I was out on a small stream this week with my friend Rob and discovered that I’d not put my memory card back in my camera (or in my brain, apparently!). I decided to use the time to “just” look and, for the moment, let go of photographing. A good exercise. Of course, not much choice, really, except to choose what was right there in front of me.

The old ice on this stream was a riot of shapes and textures with a lot of small growths of new ice still forming, including many kinds of formations I’d never seen before. The sun was in and out of bright clouds, the light just perfect. And all this on a steep, wooded hillside, open of snow and full of the promise of Spring on its way. We even spotted a huge, old Beech tree with bear claw marks on it, always a good sign of being “away.”

About 30 minutes later I suddenly remembered I had my iPhone in my pocket. I certainly have used my iPhone for some photos but mainly rough, non-art sorts of documentation. “What the heck,” I said, “I’ll give it a try”—with next to no expectation.

I had fun—re-energized by “doing something” (we humans are amazing and awful, aren’t we?!), learned a bit more about using this new tool, saw the ice much more closely and didn’t get too wet! It was a delightful afternoon.

When I got home and figured out how to download the images to my computer, I was stunned. I told Rob that I might just sell the closeup lenses I’d have normally used.

As my friend Betsy said in her fine blog this morning, “a healthy stretch is good for all of us.” This was a great stretch in both senses of the word.

 

25 Mar This entry was published on March 25, 2016 at 8:18 am. It’s filed under Ice, John Snell, John Snell Photographer, Photograph, Spring, Vermont, Winter and tagged Ice, iPhone, John Snell, Photography, Spring, Vermont, winter, Worcester. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.