Through the Storm
We all feel off sometimes. I felt this way right around the end of May 2022, and I decided what I needed was to get off social media for a bit and clear my head. I abruptly shut it down and took two weeks to figure out what my deal was and how I was to get back online in a healthy, responsible way. Right in the middle of these two weeks I got the opportunity to go storm chasing for the very first time, resulting in this collection.
After the trip, I was looking at my photos and the analogy of going through a storm came to mind. It’s sort of what I had been feeling like, as if I was going through a rough patch. With that there was a lot that had been on my mind in the two weeks I was off the grid. I had been thinking about some of the things I base my life around and figured I could use this entire analogy as a creative springboard, rediscovering what made me who I am and using that to get me through this storm.
So this collection consists of nine photos from my experience chasing storms as well as a what is essentially a journal entry to match. I wanted to take some time to be thorough and write a meaningful piece that could stand out on its own, but would pair well with the accompanying photo. Each set has its own theme and message. I hope you enjoy both viewing and reading what helped me get through the storm.
Restoration
To find your way once more.
I’ll admit being off of social media the last two weeks has been great. So much so that if it weren’t for extrapersonal reasons I might’ve pushed it two more weeks. Though I’m jumping back on I won’t lie, I really don’t feel all that much different than when I got off.
I guess I’ve found myself in a funk right now. I don’t feel like posting. I hardly feel like shooting to be honest. In a way I feel lost, like I went down this road only to find myself in the middle of a storm.
I suppose this mini series is a means of trying to force myself back into some sort of groove. To find my way through this storm. It’ll be an attempt at restoration. And of reviving my convictions and approach towards not just social media, but towards life as well.
Allow me to hash out some thoughts I’ve had over the last two weeks. To extend, however briefly, some of the conversations that arose. And feel free to join me as I make my way Through The Storm.
Time
To make the most of our time.
One of the more startling realizations of getting off social media for a while is just how much of our life is put into it. Quite often I would be sitting around and feel like I had nothing to do because I wasn’t logging on. I almost didn’t know what to do sometimes, and proof of that was the fact that I started doing a daily crossword of all things.
But obviously I was not being gifted with extra time. I still had the same 24 hours in a day as I did before but I could fill that time in new ways. Thus, the real gift was the awareness that I could use my time more effectively if is chose to do so.
I choose the word “effectively” because I don’t think it’s always about being more productive or efficient. Too often I think we are worried about doing more and more things with our time as opposed to simply doing better things.
Using your time effectively means to use it in ways that are conducive to living a better life. It means to prioritize the things that matter. It means being with the people who matter most to you. It’s about using what limited time we have in more meaningful ways.
I’ve never come away from a post, comment, story, etc. and thought “my life is better because of it.” But I have had that thought after sitting outside watching the sun go down. After sharing lunch and a hammock in the park. And after listening to your stories over a campfire. None of this needed to be on social media.
In all this, I have more thoroughly enjoyed your company, and even more so life, by not letting my phone take me away from a moment with you. And that is unquestionably the definition of time well spent.
Structure
To return to what brought you here.
Storms don’t come out of nowhere. You can watch them build up, developing their own structures as they grow. And when we’re not careful we get lost in them. A paralyzing mix of awe and fear prevent us from changing course to avoid it. In a blink of an eye we can find ourselves in the thick of it without knowing how to get out.
We may think we’ve lost our way but we forget that moments earlier we were safe. We had principles, rules, and protocols that we followed, even gut feelings that we listened to. And these gave us some kind of system in which to build our lives up from. One blip on the radar hasn’t changed everything, yet we have a hard time remembering that. We question things and forget where our guide rails are.
We’ve all got our own supports we lean on, some structure that we’ve built over time. For me it’s largely been through reading, with the philosophy of Stoicism being at the forefront of it. But I’ve gotten away from that. I’ve strayed pretty far from what is familiar to me. I haven’t read one book this year, and those that really know me will understand the magnitude of that. A likely solution is staring me in the face yet I’ve continued to walk further and further into the storm.
Return to what you’ve read, the lessons that you’ve learned. Sit with them again and allow yourself to reabsorb them once more. Revisit these familiar things. Let them guide you. And perhaps you will find your way back home.
