Why Do We Do This?

Originally published 7 November, 2016 on a prior website - now here on Substack

It's 4 PM in Yosemite. The sun is going down, and the summertime crowds packed onto the narrow single-lane roads that wind through the forest have reduced traffic to a crawl - and nature's beauty is muffled by the roar of AC and darkened by the tint of safetyglass.

My friend and I are on foot by this point, having hours before decided that it was better to abandon the car and wander the forests, looking for picture opportunities, rather than take more or less the same shots everyone else would from the car.

We had budgeted time to get to a scenic overlook - the one from which all the top Google Image search results for "Yosemite" were produced - but had failed to anticipate the traffic. We only had one day in the park - it was a binary outcome - we get the shot, or we don't.

So as sunset approached, and the realization that the million-dollar shot wasn't going to happen, it encouraged a bit of philosophizing (as all failures do).

We began to talk about what landscape photography is really about. Especially in a place like Yosemite, every square meter of the sky, of the mountains, of the wildlife, has been photographed again and again. The particular trademark shot alone - the one that catches two stunning features, El Capitan and Half Dome during golden hour - has been taken thousands, maybe tens of thousands of times, on every day of the year, in every meteorological condition, by paid professional and amateur dabbler and everything in between.

So what's the point?

Why take a picture at all if the odds are good that there is a better one, framed very similarly, shot on a better camera (most likely), already in existence? And not just one, maybe hundreds?

There are two different responses to this quandary -

1. Elect not to care. What does it matter if someone else has that same picture? Taking pictures is fun. Making something you are proud of is fun. We each lead our own adventure - and just because someone else has done it already does not mean that I have done it. Why do people still climb Everest? Why do people run marathons without trying for the world record? Personal achievement. Humanity as a whole is indifferent. The things you do are for you. You don't choose not to make cake because you can't make it as well as a professional baker. You make the best cake you can, and that is enough.

2. Fight for the unique. I do believe that I have managed to take some truly unique pictures (most likely not within the Yosemite album, though). The confluence of good luck, professional and personal choices, and willingness to carry a camera will occasionally yield a unique picture (the old newsman's adage concerning how to take good photographs - "f/8 and be there" applies). This is a big deal - this speaks to the uniqueness of human life, and why Western society places such a premium on it. Even on a planet teeming with billions of other very similar human beings, it is quite a simple thing to experience something few others have. Even in a place like Yosemite, which has been photographed almost as much as a cup of Starbucks coffee, I must believe there are unique situations, unique framings, that maybe no one else has got. And I will try for those.

Fortunately, unlike whether we caught the sunset or not, this is not a binary choice. I subscribe to both these thoughts. Take the best pictures you can. Try new things. Don't only get "the security shot."

This is not “The Yosemite Shot.” But it is much better than a picture I did not take at all.