Live Write Dream blogger, Lou, one of the bloggers I recommend here, has written a beautiful piece on travel in which she recalls wondering to her younger self while visiting the Grand Canyon, why anyone would take their eye off the scenery to take a photo. That really got me thinking. As a photographer, it would never occur to me to wonder, but back when I had no interest in the subject I recall wondering precisely that myself.

If you're of a mind to divide the world into two kinds of people this is definitely one of the categories you could include. Those who wish to capture images and those who just want to take them in in the moment and move on. A good photographer actually has a foot in both camps. You don't want to shoot everything you see, some things are better experienced and left to memory.

There there's the rest of what you see. Or rather, what I see. In thinking about the question further, it seems that perhaps those who find no reason to capture the image are making assumptions about the process of taking a photo that reveal a lack of understanding about what serious amateur and professional photographers are doing when they capture an image. There are many reasons, and many ways of doing so.

On the matter of reasons to do so, the first one that comes to mind, and to me seems the most obvious, is you capture the image for posterity, and for your own recollection. It's all fine and well to look at something and tell yourself you'll remember what that was like at a later date, but if you capture the image, then you have it for as long as you choose. I know for myself, and for others I know, that seeing those images at a later date brings back a flood of memories that I might otherwise never recall, and a trip down memory lane can be a rewarding experience.

Then too, the mind being the tricky little devil it is, your memory of what you saw without the aid of a photo is quite likely to be faulty. That can sometimes be a good thing, but overall I know I would rather remember what I saw the way it really was. Therefore, I shoot. As I said, there are other reasons to capture images you see with a camera. Let's look at a couple more.

There's the matter of art. When you look at, say, some scenery that you find worthwhile, you look at it and you say to yourself, wow, that's beautiful, and that's that. A serious photographer looks at the scene and says to himself or herself, I wonder how it looks from other angles. Photography is about two primary elements. Light and composition. A photographer thinks more deeply about what they're seeing and looks for the best angle to shoot it from, and if time permits, decides what time of day it would be best to capture the image. So being a photographer actually gives you a deeper understanding of what you're looking at, and, I feel, more appreciation.

For many people none of that matters, and that's fine. It's just one more answer to the question of why someone would "take their eye off the view to take a photo." In truth, a photographer isn't taking their eye off the view; they're seeing it more than those who are just looking.

Okay, one more reason. Art for art's sake. Digital photography has reached the level where you can do much to enhance an image, both in the camera as and after you shoot, and later on in Photoshop or other such programs. I'm not a Photoshop kind of guy, to me doing anything more to an image after the fact than sharpening it and perhaps cropping a bit to get the best presentation isn't pure photography, it's graphic art. Which is fine, it's just not what I can photography. But in the camera, I can make many adjustments that enhance what i'm seeing and make it a more rewarding image to see that what my eye sees unaided.

So that's my long-winded answer to Lou's question as to why one would take one's eye off the scenery to take a photo. When I do it, i'm not taking my eye off the scenery; i'm taking it to a deeper level, and for me, and others, that's a very rewarding experience.

If I had to say there is one thing I love about photography more than anything else, it would have to be the joy of suddenly coming upon a great shot. Sometimes you're just doing something, not even thinking about photography, and there it is, an amazing view that you were so completely not expecting and for a shutterbug the first thought that comes to mind is, where's the camera?

So it was was with this shot of Luna Park under the bridge, next to the Sydney Opera House on Sydney Harbour. I stepped out onto the balcony of our stateroom on board the Diamond Princess and was greeted by this amazing sight.

The quality of the shot is marred only by the less than stellar quality of the light available to work with. It was overcast and intermittently raining, and so I had to make do, but overall I'm satisfied with the outcome. The colors really stand out from the surrounding drabness all the more. A silver lining to every gray cloud, as it were. This shot was, of course, the culmination of many attempts to capture the scene properly.

Anyway, I was lucky enough to be in a position that made this shot possible, and with photography that's always a significant element. It's all about angles. A good photographer always studies his subject from every possible angle before he/she takes the shot. It can make all the difference between a good shot and a great one. In this particular case there was little room for a change of angle, but on the other hand, the only way this particular shot could have been taken was from the exact place I was standing, something not available to anyone else at that moment in time, and that's what makes the shot unique.

As a good photographer knows to check out every angle he can before he commits to dropping the shutter, so it is in life. We should always consider a matter from every point we can before we come to a conclusion about it. And it's important to consider the possibility that we may be the only one in a position to see things a certain way. Difficult to keep in mind, especially when our judgment is clouded, but as with the cloudy sky in the picture, sometimes there's a silver lining. The trick is to persist until we see it.