For what must be the tenth time in a couple of months, the “simple” task of taking lightning shots was turned into a near monumental failure, by elements outside of my control.
I knew there was a decent shot at a good lightning storm so I headed off down to Lake Parker with my hopes high and camera in hand. Other attempts have failed on the back of camera problems, battery problems, location and storm problems, and even Neville problems, but last night’s issue was rain.
It wasn’t a huge rain, but enough to soak my camera and equipment. It killed my setup and stopped me from being able to make adjustments as I tried to cover the camera with protection. After an hour of struggle and misery, and a couple of mosquito bites, I decided that I couldn’t keep the camera at that level of risk and so I packed everything up and drove home with a sense of frustration.
Here are the only two shots from my mission … hope you enjoy!
Driving home, my brain began turning on the whole issue of how our lives at times are filled with one obstacle after another. Things that catch us at every twist and turn as we dodge and weave our way around them.
Getting knocked down repeatedly is no news to most of us, but like that Chumbawumba song, the trick is getting back up again!
Some times are admittedly harder than others and for me last night, the cumulative effect of prior failures seemed to make it another degree harder.
So what I managed to do was to consider that even though the outing was certainly on the “fail” list, there was at least one or two things that I could take as a positive (I improved focus, and controlled the aperture better than my prior attempts). They aren’t major achievements by any stretch of the imagination, but I took them as a sign that I was getting perhaps just one step closer to being able to pull off a decent lightning shoot.
Sometimes, it may be difficult to find a positive, but there is always something. We just need to search a little deeper at times. So we get back up, dust ourselves off, and keep moving forward.
The child in us may want to find a dark corner and assume the fetal position, but that then requires that a force external to us picks us up and makes us feel better. As children that force was likely to be one of our parents or older family member. But most of us “seniors” have long outlived that luxury and so any lift has to come from within.
I believe it all comes down to our mental approach. How we look at challenges and how we handle an occasional loss, can be a true “distinguisher” in how we progress through life.
Failure in something is never a complete failure if we walk away having learned something. And sometimes that “something” is nothing more than regardless of the knock, we managed to get back up again.
