Winter Wonderland

Recently having finished an amazing audiobook by Robert Kiyosaki, I was inspired by one of his statements, ”Life pushes all of us around. Some give up. Others fight. A few learn the lesson and move on. They welcome life pushing them around. To these few people, it means they need and want to learn something. They learn and move on. Most quit, and a few like you fight.”

His message resonated with me on this particular day for two reasons. The first was because of the cumbersome journey I had up this mountain. To reach the top, I carried my 65-pound camera bag as I snowshoed upward. I stopped every ten to fifteen feet to catch my breath. And, about three-quarters of the way up, I wondered how likely it was that an ambulance would reach me if I dropped from a heart attack. Although, I wanted to stop where I was I thought of the message in the audiobook and asked myself if I was willing to come this far to quit at the three-quarter mark. The thought alone was enough to keep me pushing to the top.

The second reminder occured when I was all setup in what I thought was going to be the shot of the night. I had shot several frames on my panorama camera, but the light and the composition wasn’t really exciting me. I left the camera and decided to walk around a little bit with the viewfinder to see if there was anything else that jumped out at me. Keeping in mind that night was fast approaching and I was nearly ready to give up, I walked to another spot and looked through the viewfinder. About as quickly as I could get the viewfinder up to my face I was rushing back to my camera and flying over to that spot to set up and capture the view. I had just enough time to set the camera up, I readjust all my settings and fire the release cable. I took one exposure at 2 minutes and by the time that was done the light had completely faded and night was upon me.

Photographing Winter Wonderland was certainly a fight – and one that I’m so happy I fought for. Hard work is always rewarded.

See you at the top!