Tharp_090924-36335-2

Did you ever wish you had come up with an idea or a title for something but someone else did before you? It’s happened to me at least three or four times in the past two months! The most recent one is a book to be published by Lark Books, by Bob Krist, the Power of Moment. Yep, you read that right. So scratch that one off my list of working book titles…I wish Bob the best with the book when it comes out!

I decided I’d still go through with my blog idea on the power of moment, though. Enough can’t be said about how much impact the right moment, gesture, etc. can have. Sometimes, the picture is about the moment itself, in fact. As a travel and nature photographer, I seek to celebrate those moments.


My last tour to Bhutan, in October 2009, we had stopped to visit a school as we left the hotel – we got about 600 feet in the bus before we wanted to get out and photograph! That’s sometimes the way it is on my trips. While the group photographed the kids outside the gates, arriving to school and playing, I asked permission to get us into the morning prayer assembly. Every morning, the entire school, staff, too, gather together on the assembly grounds, and they recite prayers, sing the national anthem, and then a ‘senior’ student in the school gets up and makes a speech about the importance of being a good person, of studying hard, being good to your parents, etc. and not “making sins”. Well, as in any group event like this, things can go on a bit long, and children are the same all over the world – short attention spans! This picture showed the typical ants-in-your-pants behavior of kids doing all sorts of fidgety things, but it needed something more. That’s when the little girl yawned, and I got the moment I was looking for, finally.

Tharp_070721-16852

In Alaska, our group came upon a grizzly bear that was resting, draped over a log. But her expression to me was that of boredom, the ‘dum-de-dum’ feeling we have when nothing is going on. The gesture was so anthropomorphic, and who can resist such a moment? I can feel her sigh, when I look at this picture. Animals, like people, are unpredictable, but if you learn the skill of observation, you’ll be ready for either one!

 

 

 

Add to DeliciousAdd to DiggAdd to FaceBookAdd to Google BookmarkAdd to RedditAdd to StumbleUponAdd to TechnoratiAdd to Twitter