Man vs Nature

In the last few weeks I have frequently grabbed my camera and gone out into the world as a way to be creative, document what’s around us, and be present in nature whether that’s in an urban area or out in the wilds. I know I’m not much more than an advanced beginner as a photographer, but I have really liked some of my shots. The best thing about shooting digital is not having to wait long to check out what you’ve captured. I’m finding it interesting to take photos of where nature and humans cross and leave their marks on each other.

In Grand Junction there was a bridge over the river, and as you would expect it had been graffitied with the nonsense tags people use to make their presence known, but just past the graffiti was rows of mud nests and beautiful birds soaring in and out and over the river. Along the path there was rubbish caught in grass and weeds, left carelessly strewn as people went about their business, but there were also dozens of Whiptail Spotted lizards not paying it any mind and going about their day.

Yesterday on my photo adventure, I saw the same combination of natural beauty and human arrogance and laziness when cleaning up after themselves. From the extreme of someone leaving a bag of human or dog waste in the camping area, to this crazy little chipmunk that let me get fairly close while he was munching away on something waiting for the rain to start. Trees that had limbs cut at some point hollowed out by weathering, and someone nice enough to stack excess firewood in a place to keep it dry and be used by the next camper in the area.

When Didi and I leave any of these areas we try to take at least one bag of rubbish with us that we collect from the pathways and parking spots. We try to lessen our impact on nature, but have a presence be known in other ways. The human world and the natural world are definitely out of balance, but maybe bag by bag we can help move it back more towards centre.