A goose, traffic and opportunities

Transport [18 of 52], a photo by CJ Isherwood on Flickr.

I'm taking a rather philosophical approach to this post, and hope that I come across how I intend to.

This week, my photography theme has been 'Transport' - to be honest, a pretty dull subject at face value. Cars, trains, buses, planes? all just part of every day life, things we take for granted, things that aren't out of the ordinary or exciting.

I had a few plans, but nothing stood out, so I decided to play it by ear.

Change subject now, and back toward the beginning of the month (and year) I was thinking a lot about resolutions. I was going to do a post solely based on New Years resolutions, as it seems to be the fad that sweeps the nation within the first week of the year. I gave them a lot of thought, but nothing really came up that was worth writing about. However, in the past few days, I have decided what one of my 'resolutions' is going to be. Carry my camera with me as often as I can.

This became evident over the past 48 hours. Today is Wednesday, and back on Monday during my preparation for work - I ALMOST picked up my camera to take with me, as the roads are snowy, the fields are white and everything is looking rather picturesque. Of course, I didn't take it. On that mornings commute to work, I passed many views that I'd love to get a photo off, my whole commute was during the sunrise and the light was bouncing all over the place. Then, I was driving along next to a field, and I saw something sticking out of the snow. I get closer, and realise it's a goose. One lonely goose, sat among the snow, in the middle of a white field. I have no idea why it was there, I have no idea what it was doing, resting? To add to the scene, the field behind the goose rose and then dipped, causing the 'horizon' to be a perfect white line where the snow met the sky. I wanted to stop and get a photo, but thought there would be no point, even with my phone - the quality wouldn't be good enough and I'd be disappointed. If only I'd had my camera with me...

So yesterday, Tuesday, I have a day at university. I put my camera in my bag, and go on my way. I took a dozen or so shots before I'd even made it there that fit the weeks theme (one of which is shown above). The photo I ended up posting, I could only have got if I had my camera, so really, I made that photo happen by giving it the opportunity to happen.

It gave me some perspective of things, and made me realise, that good 'luck', or the interesting things in life, only happen if you give them the opportunity. Almost as if you have to meet them half way, put that effort in and you'll be rewarded. I guess this applies to many things, the more you put in, the more you get out.

So since then, my resolution has changed, from taking my camera everywhere I go, to make these opportunities happen as much as I can, say yes more and try and 'do' instead of 'do not'.