Standing in Jackson Hole National Park, I asked myself, "How do I capture what I am seeing?" It's a simple question, and the answer is the holy grail of photographers. How do I record this so I never forget what it was really like, so I never forget how it felt to see this magical place for the first time?
Wyoming is definitely "Big Sky Country." From the overlook, I could see the Tetons in the distance, rising straight up out of the ground. A river snaked below me, weaving through fallen trees and ice. The blue sky stretched from one side of me to the other. How was I going to get all this in one image? My humble zoom couldn't do it. My mind was made up - I needed a new lens.
After lifetime of zooming in on things, I was given a fixed 20mm lens. Not my first fixed lens, but the first one I was actually going to attach to my camera and use. I went outside in the snow to test it out. It was a beautiful December day in Park City. Snow on the ground and blue sky above. Perfect.
I trudged out into the snow behind the house and looked around. Where would I start? I looked through my viewfinder and felt something I had never felt behind a camera before - complete paralysis. I knew it was a fixed lens, but it hadn't also occurred to me that it didn't zoom. I didn't know how to frame a picture with this lens. Everything was tiny. Nothing was looking right.
So tentatively, I moved my feet. I walked over to a leafless Quaking Aspen and looked again. Now I understood. I got up close and captured the icy branches with plenty of sky. I walked up to another tree and captured the entire tree while standing practically under it. I captured a bank of trees with what seemed like a mile of snow in the foreground.
My feet were getting cold and my jeans were wet to the knees when it hit me: the only way to use this lens is to move your feet. I had shot for years from the comfort of the car, the porch, a chair, whatever. But I had never really gotten out there. The fixed twenty forced me to get out of the car and enter the world I was trying to photograph.
Sometimes on a trip, I try switching my lenses back and forth. Worried that the fixed 20 won't capture enough detail, I switch to my zoom, only to find that it can't take in the scene as broadly as I want. At some point, tired of the lens switching, I resign myself again to the fixed 20, now my favorite lens. It has captured the entirety of a majestic oak as I stood almost under its canopy. It allowed me to photograph the effects of hurricaine Hugo from the front gate of a magnificent crumbling Greek Revival on the Charleston Battery. It sees more of the world that I can.
And most importantly, it gets me out of the car, and into the world.
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