It was one of those magical mornings at Bosque when the night time temps went down for the count so at sunrise, it was a brisk 19 degrees. While the cranes and geese stay warm, the water does not and ice forms. Not thick enough to form around the birds but enough of a freeze to create a thin layer on the pond. So thin that bigger birds punch through and lighter birds walk on top. Thin over the deeper portions of the pond and thicker nearer the shallow portions. The cranes which slowly move from the main flock to wake up, socialize and then take off have to negotiate this ice field and while they have big feet for walking in muck and mud, they are not made for ice. You can hear the laughter amongst the photographers as they watch all the slipping and sliding as the cranes try to maintain their elegance while falling on their butt is quite loud. And once the cranes are in the air, all you hear from the photographers besides the camera clicks is the admiration for the beauty of cranes as they fly off. They are gorgeous!
As I stood there watching this, laughing and in admiration, I thought what we were watching is so applicable to photography. While we look good standing their with our camera gear glistening in the morning sun, more long glass than a dozen football game sidelines combined, there is a whole hell of a lot of slipping going on. Missed shots from everything like chimping to simple inexperience. It’s part of the photographic process and once the humiliation is over, we have to laugh it off. And there is that one or two photo that we see later on our monitor that sums up our experience perfectly and all that slipping slides away and we’re just in awe of our subject and how we’ve told its story. Photography is such an amazing pursuit no matter what genre you practice your art. Just understand that a lot of the time just like in nature, that often we will find elegance while slipping.