Work With What You Have

The moon was supposed to be in crescent phase. No clouds were forecast. I was ready to play with stars!

So the moon was half full and there were clouds. And there was wind which made sea oats blur with time exposures. But moonlight illuminated the snow-white sand and the clouds provided an interesting addition to some images. And waving sea oats provided an element of flow to the stillness of the heavens.

As I stood on the beach adjusting shutter speed, ISO, f-stop and focus, I thought how wonderful it is to be surprised in life. As I counted to 25, 34, 41….I considered the joy that can come from working with what we have, not necessarily what we want. The photographs looked really nice in my LCD screen so as I stood there, under the multitude of stars I thought, Who cares if there are clouds and the moon makes photographing the Milky Way challenging or even impossible? Isn’t it awesome that the sea oats are dancing?

If we always have exactly what we want, how would we learn to be creative? Anyone can take the formula for astrophotography and make a decent shot. But what if conditions are simply not conducive for the sought after goal? Give up and go home? Or play?

Life is like that. We wish for events to turn out as we envision but it’s not always like that. And in the end, sometimes it’s even better. I aimed my camera and counted off the seconds with the shutter timer over and over. This morning a shooting star awaited me. Never expected that….but what a nice surprise.

More than anything though, the night of photographing stars finally helped me illustrate the feelings of wonder and awe I experience when monitoring sea turtle nests under such amazing celestial beings on the beaches of the Gulf of Mexico.

“We show up, burn brightly, live passionately, hold nothing back, and when the moment is over, when our work is done, we step back and let go.” (Rolf Gates) And sometimes we yell with joy, “WOO HOO!!!”