“I don’t know where I’m going when I walk. I’ve learned to lean towards that uncertainty. It’s a really odd thing to embrace, but it allows me to exist in the present. The more uncertain something is, the more attracted I am to it. And the more it feels like home.”

- Diana Markosian, Magnum Photographer on how she photographs

Hopefully, I have already shared the sister photograph of this one. One of those peak photographic moments when everything came together.  Out for a photographic walk.  Light rain.  Near the end of a workshop with Freeman Paterson in New Zealand, so I was very much in the perfect state of mind.   

Finding this tree was the highlight. 

I was just wandering up beside the creek. The creek pulled me closer to it.

I think I spent half an hour at this tree, but truthfully I have no idea.  Time dissolved. 

Afterwards, I struggled to take another photograph.  Knowing these ones were so special. Nothing was as good.   

Wandering is so important. Wander without certainty. Allow yourself to be pulled by intuition and curiosity and discovery.   

Really look, and try to see. 

Hopewell, Marlborough Sound, New Zealand. Photograph and text copyright © Len Metcalf 2018