What more do we need than a space to admire nature?
Henri Cartier-Bresson once said something along the lines of “There are so many important stories going on in the world, and Ansel Adams is photographing trees.” I think that’s an important thing to think about. We all decide what matters to us in life. We get to choose what we pay attention to. Today there are important stories going on with regards to black lives matter, covid, first nations water rights. I think all of these things are important. Sometimes it’s hard to talk about the issues of the world without normalizing the negativity. Sometimes the high road means paying attention to things that don’t involve negativity.
I’m currently reading Marcel Proust’s Swann’s Way and there’s a great line where the narrator thinks about when he was a young child and he learns of something bad going on in the world and he does what every man does, he goes into his room and cries about it by himself. This was hilarious but also stung a bit.
What’s fascinating about the modern world is how some media institutions will say someone or something is being bad while simultaneously advertising these people and ideas. There’s a fine line between criticism that empowers the viewer to take a stand and change what’s going on, and criticism that’s made to make the viewer feel aware but powerless.
Everything in our world is malleable, including the planet that we live on. This is why I photograph nature. Nature makes us who we are, and it may not be thriving for as long as we like to imagine. So we may as well enjoy it while we can.
I wish I had a grand way of ending this to make you feel empowered to make a better world. But perhaps that involves finding peace within ourselves first. I hope nature can help you find this peace.
Have a great day.
-Jeremy