On Hobbies and Magic

Y'all ever have a hobby that seems magical? I mean something that you genuinely enjoy, and it feels like one of those books you cannot put down? Mine is photography. Specifically, my magical hobby is landscape photography.

Doped up

I recall an unmistakable jolt of dopamine when I lived in a studio apartment in Westport, Missouri. Armed with only a Pixel 2XL, I cherished moments that allowed me to capture my side projects in a crisp focus juxtaposed with a pleasant bokeh. Take a two-year scroll through my Instagram feed, and you'll find the occasional, semi-reasonably composed photo with ample bokeh abuse. I loved the portrait feature of the Pixel 2, but I rarely took headshots. I have progressed since and use it sparingly. However, my "daily-driver" continues to be that fantastic camera phone.

Many of y'all are familiar with the season where I regularly swapped between the West Bottoms and our Kansas City home remodeling project. I would joke with Kiley that I just pointed the camera while the Pixel did the real work. I loved sharing our progress with everyone, but the real joy came from each snapshot saved within my camera roll. I have an enormous cache of content that I have never shared with anyone, likely for a couple of reasons.

The first reason is that historically my primary channel for sharing has been Instagram, limiting me to ten photos per post. I don't always want to blow up everyone's feed with chains of multiple ten-photo posts. There's also some substance, integrity, and intent lost when too many things are shared concurrently. I enjoy sharing photos, but more so when the content tells a story or is mysterious or intriguing. During the remodel, I lived to hear feedback like, "You always show just enough to tease us." I hope to carry that spirit along through my landscape photography.

My photo cache grows exponentially, but I feel that it is typical with photography; you're always producing more than what you officially publish. I don't share everything because I don't think most of my photos are worth sharing; some are just terrible, while others are duplicates or perhaps didn't make the cut of the ten-photo Instagram limit. There are also limits to my daily driver. My Pixel 2 takes fantastic pictures of subjects that are close, say within 20 feet. However, anything past that proves challenging to capture any quality depth of field. The digital zoom quickly introduces noise through pixelation, and the sensor struggles with overexposure. There's no easy way to take RAW photos, which is exacerbated by the lack of expandable storage and communication dead zones. Lately, I'm more often than not left wanting more. I see something incredible that I want to immortalize, but my camera phone cannot take the picture. While I've been pleased with where the Pixel 2 has taken me, it's time to step up to a professional mirrorless camera.

PNWonderland

Since relocating to the enchanting Pacific Northwest earlier this year, the region has started to pour its spirit and essence into me; I am absorbing the caricature. I am a software engineer who is a fresh (and very out-of-shape) hiker that dabbles in photography. It's of no-fault because of my adventures through the captivating vistas and the fragrant and exalted pines that beg me to capture their beauty. What once was an occasional activity has morphed into an all-out passion. My downtime has turned into following every Instagram nature and photography account. I have started to watch YouTube tutorials on composition, editing in Lightroom, and tips and tricks concerning the mirrorless camera I haven't even purchased. I now work for the weekend, but only because it promises of opportunity to explore the next trail. I have three reasons to get back in shape now:

1. To be the best, healthiest man for my bride.
2. To be the best, healthiest father for my child.
3. To make it further into the wilderness.

Being engulfed in my pursuit means that I ignored my body and pushed myself too far. Approaching 30 means pain and being injury prone (read as: it sucks, y'all). Today, I slow down and rest and write this post while my right hip and hip flexor heal.

Circling Back

I want to circle back on something. I mentioned my downtime and what I have pursued: Instagram accounts and tutorials. These Instagram accounts have been truly inspirational, and most of them are Pacific Northwest specific. I long to take photos like them, hence the dive into photography and editing tutorials. This decision has become a double-edged sword, however.

On the one hand, I have more knowledge and tools at my disposal to take better photos. On the other, it has killed some of the magic because it can kind of feel like min-maxing. If you're unfamiliar with the term, it's generally tied to role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons or World of Warcraft. The idea is to power up your character by maximizing specific stats and ignoring all others leaving with a glass cannon: outrageously powerful, yet brittle and unbalanced. This strategy is rather dull and flat and takes the fun out of the game.

A Short Aside

Years ago, I stopped at my grandmother's house, and cozy on the couch, she watched a movie. I don't recall why I originally intended to go there, but I remember staying for the film. It wasn't a spectacular movie, but enjoyable enough with a stellar cast, popcorn, and some quality time with grandma. The Big Year, starred Jack Black, Steve Martin, and Owen "Wow" Wilson and was about competitive bird watching. If that sounds boring, please don't close this tab or navigate away, there's a point I'm trying to make. From what I remember, Owen Wilson is the world's best bird watcher, while Jack Black is the new kid on the block trying to usurp Owen's throne. He used to be a computer programmer but hopes that bird watching is the calling that will lead to his sense of purpose. Owen, at the detriment of his marriage and plans of conceiving, obsessively pursues maintaining his title. Jack Black is closing in on Owen's title but realizes there's more to life and drops out to pursue a relationship with someone he met while birding. Owen ends up winning the title and breaking his record, but his wife leaves him.

It ends with Owen out bird watching alone in Asia and, with regret in his gaze, peering at a happy couple and child. Owen's character was a min-maxing birding over his relationship with his ex-wife and realized too late what he had lost. He let his hobby become his obsession, and he lost the meaning of everything else. Owen became disillusioned when he realized that he threw away his relationship with his ex-wife for something he presumably no longer enjoys.

Resonating

Last week, I watched a video that described how to edit photos in Lightroom, a pretty standard practice when shooting in RAW. Generally speaking, RAW images tend to look flat and require some (read as: as few as possible) edits to match what your eye perceives. I want to preface my critique. The content creator takes fantastic pictures and is successful in landscape photography. Their compositions are stunning; however, my gut and limited instinct say they tend to over-edit. Some of their photos look too good; they appear fake like a science fiction panorama complete with soft, glowing subjects and liberal use of perspective distortion and unnatural colors. I watched as they haphazardly dialed in the luminance and applied filters until the image echoed its original emotional intent. This is the spirit of min-maxing.

And that's what resonates with me.

I think I resonate with this because I want to take a purist and minimalist approach to landscape photography: beauty in simplicity. By min-maxing picture features, you reduce the art from a passion to a job. It takes the fun out of it. I don't want to min-max supposed quality at the expense of the enjoyment and love for photography. I don't want to take for granted the natural splendor of the world and ruin the magic. I appreciate and cherish it all.

God made Earth perfectly beautiful, with no filter or editing needed. Nature does not require me to interject with corrections and improvements to make a scene fantastical and appear out-of-this-world. That doesn't mean I should publish RAW photos directly. Instead, I should apply as few edits as possible to perfectly capture what God sculpted for us. In a bleak and abysmal world climate, let's keep the magic around as long as we can.

Conclusion

Photography is an art; it is visual storytelling. I intend to tell stories of the beauty and mysteries of nature. I hope to captivate y'all with the wonders of what I experience in the wilderness. I want to continue to tease you with photos encapsulating the miracles of the world.

I have thoroughly enjoyed my tour with my Pixel 2, but I feel I have pushed it to its limits, and I long for more. I cannot wait to get my hands on a mirrorless camera. Follow along, and you won't be disappointed. As always, thank you for reading.