Passion  

By John W. Vander Velden

 

Those that know me, know I take pictures.  But there is a difference between taking pictures and making photographs.  The difference is the lengths one goes to get the shot.  An example: It was a cold winter’s day many years ago.  The air was frozen crisp and clear.  I went to a state park near my home to take some pictures.  The camera I had then was a used Yashica LT-Electro a manual camera. I love manual cameras.  But that old Yashica required 2 mercury batteries to operate the light meter.  Surely state of the art in the sixties but not so much these days.  The weakness of that type of battery is cold temperatures.  The power they provide goes down faster than the thermometer.  It was sub-zero as I trudged in knee deep snow that morning.  The batteries were about the size of a stack of seven dimes, much larger than the button cells of newer cameras.  I would remove the batteries and place them in my pocket until I reached the place I wished to photograph.  Install the two batteries take my pictures and slip the batteries back into my pocket until the next opportunity. 

I do not know if that was sufficient effort to lift me from just an ordinary picture taker to a photographer, but how many people would have trudged in an insulated coverall and boots through the snow on a morning like that.  It takes passion to do something well…anything for that matter.  Passion drives us to heights that others feel unreachable.  Yet those of us that have this passion, for one thing or another, often do not realize it.  We are just doing something we enjoy.  

Passion, the word has been watered down and seems only tied to romance yet means so much more.  It is the energy anyone throws into an endeavor…an energy driven out of the “joy of the task”.  The extra effort that, win or lose, success or failure, is given toward a goal.  Passion separates the extra ordinary from the mundane. Passion is the thing that is missing in so much of life. 

For when it comes to photography, there are those that respond that all it takes the best equipment to do the best work.  Now don’t get me wrong a good camera, for instance, helps.  A story: Jackie and I were walking in that same state park years later on a summer Sunday.  On the trail we met someone that had a Nikon F-3 HP, the brands top of the line professional camera.  That camera cost about ten times the Ricoh I had hanging around my neck.  We spoke briefly and I asked, “You must take a lot of pictures?”  She told me that she shot about a roll and a half each year.  Perhaps she shot some really good photographs, I’ve never seen her work so who am I to say.  But does it show much passion?  I wonder.  Yes, good tools help in any endeavor, but it cannot replace the desire, the energy, the passion. 

(512 Words) 12-19-2016