seanlitchfield:

I met this group of birders from the Mass Audubon Society a few weeks back when I was working down on Cape Cod revisiting a project I started back in college. I was having lunch in my car when I saw this huge van pull up, much like a clown car but instead of clowns, really fun lighthearted ladies with binoculars around their necks filed out. They quickly rushed to the edge of this pier in Wellfleet Bay and immediately started scouting the water for birds. I could hear them yell and giggle even with my windows up. So I put down my peanut butter and jelly sandwich and sort of awkwardly went up to them, like a school boy trying to ask a girl out on a date, and asked if they wouldn’t mind me photographing them. I was directed to the group ‘leader’ who was completely flattered by my request and they all crowded together and smiled for this picture. Then, they showed me some sort of duck, I don’t know what kind, through their intense tripod mounted scope (carbon fiber?!), and I was so blown away, seeing what was just a minute before some black dot floating in the water, but now it was brought right up to my eye in full detail. Neat! Then I asked if I could get a few of them ‘in action’ and of course they were really excited about it so we wandered on to the beach and I made a few more pictures. 

Yeah, this is a bit more text than you typically see on tumblr but I read a post yesterday by the talented Dale Rothenberg talking about the importance of the process, which to me, is what it’s all about. Sure it doesn’t matter in the end, when you’re sitting in front of a photo in a one-on-one type of situation, usually online where the artist is hundreds of miles away and 50 emails deep in getting a response back to you if you had a comment. But isn’t the process the most fun part of image making? It’s the only time you’re out in the field with the subject and it will never be quite as fresh in your memory as it is in that moment. To me, this is what gets me excited about making pictures; these odd encounters I may have with people and places. You can’t set out to find them, they just happen. It turns out, Wendy O’Keefe (one of the coordinators) and I have some mutual acquaintances, separated by a degree or two, mostly from my Grandmother who helped found a number of wildlife organizations in Southeastern Massachusetts. 

I’d love to see more artists talk about their work on here, rather than just uploading pictures by themselves. Maybe we could get more of a dialogue going. What’re other people’s thoughts? I met up with some very close friends from college last night, some of whom I haven’t seen in months, maybe even over a year. I had forgotten what it’s like to sit down with like-minded people, have a few beers and just talk about work. It’s really got to happen more, or we’re all just wandering around with cameras making pictures that’ll only be seen by some middle-aged housewife at the hair salon.