THINKING SMALL
“Excuse me, what are you taking a picture of?”
Startled, I pulled my eye away from the viewfinder to see where the voice was coming from. A woman was stopped along the trail, concentrating on the ground directly below my camera. I had started my hike long before sunrise, but now it was already close to noon, and a train of people was coming up the narrow trail behind me.
I had been in a trance-like state, without any regard for the passing time, as I slowly worked my way up the trail while closely observing in solitude and silence the beautiful autumn scenery around me, stopping to photograph each scene that caught my eye. I was using my large telephoto lens and a setup that to her probably looked quite expensive and serious, and so she must have thought I should be photographing something serious as well.
She had a perplexed look on her face as she repeatedly looked at my camera and then down at the ground where it was pointing, trying to determine what it was that I was photographing. I pointed out the small pile of fallen scrub oak leaves on the side of the trail, which only made her even more confused, perhaps unable to understand how something so ordinary could possibly be worth taking the time to
