The wind is my mentor, though often I feel like the wind is my nemesis. Shooting flowers in my studio has its own challenges, but shooting outside has challenges I have no control over: the sun, the clouds, the rain, the wind. I can make adjustments to my camera to help compensate for the wind, but that can affect the quality of the image. So, to try to get the image I really want, I have learned from the wind to be patient—which isn’t my strong suit. I must sit still while the wind blows. I must be prepared and be ready for when the wind stops. I must learn this patience. In this, it teaches me that everything has its time.
Today though, I was shooting a beautiful Iris bud in my garden and the wind had started up and I stepped back to let it blow. I had to pause and be patient. As I waited I was rewarded as this most beautiful bud was beginning to actually bloom before my eyes. This moment gave me a gift of awareness, to see this flower bloom and come to life in a story I will be sharing in my next post, the Flight of Butterflies.
My best day shooting outside is a cloudy, windless day. With the wind as my mentor, with it blowing when I would prefer it didn’t, I will keep working on being patient and being in the moment. A form of meditation. The wind is my mentor.
Please share with me, what/who feels like your nemesis, but truth be told is really your mentor?
Flower at the top of the post: Iris ‘Flight of Butterflies’
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Mentor vs nemesis. Great topic to discuss. I would have to say free time, whatever that means. Free. As in you don’t pay for it? Or is it free as in nothing to do? We are all overloaded with obligations, mostly welcome ones, but time consuming obligations nonetheless. So what happens when we break free from obligations, even for just a few minutes? What do we do with that unencumbered time? Do we pick up another obligation that can certainly wait? Do we invent chores? Or do we sit back and note the “freedom?”. Do we allow ourselves the time to do nothing? Do we reinvent the meaning of doing nothing? Do we embrace the moment to read a book without feeling guilty? Do we ask too many questions during our free time? Yes, to all of this. So while free time can be disconcerting to those of us who are overworked, overcooked and overwrought, thus becoming our nemesis, it is the mentor needed to encourage me to enjoy the freedoms of free time.
All so true. Free time, I am not good with free time as I feel I always need to be productive and personally more often then not, I fill free time with something else instead of just being in it. Something to think about next time I have a little free time. I hope for you, that you can embrace your mentor, free time, and really enjoy it as it is much deserved.