Time flies – Look around and freeze the moment

Time flies. Moments may, by any standard definition, only last a short period of time. A blink of an eye, maybe seconds. When travelling it’s easy to be overwhelmed with all the new input you get in a short period of time – „time flies“ a german proverb says. Sometimes it’s worth it to stand still, take a deep breath, look around and enjoy what’s around you.

There might be a person you haven’t seen before, something happening within milliseconds or – especially in landscape and outdoor photography – the picture you have dreamed about has been there in front of you and you just haven’t noticed because you have been busy doing something else.

Time flies

So it was when i captured this image. I was sitting in a chair lift rushing to the next powder spot. The snow in Canada was fluffy and dry with relatively safe conditions. Conditions a skier is dreaming about. But the pictures just didn’t work. The light was flat, there have been tracks everywhere (something you have to avoid for ski photography in powder) and the snow was not deep and forgiving enough to make it look epic. The area we worked in was just not pleasing enough for an epic shot.

I basically was finished skiing with my big camera backpack. Sitting in the slow and old wooden chairlift, i took some deep breaths and started enjoying the time just being in the mountains, the cold fresh air and the snowy trees allover.

At some point i realized sitting in this old chairlift (i mean really old and slow – you could easily be faster by walking uphill) that the position in the lift was so much elevated in the forest that we had some small windows for panoramic views.

Snowy Hills. Location: British Columbia/Canada.

Eventually there came a tiny spot with a view over the next hill that was enlightened for some seconds. I pulled out my camera for the last time this day – camera was set in manual mode with fitting settings so i didn’t had to change much – and just clicked.

This moment lasted a blink of an eye, maybe seconds. A minute later we were back in the forest and doing what we came for: skiing powder snow. Sometimes, especially when „time flies“, it helps just to look around. Take a couple of deep breath, step back from what you actually are doing and – if you like – freeze the moment.