Nature has given me much. It’s given me an ever-changing canvas to capture. It’s given me refuge and respite. It’s given me adventures with those closest to me.
Yet framed another way: I’ve taken a lot from nature.
That said, I’ve given too. I’ve made donations and gifted my photos to conservation groups. I’ve written many articles to revere the wonders of our natural world.
But as I began to reflect this year, my ledger with nature became far from balanced.
Did I miss something in the desert?
Last month I flew into Karijini National Park for a week of photography with my dad.
The trip happened to take place between two challenging periods. I had just lost my grandfather who I adored. Then when I returned home, my job was made redundant.
So I took solace in the desert to soften the emotional loss. I reflected on the vast vistas to put my economic loss in perspective.
The trip went well. I made memorable images of ancient ghost gums and canyons cracking through the landscape. I cherished the time with my dad and the deep bond between us.
But I returned with a lingering thought: Had I missed something important? At times, I operated on autopilot, moving between gorges to hoover up the next bold photo.
Other times, I would escape my ego to soak in the scenes unfolding around me. Curious wagtails hopping around the canyons. Twisted trees somehow sprouting straight out of barren rock walls.
In those moments, I wasn’t taking. I gave my attention and accepted my place in this unfathomable, unknowable play of life.
Rational and relational truths
I long held a rose-tinted view of nature. A view of untouched wilderness, pristine coasts and primeval forests.
Yet indigenous people managed and burned tracts of ‘wilderness’ for aeons. And now the darker echoes of modern life ripple (and sometimes rip) through even the most remote regions.
The wonders of nature ought to be cherished and respected. But they’re not separate from us. Whether we’re aware of it or not, we’re constantly communing with natural rhythms large and small.
Over the past decade, my photography has reminded me of and reconnected me with those forces.
Yet the way I pursued my craft hindered a reciprocal relationship. The need to chase bigger, bolder photos led me to extract value from each outing. To run for fleeting light before it faded. To move dead branches and bring order to chaotic scenes.
When we act on nature to optimise outcomes, we leave little room for it to act on us.
I tend to favour reductive, rational thinking. The scientist in me respects the water cycle, the seasons and humidity forecasts.
But that knowledge in no way diminishes the might of torrential waterfalls. Or sensing the start of spring when wattles explode in golden blooms. Or feeling awe under mountain ash shrouded in fog.
The act of noticing and revering natural wonder opens a depth of being beyond binary thinking. To pursue rational truths and leave space for relational ones too.
When we commune with the natural world – through respect, reverie or mere presence – we connect with truths larger than ourselves. We connect with ways of being that our ever-streamlined, ever-insular, ever-optimised lives are yearning for.
Communing with the forest
Last weekend, I travelled to the native forests past Healsville with my partner, with these half-formed ideas swirling around and this article sitting half-written.
Late on our first afternoon, I’d forgotten my tripod and couldn’t capture the golden light in the dim forest. I would have once been flustered or frustrated at the lost opportunity.
But framed another way, I had time and space to soak in my surroundings. To see myrtles thrive in the deep gullies, nursing colonies of moss and ferns on their damp trunks. To see giant gums tower overhead, with strips of bark spilling down like wax candles.
I still set out each morning to photograph the trees. But my deeper presence the day before nurtured my familiarity with and kinship to the forest. So when the early fog faded quite quickly, I didn’t (just) frame it as a missed photo. I was also grateful to witness the forest come to light and hear the birdsong begin at dawn.
The trip wasn’t wildly transformative. I didn’t have some revelation in the trees about nature as the elixir for a life well lived. Though, there could be something in that...
But the trip was iterative. I sat with these half-formed ideas and let them grow with me in the forest. Then as I wrote, I pruned some ideas while others continued to bud into what became this article.
Through life, we can grow towards the ideals we champion and the truths we cherish. At times, seasons will test us and storms will challenge that growth. But nature reminds us that we can always branch towards the light.