Life Hacking
I am not alone – I’m sure many of my thoughts are neither unique, nor original – my background was, to me anyway, a fine line between the mundane and the extraordinary. I recall at age 6 being asked by my grandmother what I wanted to do when I left school, and I retorted precociously - “I’ll be going to University.”
Coming from a working class background with strict discipline and strong sense of morality, I always felt my life had a certain predictability to it; and I was not disappointed! But, in my late 20′s I took my first steps in Lifestyle Hacking – walking away from a very secure job to go and live in Borneo. It was a high risk venture, but life-changing. Leaving the UK, a wide circle of friends, a bunch of security – most thought I’d “lost it” and was running away!
And what has this to do with Photography?
Life has a way of making the amazing mundane – the first time you do something always sticks in your head, and memories elevate it to an almost venerated status. The first steps in a rain forest are unreal – but, within weeks your curses about leeches, humidity and terrible photographic light can undermine the experience.
Being a Landscape Photographer is not about fame, money or glory – it is a lifestyle. I hear conflicting views from people about whether the story behind the image is important or not. Does a viewer care if an image took 3 weeks of miserable suffering or 10 seconds in a zoo? Who knows, and should we care?
But for me, photography is a catalyst as well as my expression – my drive and determination to record the natural world motivates me to experience a wonderful life – the alarm going off in the small hours is not better for me than anyone else, and some mornings it is the last thing I want to do – getting out of a warm sleeping bag to climb a ridge to 5000m to watch the sunrise. But man, when you’re there, perched on a cliff as the dawn races across the land – photograph or not, it’s something to remember.
Every choice we make every day determines out future and our present. Life need not be pre-determined, we do have freewill. As Photography is an expressive medium, it demands that you have an experience to share! So, take your camera on a voyage of discovery, let it take you to the edge of your boundaries and give you a gentle nudge now and then.
Life Hacking is a lifestyle -
Breaking the code, watching out for the telltale signs that life is slipping away from me – letting me know not to stop at the next ridge, but to push on and see what vista lies beyond. The days are short – too short to regret.
at 12:05 pm
My mother-in-law always says we all are given choices. I have lost count of the amount of people who have told my wife and I that we are so lucky to be able to leave Canada to travel. It’s not luck, it was a choice. As you say there are many mornings when it is a struggle to get out of bed, there are many that I have not made make it out of our camper van to capture the sunrise. On those that I do it still is not easy, but once up, experiencing the moment there is nothing better.
Whether a photographer or not there is much more to life, much more to see and experience than the strict order of life we are led to believe we should follow. Being a photographer is an amazing way to see the world, to capture the beauty of people and places around us. For a long time I had never believed there were two 5′s in the day worth experiencing, now there are not enough!
Awesome post, thank you for sharing and reminding me about what I love!
at 12:36 pm
Thanks Gareth… Yeah, my wife and I live a pretty wild and spontaneous life, but even we get sucked into normality from time to time.
It is vital for me to bring our lives into check once in a while, just to re-evaluate and make sure we’re not slipping.
I agree, photography is an excellent lifestyle to induce the spark of motivation that sets us on fire…
at 11:20 pm
It takes discipline to wake up before sunrise. The way I see it, and I’m sure many people are in the same boat – I usually have way less than 60 days to shoot landscapes each year. You have to make each of them count.
at 5:00 pm
Galen Rowell once said something about having only one sunrise and one sunset a day–its important not to waste either of them. Like Kah Kit, I have limited days each year to shoot landscapes, and I always keep Rowell’s words in my head. I figure I can sleep after my vacation.
My limited time aside, I do agree with you that shooting landscapes is a lifestyle–one that has changed the way I see the world, for sure. I was always the kid in school who couldn’t draw a stick figure. Now, I consider myself an artist of a different sort. Talk about life hacking! As an artist though, I always find myself in beautiful places–I always tease my wife that I may not be the perfect husband, but at least I’ll never take her to ugly places for vacation!
Great set of thoughts, Alister. Hope the move goes well…
Cheers,
Greg
at 5:22 am
So well said. I found this a wonderful personal journey illustrating your life-hacking theme perfectly. Very fine images too.