Learning how to take better pictures has taught me many things. Some are technical, like what an aperture is, or how to spell aperture, and how to navigate my camera's menu system, or how to navigate my camera's memory system when I accidentally set it to German.

Other lessons, however, are broader and, generally, humbling. Today, I took nearly 300 pictures over about two hours of walking down a creek. After editing, I kept 21, and of those, I think maybe 5 are interesting albeit somewhat flawed, and 1 is really good. Actually, I just went back and looked again - that 1 has some issues. I'll have to go back and try again.

I've only been taking pictures really regularly for about 6 months, but already it's begun to shape the way I think and see the world. For one, I'm much more aware of light - though, goodness knows, much less aware than I should be. I think the main effect, however, is increasing my patience. I've always been a patient person - I remember my dad once told me, I think in high school, that he thought my patience would make me a great third grade teacher someday. He wasn't quite accurate, but I think the point still stands.

But the patience required to take good pictures is of another level entirely. Take, for example, this picture I took today:

This picture took me about 15 minutes, and dozens of inferior versions. I was lying on my belly in a wet field, with deer flies buzzing my ears and crawling into my hair to bite my scalp, and this friggin bee would not still still, or turn towards me. And in the brief moments he did, I'd miss my focus, or fuck up the composition, or be unable to find the right flower in my viewfinder. Even this one isn't ideal - the bee looks nice, but it would bd better if I'd rotated around a little and gotten the bud off to the side instead of directly over him. But at that point I couldn't handle the bugs any more, and so I got an inferior shot.

Or, for example, take this one:

This one was the one I thought was good. I mean I think it's a really cool picture, and one of the best ones I've ever taken, but it's not great. I think the top of the frame isn't really adding much, and the most interesting part is the the contrast between the curve of the rock and the smooth water. It would be better if I'd been able to zoom in a bit, but here's the thing - I left my tripod in Virginia, and so I've been trying to take all of these long exposures by hand. It's already pretty freaking difficult to do that, since I've got to contort myself in the middle of a stream into some position that is very stable, but not too wet. Anyway, zooming makes my hand shake worse, so I can't really do that - or go any longer with the exposures. This might look way cooler with like a 5 second exposure, but without a tripod, this is the best I can do. And to do this - I don't know how time it took, or how many frames I shot off, but it was a lot of each.

I'm a firm believer that struggling is good for the soul. We shouldn't feel like we've ever mastered something completely, because I doubt there's anything a human being - given our immense imperfections - could ever be perfect at. Photography (and writing, actually) are like that for me. They teach me how little I really know, and how far I have to come - and how much patience I'll need if I'm going to avoid burning myself out. Anyway, here's some more pictures from today.