Connection
To find a sense of belonging.
There’s much more to these roads than we realize. They don’t just create connections from point A to point B, they’re responsible for creating connections between all of us too. This network of roads we’ve traveled on is just as much the system of turns we take to get to each other as it is a map of where we’ve been.
Being willing to drive up from somewhere like Albuquerque on a whim just to come hang out with us is no small thing. Same goes for canceling your roadtrip plans after the first weekend to spend more time with people you just met. These roads symbolize more than just passage over this beautiful land we call home, they bring us together with the family we choose to belong to.
There are no amount of hours on these roads we wouldn’t consider because of what we know lies at the end of them. It’s the friends we haven’t seen in a while. It’s the moments alone on top of mountains with your people. It’s sitting around campfires in the middle of the desert. Something more than mere photos await us along these roads, and it’s this sense of belonging that we are drawn to.
The more time we spend together on these roads the stronger these attachments get. It becomes harder and harder to say goodbye. And when it comes time to leave, handshakes become hugs, last minute conversations strike up to delay the inevitable just a little longer, and you decide to drive down that trail one more time because you have nowhere better to be.
We leave each other knowing these roads will connect us once more, just not knowing when that day will come. And no matter where we are coming from, or where we are going, they lead us to a place that becomes more and more familiar to us: somewhere we belong.
Joy
To discover bliss where you least expect it.
It’s funny how once you’ve passed through a storm we can find something like a rainbow right at the edge of it. Barely separated from the chaos just miles away lies what we all recognize to be a symbol of hope and joy. It’s against this background, the contrast with darkness, that we notice things like this more easily. And it’s proof that joy exists even where we least expect to find it.
Often times I find myself stepping back, almost detaching from the moment and noticing joy in random things throughout the day. There’s joy to be found in the still silence of the morning. In looking out the window, watching the scene slowly pass you by while driving. For me though, joy frequently arises from interactions with others. From getting to see you lose yourself in your passion for photography. Or the tremendous feeling of joy I get from getting to see your son grow up through the occasional photo/video while I live more than 1,000 miles away.
But a lot of this tends to go unnoticed in our daily life. We mosey on through our day just trying to get by without thinking that there’s plenty around us that can sustain our mental and emotional health. A more concerted effort to discover bliss in the ordinary course of our day reveals a deeply profound sense of gratitude for life. I start to feel this simply from your presence or in the look in your eyes and that joy brings a certain amount of peace that you can lean into and use as a foundation for security and you can build up from.
There is a good that persists in the world, and being more conscious about looking for it is where you’ll find an overwhelming sense of joy that will change you. It’s as if in the face of all the misery and turmoil we can experience that we are choosing to be stronger, to build up our immunity to suffering. And this joy, this eternal spring of which we can draw from, begins to become more of the norm as opposed to the outlier. And with it, comes a deeper appreciation for all the little moments, found in the darkness or the light, that makes life worth living.
Satisfaction
To know what is enough.
The sun had left the sky, leaving this dark landscape and large, sweeping clouds hanging in the air. Light rain trickled down, splashing my lens, and lightning was shooting on and off in the distance. I left the shutter open hoping it would catch a few bursts and that it would be enough to light up the foreground. On my last try, I captured a handful of bolts, and as a stream of lightning rolled horizontally across the sky I laughed to myself knowing that it was exactly what I needed for this shot.
After a day of shooting I rarely feel the need to get my camera back out for the rest of a trip. I’m simply satisfied with everything I got (only 1 image in this series came after day 1). To some degree I feel a bit out of place among many of you because I see how you get lost in this craft and keep looking for the next moment to capture. I just don’t feel that drive, and the only way I can think to explain it is that photography just doesn’t mean as much to me as it does to most of you.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ll make the most out of my time shooting, but once it’s passed I just feel like I got more than I really need. Like I’ve gotten enough from the opportunity and I’m ready to move on. So when we roll into day 2 of a trip, I don’t feel the camera pulling me in. I could gladly put it away and just enjoy being out instead.
