Take a Moment

Something we all do a lot too little of is to take a moment for ourselves.  I know I don’t.

Adele and I have just returned from an absolutely amazing trip to Bangkok.  Now this place must be the furtherest thing from wildlife and nature you can imagine.  It’s insane!   It is an overwhelming attack on your senses and you cannot help to get sucked into the energy and life that it exudes.  24/7.  In a larger sense this trip was us taking a moment, all be it a slightly extended moment, but it most definitely served it’s purpose.

We all get so caught up in what we do, and what we have still have to do, that we forget the bigger picture.  Our goals, ideals and vision get blurred and like so many times before we rather keep on ticking the boxes we feel we have to rather than taking a moment to reassess where ticking all those boxes are taking us.  Taking a moment helps you to redefine where you are going, what you want and what you need.

I am still absolutely exhausted after returning from the city of smiles.  Unlike the street vendor on the right, when you visit that place sleep is not on the top of the agenda.  There is just too much to see and too much to do that to sleep through it all would be doing a disservice to yourself and the city.  In between all the colorful chaos that is Bangkok, I never once thought about anything back home.  Nothing.  Might not sound like much but it is actually a massive thing.  Like a lot of you I tend to always have things, too many things in fact, mulling around in the back of my head.  The important part is, and this is what this is all about, if you don’t take a moment to think reassess how all these ‘things’ fit together you get caught up in them and all the important things get left behind.

For the longest time I have had a number of projects and ideas which I would have liked to throw myself into but I could never quite get a hang on how to get the ball rolling.  By taking a moment away from everything your vision tends to become a little clearer and when you return to the normal life suddenly you see things in a new light and you find yourself asking, why didn’t I think of that before?

So after an extended moment I have a refreshingly new vision, clearer goals and definite ideas as to how I will be chasing those goals.  Will I be successful?  Only time will tell but for now I know what I need to do and how I need to do it.  Exciting stuff and it all comes from taking a moment, something I plan I doing a whole lot more of.  Bigger moments like traveling abroad (already planning our next trip!) or smaller, everyday moments.  Very important!

Go for a jog, have a cup of coffee outside, read a book, watch TV, take a nap whatever!  Taking a moment is really not all that difficult but it can bring with it amazing clarity and renewed energy.

Right, let’s wrap up the preaching and get back to what Photo-Africa is all about.  Wildlife photography!

A huge thanks to Buddy Eleazer from www.ChobeSafari.com for a fantastic guest post yesterday.  Great images and some solid advice.  If you have not yet checked out his website make sure to pop in.  The latest article includes more reactions to the disqualification of the winning image in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition.  A lot of people are seriously pissed off about this and rightfully so. Click here to read the article which includes reactions from Andy Rouse and Andy Biggs.  It is sad that, due to one person’s actions, the reputation of wildlife photographers have been pulled through the mud like this but I strongly believe that there are enough honest and truly passionate photographers out there to get u all focusing on the positive side of things again.  One thing is for certain, this year’s wining image is going to be very well scrutinized and it is going to be interesting to see what the judges go for.  Will keep you posted.

During the next week, apart from working on a number of exciting future projects, I will be catching up on a bucketload of emails so I promise I will get back to you all soon!  This coming weekend I will not only be working through my images from Thailand but I have also started cleaning up and reorganizing my wildlife catalogue.  From Monday I will be back every day with images, tutorials, blogs to follow and other wildlife photography related news.

A few people have asked about my images from Thailand.  I will not be posting them on Photo-Africa as I don’t want to deviate away from wildlife too much.  That’s also why I had to post the image of a lioness taking a moment to keep this post ‘wild’!  One of the results of my ‘taking a moment’ is the idea and ultimate redesign of my personal website.  I think I have finally nailed it and even though there is still a lot of fine tuning that needs to be done I will be posting some of my travel images on this site early next week.  Will let you know as soon as it is ready to go!

When you have a moment this weekend make sure to pop in to the Photo-Africa Stock Library.  Fabian Haas, one of the newest photographers to sign up, has been very busy and during the last week or so he has uploaded more than a hundred images!  Check out the previous post to see some of his images.

For now, have a fantastic weekend and remember to take a moment whenever you can!

Gerry