Wait

I have been lying on the sand for 30 minutes, my eyes glued to the camera. My bones ache. My skin itches. My fingers are numb. I am starting to get cold. I am waiting. I am waiting for my subject to move. I am waiting for my shot. Most of the time, the shot never happens and those 30 minutes are added to the previous hours of waiting. 

The subject moves the wrong way. The background is not right. The light is not right. I wait for 30 minutes without a pause, and the second I break my stare, it is when it happens. Nature photography is all about waiting.

In the course of their lifetime, a person will spend approximately 3 to 5 years waiting; 35,000 hours motionless, expecting a desired outcome. We wait for the perfect moment. For the right woman, for the right man. We wait for the right conditions.  We wait for the rain to stop, for the sun to come out. We wait for the bus, for the train, for the subway. We wait in traffic, at the bank, at the grocery store. We wait on the phone. We wait for a phone call. We wait for people. People wait for us. We wait for salvation, for forgiveness. We wait for the show to begin, for the commercials to end. We wait for dinner to be ready. We wait for a package to be delivered. We wait for inspiration to come. We wait behind the camera for the perfect shot.

Francois Rabelais said: “Everything comes in time to those who can wait.” While Abraham Lincoln believed that “Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustles.” Lenny Kravtiz has always waited for inspiration to write his music. Sean Lennon instead writes everyday convinced that inspiration comes with practice. Alexandre Dumas wrote that “ All human wisdom is summed up in two words: wait and hope.”  At the opposite, W.M. Lewis said that “The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it.”

Nothing would ever be accomplished if we just waited for things to happen. But again, nothing would ever be accomplished if we were not able to wait until completion. Some don’t wait to start, but have trouble finishing. Others can’t seem to find the will to start, but once they do, they will finish what they have started even if they have to wait a lifetime to see the results. You can’t wait for the right conditions. You can’t wait for things to come to you. But you must be able to wait for the unique to manifest. And when it does, all those minutes, all those hours, all those years waiting, suddenly are worth the wait.

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Image and words courtesy of Shutter Brother Daniel Fox. You can find out more about Daniel and check out the amazing things he is doing through The Wild Image Project.

b kind to Earth

Earth day is just around the bend and we are thrilled to be celebrating with the likes of The Motherhood, Nickelodeon and the National Wildlife Federation in their B Kind 2 Earth Day incentive. What's it all about? Just a great way to get a lot of people committed to doing something kind for the earth this Earth Day. What's not to love?

Won't you join us as we begin the celebration now through blog posts, tweets and facebook notes as well as photos (lots and lots of gloriously green photos)? However you choose to participate, pop over the the B Kind 2 Earth Day Facebook page and let everyone know what's on your mind as Earth Day approaches.  And we invite you to add your Earth Day (and before) photos to our Flickr pool and tag them #kind2earth so we can keep track of all the wonderful stuff you're doing!

Let's see how you capture a little bit of kindness today!

Looking up

"Excuse me while I kiss the sky." Jimi Hendrix

Perfect Blue. Fiery Red. Filled with stars. Dark. Bright. Cloudy.

I believe the sky is a portal into our divinity.

It reflects our moods, it shows the uncertain nature of our existance...

It holds us all together under the same dome. All the same.

All granted the same beauty, the same immenseness...

Vast. Far beyond.

*

Today, take a break from your daily hustle and from the pressure to stay grounded.

Do yourself a favor. Stop everything and just look up and marvel.

Then of course, shoot some pictures and share them with us, please.

signs of hope

The devastating news from the past few weeks have left me so sad and vulnerable. And while trying to make sense of it all is probably useless, I look around and take comfort in the fact that although the universe is reminding us of the reality of the fragility of life, it is also allowing flowers to bloom everywhere.

Today show us signs of spring. Today show us signs of hope.

Capturing a place in time

I´m spending some time at home in Brazil, and believe it or not, even though it all feels really familiar to me, I´m still feeling nostalgic towards the life I left here over 15 years ago. Things have changed a lot since then. The streets and beaches are more crowded now, the open fields gave in to more buildings, small business were bought by coorporations... Isn´t it like that everywhere anyway? Don´t take me wrong, Brazil is still as vibrant as ever. (No matter what happens, there is always going to be samba playing and a wild force driving everyone and everything here.) But as I try to trace my steps along a path that has long faded, I keep thinking that I wish I had taken more pictures back then. Don´t we always shoot away and then inevitably, still wish that we had more pictures? Especially those images that tell our story and show us where we have been. We can never have enought of those...

So today I invite you to be your own memory catcher. We usually focus on special moments, but today, let´s capture and share places. Show us where you are and how you want to remember it 15, 20 years from now.