Don’t Get Stuck Chasing Perfection

I was excited! I got to go back up to North Dakota to celebrate Christmas with family and I was ready to go out in the early mornings to photograph wildlife in the snow. Unfortunately I quickly realized that the bucks weren’t as active as they were in November, I didn’t know any of their patterns, and there was barely any snow on the ground. My first couple adventures out were unsuccessful. I walked and walked (realized I was out of shape) and couldn’t find anything I wanted to photograph. The big Bucks were hiding, my dreams of finding and photographing the Fisher I saw in November didn’t come true, and I couldn’t even find any doe to take photographs of (until the last day). I was very frustrated!

I was frustrated because I was stuck chasing the perfect picture and was forgetting to look at all of the beauty of God’s creation around me. I wasn’t taking pictures the first couple days because the perfect picture was never there! But when I stopped looking for the perfect picture and focused on the beauty around me, then my shutter started clicking. I started to enjoy my time outside doing what I love.

This little doe walked up on me my last morning taking pictures up north. This was the only animal (other than a squirrel) I photographed the entire trip and I wasn’t particularly happy with how any of the pictures turned out, but it was still a fun opportunity.

I was trying really hard to find a composition of multiple trees and the sun rising in the background. Unfortunately the sun was pretty much covered by clouds and I never could find multiple trees that looked good together.

But this didn’t stop me! When I was little one of my favorite sayings was “take what you got and make what you can”. Now when I was little and would say that it would have probably been about me not having all of the lego pieces I needed to create the vision I had in my head. But on this day it was about creating beautiful images. So instead of photographing multiple trees with the rising sun in the background I focused on photographing single trees with the pink and blue cloudy background that God provided me.

I also decided to forget about the sky in the background and focus on finding particularly interesting trees.

Also figured I would zoom in on all the little details in the bark.

This photo is the perfect example of me not getting stuck on perfection. I could not find the right composition where all of the cattails were just perfect. It simply wasn’t there! But I still took photos of them and I can even say now that I really like this image. If I would’ve been stuck on getting the perfect photo I never would have taken this shot.

And sometimes when the perfect picture just isn’t there it is fun to just create. I probably will never sell any of these images, but I had fun taking them and more fun editing them. I love capturing photos to show off God’s amazing creation to everyone just how it was in nature, but at the same time I really like to edit images into my own personal vision. And hey, this is still showing off God’s creation. This is showing off His creation of the amazing gift He gave me, the gift of creativity.

And so the blog post ends. Learn from my mistakes and don’t get stuck in your own life chasing perfection! Go outside and enjoy the beauty. Go do whatever job you have and do it to the best of your abilities. And when something doesn’t go perfect don’t let it ruin the rest of your day! Take what you got and make what you can!

P.S. I really shouldn’t write these after midnight, but hey i’m just trying my best to not chase perfection haha