Help me help you: Take the photo, but don’t miss the moment

Maybe I'm a bit of a broken record.

I talk a lot about how the moments and experiences we have on a photo trip can be just as important as the photographs we bring home.

But I can't say it enough.

Because every once in a while, something happens that reminds me exactly why I do this.

On my recent Hunt's Photo Adventure to the Navajo Nation, we were at Muley Point on our final evening, waiting for sunset.

We had plenty of time.

Eventually, without anyone really saying anything, we put the cameras down and sat.

I played some Native American flute music. We watched the light change across the landscape. We talked. We sat quietly. We just enjoyed being there.

Nobody needed to be reminded to take a moment.

It just happened.

And I really liked that.

I've been to Muley Point before, and I'm sure I'll be back again. But that evening wasn't really about getting another photograph of Muley Point.

It was about being there.

And that took me back to my very first workshop.

It was a Hunt's Photo Education workshop in the West Desert of Utah with Bob Fletcher and Don Toothaker. We were photographing wild horses, and I'll be honest—I was pretty stressed.

It was my first time leading a workshop.

Would everyone have a good time? Would I be any good at this? Would I be able to teach people what they came to learn?

Then we got stuck in the mud.

Because apparently that was the perfect way to start my workshop career.

We eventually got unstuck, found the horses and ended up on top of a mountain on one of those incredible Utah days.

Blue sky.

Big, puffy white clouds.

Wild horses moving across the landscape.

It was pretty spectacular.

Everyone was photographing like crazy.

I was too.

Then I noticed two people standing off to the side talking.

I walked over to check on them, which is something I still do on my workshops.

Except when I got there, they both had tears streaming down their faces.

I asked if everything was okay.

They said it was.

They had simply stopped taking pictures.

They were standing on top of that mountain, surrounded by wild horses, blue skies and those big Utah clouds, and they had just taken a moment to look around.

They were overwhelmed by the experience of actually being there.

And here's the thing.

The moment I saw those two people standing there with tears in their eyes, I knew this was for me.

This wasn't just about teaching people how to use their cameras.

This was a legitimate photo workshop. We were there to make photographs, learn, improve and hopefully come home with some great images.

But I realized that day that the photographs would never be the only measure of whether the workshop was successful.

The participants' experience would always take precedence.

The photographs matter.

Of course they do.

That's why we're there.

But so does the experience of getting there. The laughs. The conversations. The unexpected moments. The places we discover. The people we meet. And sometimes, simply standing on top of a mountain surrounded by wild horses and realizing how lucky you are to be there.

That moment has stayed with me through every workshop I've led since.

And I think about it whenever I see people getting so focused on getting the photograph that they forget to experience the place they're photographing.

And I get it.

There is a lot going on in our heads.

Which lens should I use?

Wide angle or telephoto?

Do I need a filter?

Tripod?

What's my shutter speed?

What aperture?

What ISO?

Wait… did I change that?

Should I be vertical?

Horizontal?

Should I bracket?

Maybe I should move five feet to the left.

Or right.

OMG.

My head is exploding.

The technical stuff matters. I'm certainly not going to tell you it doesn't.

But the more comfortable you become with your camera and your gear, the less mental energy you have to spend thinking about all of that.

And that's important.

Because you didn't travel all this way just to stare at the back of your camera.

You're there to see something.

To experience something.

To talk to the people you're traveling with.

To watch the light change.

To hear the wind.

To sit on a mountain.

To stand at the edge of a desert.

To maybe listen to some flute music while the sun goes down.

Sometimes you need to put the camera down.

Look around.

Take a breath.

Enjoy the moment.

We can spend so much time trying to capture the experience that we forget to actually experience it.

And maybe this is where the broken-record thing comes in.

You know how it was when you were a kid and your parents told you to do something?

“Clean your room.”

“Pick up your shoes.”

“Listen to me.”

And they had to tell you again.

And again.

And maybe again.

Well, apparently some things don't change just because we grow up.

Sometimes we need to hear the same thing more than once before it finally sinks in.

So yes, I'll probably continue to be a broken record about this.

I'll keep reminding you to put the camera down.

To look around.

To experience the moment.

Because eventually, hopefully, it sinks in.

And sometimes, the moments you don't photograph are the ones you'll remember the longest.

Because I can't say it enough.