A few years will go by, and then for whatever reason I’ll be looking through some of the drawers in a seldom used dresser in our spare bedroom. The bottom drawer hold photos taken during my film days when I was first starting out. I’ll always chuckle to myself (or even outright laugh) at the “keepers” that I took back then.
My first:
Great blue heron – perched in a tree on an island at least a ¼ mile away.
Bald eagles - unaware at the time that my roll of film had already been exposed and I ended up with eagles superimposed on sailboats
Whitetail buck – my excitement warranted a trophy buck but it was just a spike buck, and of the two close-up photos I took the latter shows only the back half of the deer (entirely in the air) as it disappeared into the woods
My inexperience in photography though was no less than my inexperience as a woodsman, this poem comes from one of those hunts as a novice.
When I first started out I’d wander the woods
in search of wildlife great and small,
I knew so little about hunting deer
I’d be lucky to spot one at all.
Looking back I see now all the things I did wrong
you could tell I just had no clue,
my encounters were chance, not skill on my part
and becoming increasingly few.
Deep in the woods with dusk coming on fast
in my mind I can replay the scene,
I’d thought there was movement, but now there was none,
the forest was quiet and serene.
There off to the left it looked like a deer
in the darkness I just didn’t know,
with painstaking slowness I turned towards that spot
and remembered my camera below.
To lift it up and press it to my eye
took several minutes or more,
I studied it close still frozen in place
suddenly I knew, I was sure.
It wasn’t a deer, just the stump of some tree
I’d been fooled in days waning light,
it looked real to me and I’d stood so still
too afraid that it would take flight.
Ten minutes at least I’d been motionless
not wanting to scare off that tree,
I smiled to myself, it had still been good fun
even though the joke was on me.
I lowered the camera, I must head for home
it was time to call it a day,
imagine my surprise when I made that first move
and I watched that “tree” bound away.
Great, Eric, I had to laugh out loud -- your words brought back many similar memories of my own, as I'm sure they will for many others here. As my skills have evolved, I also have moved many of my prize images of yesteryear into the back row, or the reject bin. But I do save some as a reminder of a long growth process, that I have indeed come a long way, and that I probably still have a long way to go. Perhaps I didn't capture the quintessential image today.... Maybe tomorrow?
Eric, I think this is very well written and I love how your words describe so many of my field trips!!! I love the last line , it's perfect!! I get a sense that I've read this before? Thankyou for sharing.
Growing Pains
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