What Snowshoeing With a Close Friend Taught Me About Photography
I am a professional photographer and I have never been a fan of printing my personal photos. I know it's a weird thing to think that a photographer wouldn't have his house filled with memories of shoots gone by and clients that left a mark. But I don't. As I look at the walls of my old small home that's in various stages of renovation I see the artwork I've hung but none of it is mine. Funny enough the only time I've ever tried to hang a piece of my work in my house the included mounting hardware failed and fell off the back of the frame.
That frame is currently leaning again my large format printer collecting dust till I actually go to the hardware store and pick it the proper mounting hardware and try again. I'm not sure why I never have been a fan of hanging my own personal photos, part of me always just hated images of myself and so I never wanted to see myself. The other big reason was I just never understood why someone would want to hang dumb photos of them and their friends up on the walls. After all, if it's not 4 feet across, printed on baryta paper and sealed under UV acrylic glass what's the point?
On President's day this year I was asked to plan a snowshoe hike through Rocky Mountain National Park for a buddy of mine that had not been since he was a kid. I'm looking to get out more with friends and just do bigger more physically challenging hikes. So I planned a quick route to The Lock Vale and we met up that morning. The hike itself was pretty standard for a mid-February hike above 8,000 feet. Cold, sunny and pretty void of other humans.
I was a little out of shape from a breadth standpoint, plus as usual, I brought nearly every piece of gear I owned. But through all the physical pain, the cold and taking a couple of wrongs turns something began to reveal itself to me that I had never considered in my life. I was proud I was sharing this experience with someone I wanted in my life. Doing something hard and arduous with another human being made me realize what I'd been doing wrong all of these years.
For the first time in my life, I finally saw my photography as something other than just an object or thing I created. I was making a memory I will always retain and don't want to forget. I'd taken pictures with my girlfriend before and I liked seeing them but it still didn't really stick as something I was proud of. I loved my girlfriend mind you but It just wasn't clicking yet, or maybe I was just young and dumb. Whatever the reason it took me 30 some odd years to understand what it meant to be proud of something I was doing and whom I was doing it with. Standing together on the frozen lake with the mountains looming behind us something changed. As the timer ran down, the shots fired and I checked the focus I experienced an excitement I hadn't known before. I was excited to show people what we had accomplished and that I had created a memory with a friend I'll never forget. Now it's time to print.