Shooting doesn’t make me feel alive like breathing in the crisp mountain air or observing the pockets of sun light up the beautiful hills of South Dakota. Or when taking a deep breath and noting what it feels like to be around good company. Or watching you work in your element, one that is very foreign to me, and being able to see what that moment means to you just from the look in your eyes. Those moments are what I’m after, the ones that are hard to capture in a single frame. They leave me more deeply satisfied than any photo I could take.
I want you to pull me away from the camera because I will not endlessly pursue the next shot when I know I’ve had enough. Because in moments like this I am satisfied, and I am ready to begin chasing something more meaningful to me.
Presence
To be here and nowhere else.
“What does it feel like to be in the right place at the right time?”
This is a question I think about from time to time and I’ve never found the words to describe what that actually feels like. It is a feeling, however, that we most certainly recognize when it’s arrived.
This shot was taken on top of a hill next to a local graveyard. Once I got it I figured I had had enough and put my camera away. Shortly after, the rain started coming down much harder and lightning continued to crack off in the distance. Before we left I took a moment to simply stand there in the rain, looking out over the hilly landscape, slipping into a state of mindfulness.
It’s a moment I will never forget now. Feeling the rain bounce off my jacket. Watching streaks of light dance with each other across the sky. And hearing the rumblings of thunder surrounding me on all sides. I think we tend to avoid moments like this simply because we don’t want to get wet. But it’s these moments, being intensely present, feeling as if there is truly nowhere else on this earth we should be at that point in time, that we end up missing out on.
No camera can capture it. This kind of purity in the experience of life is one we must create for ourselves, putting aside the hustle and bustle of life, intentionally slowing things down to allow ourselves to be present in a way we rarely can afford to be. We must practice this form of letting go, seeking out more and more of these chances to feel like we are in the right place at the right time.
I ask you to join me sometime in stepping away from the camera and into the moment in front of us. To stop chasing life and simply be a part of it, for however briefly we can. Because that is where we belong: experiencing the wondrous magic of the present moment, as alive as we can truly be.
Awe
To be struck by divine beauty.
To see this in camera was special, but to witness this display of lightning, to see it under the starry sky with my own eyes, was simply fascinating.
I won’t admit to chasing many things, but this feeling, one that is truly hard to put words to, is high on my list. It’s hard to describe because in these moments you’re often left speechless, struck by the innate scale, beauty, and power found in the phenomena we stumble upon in life. What words could possibly do this justice?
It is this feeling, to be so captured in a single moment, to be standing before a masterpiece that no man could create, that prompts us to believe in something. And in the face of that, when we can feel the presence of something greater than ourselves, how could we possibly look away?
A sense of awe inspires a love and a fascination for life. It helps us continue to see this world in almost a child like way, promoting the desire to explore the infinite beauty around us, guided by a spirit that is unquestionably divine at its roots. Feel this spark inside you and realize it came from the same place as the one captured in this frame: where the heavens and earth collide.
Take a minute. Take it all in. Allow yourself to be captivated.
Memories
To remember the in between moments.
When I look at my photos, particularly landscape ones, I rarely am captured by what is in frame. Instead, my mind wanders off, thinking about the journey to that photo and what came after it. To all of the moments that weren’t photographed.
In these frames I almost see everything but what is pictured. I relive the trek through the sand dunes. I see you dancing and I feel you next to me. The way you laughed, how your eyes lit up by the fire, all of it comes back to me. All of these in between moments that couldn’t possibly be captured properly in just a single still image. This is what I see in shots like this.
So while this may be the first lightning bolt I ever froze in time, there is so much more beyond this crop that remains very much in motion. Around this image I see snippets and clips of life away from the camera, pieced together to tell a story I try so hard to hold on to. Because it’s not the passing of time or the distance between that eats at us. It’s the fear that we may one day forget about the moments that truly mattered and have our story slowly fade from our memory.
Maybe every frame holds more than we know. Perhaps we don’t take photos to capture a single moment in time, but to serve as a direct line to relive all the moments that surrounded it. Perhaps a photo, like this one, is really more of a cover image for the chapters that make up the story of our life. And behind this cover, with new pages added every day, is a deeper, more meaningful story that unfolds.