The Station By Robert J. Hastings
Tucked away in our subconscious is an idyllic vision. We see ourselves on a long trip that spans the continent. We are traveling by train. Out the window we drink in the passing scene of cars on nearby highways, of children waving at a crossing, of cattle grazing on a distant hillside, of smoke pouring from a power plant, of row upon row of corn and wheat, of flatlands and valleys, of mountains and rolling hillsides, or city skylines and village halls.
But uppermost in our minds is the final destination. On a certain day at a certain hour we will pull into the station. Banks will be playing and flags waving. Once we get there so many wonderful dreams will come true and the pieces of our lives will fit together like a completed jigsaw puzzle. How restlessly we pace the aisles, damning the minutes for loitering – waiting, waiting, waiting for the station.
“When we reach the station, that will be it!”, we cry. “When I’m 18.” “When I buy a new SL Mercedes Benz!” “When I put the last kid through college.” “When I have paid off the mortgage!” “When I get a promotion.” “When I reach the age of retirement, I shall live happily ever after!”
Sooner or later, we must realize there is not station, no one place to arrive at once and for all. The true joy of life is the trip. The station is only a dream. It constantly outdistances us.
“Relish in the moment” is a good motto especially when coupled with Psalm 118:24: “This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” It isn’t the burdens of today that drive men mad. It is the regrets over yesterday and the fear of tomorrow. Regret and fear are twin thieves who rob us of today.
So stop pacing the aisles and counting the miles. Instead, climb more mountains, eat more ice cream, go barefoot more often, swim more rivers, watch more sunsets, laugh more, cry less. Life must be lived as we go along. The station will come soon enough.
~THE END~
I had borrowed the below article ... hehe (below was not my text)
See renowned pro Chase Jarvis' art book, The Best Camera, shot entirely on his iPhone.See the online eork shot exclusively on his iPhone. If you can shoot well, all you need is a disposable, toy camera or a camera phone to create great work. If you're not talented, it doesn't matter if you buy a Nikon D3X or Leica; your work will still be uninspired.
It's always better to spend your time and money on learning art and photography, not by spending it on more cameras.
Why is it that with over 60 years of improvements in cameras, lens sharpness and film grain, resolution and dynamic range that no one has been able to equal what Ansel Adams did back in the 1940s?
Ansel didn't even have Photoshop! How did he do it? Most attempts fall short, some are as good but different like Jack Dykinga, but no one is the same.
Try to tell an American he can't, and he will: Man Uses Barbie Fishing Rod for Record Catch!
Why is it that photographers loaded with the most extraordinary gear who use the internet to get the exact GPS coordinates of Jack's or Ansel's photo locations and hike out there with the image in hand to ensure an exact copy (illegal by US copyright laws and common decency), that they get something that might look similar, but lacks all the impact and emotion of the original they thought they copied?
I'm not kidding. A bunch of these turkeys used university astronomers to predict the one time in almost two decades that the conditions would match and had 300 of the clueless converge at just the right spot. They still didn't get the clouds, snow or shadows right. This makes Ansel or any other creative artist cringe. Of course they didn't get anything like what they wanted. Art is a lot more.
Compelling photographs come from inspiration, not duplication.
Someone asked "If I got a camera with only 6 or 7 MP, can I make good pictures with it?"
That reminds me about the guy who breaks a wrist and asks his doctor: "Doctor, will I be able to play the piano after this heals?" The doctor replies "Absolutely, no problem!" The man laughs, and points out that that's great, because he never could play the piano before!
Buying a Bösendorfer doesn't mean you can play the piano. Buying a great camera doesn't mean you can create compelling photographs. Good pianists can play on anything and a good photographer can make great images with a disposable camera.
As we all saw in The Blues Brothers, give Brother Ray a keyboard with a sticky action and he'll play so movingly that the whole town will be up and dancing.
Cameras don't take pictures, photographers do. Cameras are just another artist's tool.
Why is it that even though everyone knows that Photoshop can be used to take any bad image and turn it into a masterpiece, that even after hours of massaging these images look worse than when one started?
Maybe because it's entirely an artist's eye, patience and skill that makes an image and not his tools. Even Ansel said "The single most important component
of a camera is the twelve inches behind it."
of a camera is the twelve inches behind it."
A camera catches your imagination. No imagination, no photo - just crap. The word "image" comes from the word "imagination." It doesn't come come from "lens sharpness" or "noise levels." David LaChapelle's work is all about his imagination, not his camera. Setting up these crazy shots is the hard part. Once set up, any camera could catch them. Give me David LaChapelle's camera and I won't get anything like he does, even if you give me the same star performers.
The only reason I have a huge lens in my photo on my home page is so I don't have to say "photographer" or "photography." The lens makes it obvious much quicker than words. That's what visual communication is all about: thinking long and hard to make your point clearly and quickly. I haven't used that huge lens in years.
Just about any camera, regardless of how good or bad it is, can be used to create outstanding photographs for magazine covers, winning photo contests and hanging in art galleries. The quality of a lens or camera has almost nothing do with the quality of images it can be used to produce.
Joe Holmes' limited-edition 13 x 19" prints of his American Museum of Natural History series sell at Manhattan's Jen Bekman Gallery for $650 each. They're made on a D70.
Another San Diego pro, Kirsten Gallon earns her living using Nikon's two very cheapest lenses, the 18-5570-300 G. and
There are plenty of shows selling shots from Holgas for a lot more money, just that those folks don't tell me about it. Holgas sell for $14.95, brand new, here. You can see an award-winning shot made with a Holga hanging in Washington, D.C.'s Hemicycle Gallery of the Corcoran Museum of Art in their 2006 Eyes of History competition of the White House News Photographers Association here.
Walker Evans once said "People always ask me what camera I use. It's not the camera, it's - - - " and he tapped his temple with his index finger.
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