Almost everyone is graced with the sense of sight. Almost everyone is able to wake up in the morning to see the sun rising and rest their heads at night to the sun set. Almost everyone is able to see the formations of clouds hanging in the sky or the wind gently whisping a grassy field. Almost everyone is graced with the ability to view these beautiful sights, however, not everyone is capable of seeing the earth through the eye of a lens, a world that is one of its own.
Being a photographer is not something that you can be trained to be. Sure, you can learn vast amounts and grow in your talent, but it is a gift that you are born with that simply needs to be discovered. Photographers are born with lenses in their eyes, the keen ability to view things in a perspective that few others can, and once discovered, they learn how to use that lens to capture breathtaking images through a real one.
We see things differently than most, and people who aren't like us often recognize that. So often I'll stop to take a picture and someone will say, "Wow, I never thought to look at it that way before." It's the little variations in the way we view things, the slightly skewed angles, the lack of or abundance of light, the idea that something so little can be made to look so big.
Photographers don't just view the sunset or the sunrise. They notice how each individual ray of light refracts, splits and explodes across a scene. They notice the incredible shadows that contrast the light and are able to mentally capture what the image will permanently look like once they press the shutter down. They notice how the rays splash golden warmth across a face, a flower, or an object. They notice how that sunlight is caught inside of the smallest dew drop on a blade of grass, appreciating that single drop for everything that it is and its temporary and changing nature.
That's the thing about photographers and how we view the world; we recognize that every little thing in the world is constantly changing, never static. This is why we wait hours, days, weeks, for the perfect weather, the perfect lighting, the perfect moment, and when it comes, we snap as many pictures as humanely possible, knowing that this is the last time this exact, breathtaking scene will ever be visible. We long for these shots we have devised through our mental lens, and after we get them we are able to sit back and enjoy the ever changing sight, whether it be of a storm rolling over the mountains, the hue of the light changing on someone's face, and or the tide of the ocean retreating. We take the world for what it is and expect nothing more, but are always surprised but what it unleashes for us, and that's what's different about photographers.
