I begin to think there’s nothing original left to be done. An image is an image. It’s all the same and it’s been done a million times. I run out of ideas. I wonder why I bother anyway.

Then, inevitably, something happens. I witness something shocking. I meet someone who inspires me. I find a plant growing in a sidewalk. I watch my children play together. Whatever that something is, it wakes me up and reminds me that life is amazing: its wonders abound! I’m instantly filled with emotions and I have a million things to say!

I’ve been “waking up” more often lately – noticing when the mundane is pulling me off track – but sometimes there are experiences that just smack me over the head. Spending an afternoon in Mount Rainier National Park was one of those experiences.

It may seem backwards to say that these events help me get grounded when they spark such emotions, but to me “emotional” is exactly what life is. It’s rich, vibrant, broad, and unexpected.

If you’re life is monotonous, without an array of wonders to savor each and every day, then I would guess you’re being sucked into the whirlwind that has been created by people. People, that is, who have forgotten what it means to live.

It’s time to wake up. Ground yourself in the reality of what surrounds you. It’s the stuff that matters. I’ll keep making photographs to remind you, but really you don’t need my images. It’s all right in front of you; see for yourself.

Embracing nature as it is expressed is an ideal to strive for. But it isn’t the only way to work. There are often situations where the aim is to capture great portraits, but nature’s “poses” are not providing the best expression, energy, and composition for the photographic medium. In this case, a photographer might use what she knows to create a realistic scene that conveys a particular feeling that a person embodies. For example, after spending some time with the two sisters below, I found that they were energetic, happy, and fiercely competitive!  Nature showed me this; I didn’t make it up. I used this knowledge to create a scene that conveyed this aspect of the relationship to the viewer. While this race didn’t occur without direction, it resonated with the girls and led to a fun, vivacious, and authentic portrait.

From Wallace Stevens’ poem entitled Add This to Rhetoric:

“It is posed and it is posed.
But in nature it merely grows.
Stones pose in the falling night;
And beggars dropping to sleep,
They pose themselves and their rags.
Shucks . . . lavender moonlight falls.
The buildings pose in the sky
And, as you paint, the clouds,
Grisaille, impearled, profound,
Pftt . . . In the way you speak
You arrange, the thing is posed,
What in nature merely grows.”

The world we live in cannot truly be portrayed through art. People are who they are, things exist as nature created them. Our portrayals are merely interpretations of reality as we see it. But portrait artists are assigned the task of creating pieces that evoke a recognition and a memory of the gift that nature gave the world, so that you may cherish it forever. Photography is special because it is created by the very light that shines on nature’s gifts. That piece is true to reality and does not need interpretation.

How does a photographer strike a balance between capturing nature as it occurs and controlling the outcome in order to ensure beautiful images? This is a skill that separates the good from the great.