At First Sight

“Certainly, travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.”
-Miriam Beard

I was prompted recently to think about the art of capturing images, both with eye and camera, and I think about how devastating it is to be forced to surrender any creative opportunity. Of course, we cannot observe everything the world has to offer, nor can every photograph be a successful one.
Whenever I travel with Spouse, I take possession of the camera while he maneuvers the car. It is necessary, on long drives, to prevent the battery from fading so, as soon as I consider that a stretch of the journey has become bland and not worthy of a photograph, I turn off the camera and relax to enjoy the scenery.
It is inevitable that, moments after I close the lens cap and shift from being photographer to passenger, we will turn a bend and come upon some lovely sight. It might be a bird or a cloud, a solitary old man in his field or the hazy skyline of a city- something that lifts our travelling spirits as we sweep over a hill.
I will scramble to capture the image but by the time the camera has sprung to life once more, the particular landmark, or at least the very best perspective of it, has passed us by.
"Too late, too slow," it trills, a half mile, now a mile behind us. "You missed it!"
When that happens, I sit and mourn for a spell, the camera resting useless in my lap, the battery winding away.
The cycle begins again as soon as I decide that the battery must be preserved. Spouse will call out for me to seize the moment, but I already will be struggling with the duplicitous device.
I now suspect that I have been going about this entirely the wrong way.
Spouse and I have been reducing the goods in our small apartment for the better part of a year. We have learned how to determine what we need or wish to keep and we separate the rest and either give, sell or dispose of the superfluous possessions. We speak often to one another about the peaceful atmosphere that such activity provokes and- happily- are in complete agreement about the final destination of most items.
Knowing what to hold on to and what to cast aside- that sense did not come easily. We had to learn it day by day and item by item until at last we found a pattern. We were forced to learn about ourselves ever before the process became therapeutic or simple. In essence, we had to learn how to see.
There is so much noise, clutter and extraneous information in the world that even something as elementary as taking a photograph has some requirements, particularly that we must train ourselves to instantaneously ascertain the worth of an article or a scene.
In hindsight I wonder if, at those times when the camera battery appeared to be trickling away for lack of interesting vistas, I might have been missing something wonderful. It seems rather unusual bad luck to have beauty show its face within a trice of my putting the camera to sleep.
It could well be that, but I am beginning to doubt the possibility.