essence. I see the scene but I don't really experience it, not in the way it should be experienced. The process of making a beautiful photograph has trumped the quiet appreciation of nature. Don't get me wrong, I very much enjoy the photographic process. The excitement I feel when I happen upon a scene with a lot of potential is what I enjoy most about landscape photography. But I miss the ability to simply enjoy the scene for what it is, that quiet contemplation of nature. I am not alone in this, other nature photographers I have talked to or read about have lamented the loss of this simple communion with nature. The solution seems obvious, just leave the camera behind every now and then. But that is much easier said than done, for I can imagine no greater frustration than witnessing a beautiful scene and being unable to capture it. Perhaps someday I will be able to do just that, when I have tens of thousands of images under my belt. But for now I will continue to shoot, all the while trying to remember to take the time and remember that nature is first and foremost the reason why I love landscape photography.