The implementation, and the understanding.
The why.
Why freeze the frame? Why draw attention to the moment? Why go, why stop? What was there to be seen by?
What is the logic behind it?
I encountered that question on the way to take this photograph. Someone asked me before I took it.
I had no idea at the time. This was taken in Feb. It was taken at the start of a long road.
The photograph isn’t really anything significant until you understand the context.
Why do we do what we do? What motivates us?
What are we waiting for? What do we see?
What’s the photograph?
Why take it?
For in this instance, I am entirely motivated to be still. To be whole. To see the things that I can’t see when I’m too busy moving.
To understand. To know. To be present. Home.
I am.
Snow becomes snow when the temperature of the air, moisture in it, and the temperature of the ground, meet in unison. All parts have to work together or it doesn’t work at all.
One side of the field was ready, the other wasn’t. Not yet.
The rest of the day that followed was both a deeper understanding of sight, internally and externally. The dark and the light. The fallen and steadfast trees changed and made beautiful to witness. Then when I got home to a quiet and powerless home, I let God know about it. I let it go. I thought I did.
I started to understand serenity.
That’s immediately when I started to test it.
The search for serenity starts when we stop moving, remove the obstinacy, and start finding the right motivator. Life.
Serenity is found when we start asking our life giver and knowing then who we are. Serenity is honesty, integrity, and identity all wrapped up in one.
I’m not ashamed of my motivation. I don’t have to be ashamed of anything else either.
I’m a Christian, but the application of that faith has certainly been tested. God, the universe, whatever you want to call it, is not about control, it’s about the evolution of the creation. The awakening of it to its maker. To live. To grow. To become like.
Awake.
Woke.
That’s right, true Christianity is woke.
Don’t get me started on the mockery that Christ’s Charactor is experiencing in our society.
This year I have seen and I have been witness to so many people acting in that Character. It’s everywhere. It’s not isolated to a belief system.
I love to witness it.
Every religion and every personal quest to live and be a better version of ourselves is a testament to the God that’s found in all of this. It’s not the destination, it’s the refinement. It’s in the process that we are made whole. It’s in the seeking. The endless curiosity to understand someone and something greater than our collective carbon footprint.
Even the rocks are crying out.
We all work out our own salvation with fear and trembling.
Philippians 2: 12-18
My belief system is not yours.
I’ve been on the never ending quest to understand the why.
To understand unconditional love, truly, for the first time.
It’s the awakening to a new understanding of character and grace by something worthy of surrender to see and be witness to. Then to follow through in service to that power, that energy, greater than us. To be like. To model the Charactor of.
For me, that’s Jesus.
It’s to love.
This isn’t a new idea.
What do we want to become? Whole.
Who is Holy?
God.
Who is God? God is Love.
Who is not?
I am not.
Yet,
I can adapt to the character of.
I can become like.
Like water.
Who are we in the context of that?
I made a decision to be less frozen. To instead be receptive and light, not stubborn and ridged.
Understanding.
Discerned.
Still.
Learning.
Humbled.
Changed.
As humble as a tree, as still as the snow, and as adaptable as a stream. All willing to be changed. Silent and quiet in worship.
It’s been a long time since that day in February.
I’m more motivated now than I’ve ever been.
I’ve found most inspiration in the context of change. It’s the season.
This year, it’s been impossible to avoid that.
To photograph even when I don’t feel like it.
Truth be told though, I’ve produced more images this last yr than the last, yet I feel like I’m just getting started. I’m blessed.
Trust the process.
The process of truly finding one’s self, seeing clearly, recognizing, and then resonating with the reason for that shift to something new. That’s evolution. That’s creation, that’s restoration. That’s grace, that’s forgiveness and surrender regardless of ego.
To become whole again and again. That’s where true beauty is found, it’s in the renewal. To recognize the beauty and change in front of you and then acting on that recognition. Trees do this all the time.
To be present. To be truly still in confidence. Rocks are good at this. They’ve understood the crucible before. They’ve known the power of heat and the lack of it. Just like the snow.
This last week, this yr, the rain, the cold, the waves, the rocks, the trees, and the darkness, taught me that.
I can’t witness any of that without first recognizing where the light came from. What manipulated my temperature? What came first, the carbon, or the light that changed it?
Its all too majestic not to ask the question.
Every time that I took a towel to my camera, every wave that I narrowly escaped, every quest in the dark for my tripod, reminded me of that.
I was there for a reason, I was there for a purpose. I had changed.
Why?
I was there to be. To witness, and witness with.
Sounds like a good plan, sometimes our boots get wet the process. The last time that I sat on this beach alone, I was too drunk to finish watching the Canucks game in my cabin, much less be aware of of the constellations that would appear while I was passed out.
Funny thing is, I haven’t changed, I’m just returning to the identity that brought me to the shore in the first place.
-Nate.
PS. The camera is fine. It was made for this. I just needed to be reminded of who was in front of me and why I’m here.
Suddenly the sail boat seems less stable. Too easily manipulated. You have to look for it.
