My day had started early, before dawn. I drove miles down rough dirt roads to a trailhead. I hoisted my pack onto my back and cinched the straps. Without any real trail to follow, I headed off across the open country generally in a cardinal direction. A couple hours later, after setting up camp, I started exploring. It was a hot and stagnant afternoon. The sun blazed in a pale blue sky. I slowed a bit when the canyon narrowed and the sheer walls offered some shade. How do I track my progress: Hours? Miles? Steps? Salt caked on my brow?
None of that effort matters. The time, the distance, the effort, and the sweat are all irrelevant for the photograph. Yet for me, and only for me, they are part of the story. Some photographs are linked to the experiences surrounding them, both those experiences that preceded the photograph and those that followed it. Looking now at such photographs, I recall those experiences, the feeling of being there, the thoughts and ideas that moved me to take a particular picture. Not the effort expended to take them, but the intentionality in making them, that’s what matters. Photographs are waypoints, places I have paused. Together, they offer to chart my life. I take photographs to fill the pages of my atlas of living, each an opportunity to remember.