Opportunistic Photography
I’m not sure if it’s a language quirk, or just a reflection of the contradictory nature of life, but it simply seems odd to me that a word can have radically opposing connotations, when applied in different contexts. In my mind, the concept of “Opportunism” is just such a textbook example.
To illustrate the dark side of opportunism, one might suggest the recent criminal case brought against the clearly clueless individual who allegedly made over $400K in the predictions market, just before participating in the recent US military intervention in Venezuela. No need to dwell on the ugly details here. The past year has been a gold mine of other egregious examples of ill-considered words and actions by individuals we unfortunately now know all too well. But the intent here is not to revisit that, but to return to the subject of photography and a kindler, gentler perspective on opportunism.
The benevolent flip side of the opportunism coin is the case to be made for the potentially transformational and positive benefits of exercising opportunism in photography. Countless UTube photography content creators admonish us to seize the moment, to get up and to get out and practice our photography, no matter the time of day, environmental conditions or baseline level of our sloth. After all, as they cheerfully point out, one is guaranteed to miss 100% of the great photos one might have taken, had one simply detached one’s backside from the sofa or bedsheets and headed out camera in hand. Masochistically invigorated, the level of cheeriness and joy in their task at hand seems to increase exponentially the more wretched the conditions or challenging the task. If you haven’t seen such videos, you simply cannot imagine the radiance of their smiles while exclaiming something like “It never gets better than this”. This is all while standing ankle deep in a bog in sneakers with a titanic snow squall blowing in their face, while simultaneously framing up a composition and talking to the video camera. You get the picture, I trust.
So, with that in mind and mindful that in the springtime in the desert there is a somewhat narrow window between the first awakening of nature and the onslaught of oppressive heat, I’ve spent the last few weeks in pleasant and comfortably warm conditions taking the advice to heart and getting out with my camera. Check out the Gallery of images for this blog to see what I have been able to find, off the asphalt and out in the landscape. Just one caution, don’t get ahead of your skis as photography critics and charge me with going postal with my Saturation slider during editing. That green you will see on some of the rock faces is just how vivid the lichen really is at this time of year.
My suggestion to you is simply this - take a dose of that same advice and go out to see what you can discover. It is well worth the effort and, I suspect, just as rewarding. The bonus is, us mere mortals can achieve much of this without having to stand in a gale, mired in a freezing bog. Oh, and one last tiny bit of advice before you rush out. It’s considered a photographic best practice to remember not to step on rattlesnakes.