There is nothing interesting

“There’s nothing interesting to photograph around this part of the country.” I once had a person say this to me. They continued, “there are no mountains or oceans” as if those were the only types of landscapes that were interesting. While mountains and oceans can certainly be interesting it doesn’t mean they are the only worthy subjects of landscape photography.

About 10 years ago, while visiting a city on the east coast, I talked to the bartender at my hotel and mentioned we were going to drive out to the ocean which was about a 5 to 10-minute drive. The bartender’s response was, “I haven’t been there in years.” A couple of years later my wife went to a training seminar near the Rocky Mountains. The room that was being used for the seminar had large windows where you could see the mountains. One of the locals said, “Yeah they’re there every day.”

I work around little children virtually every day and have younger grandchildren. The children continue to see the wonder and interesting things every day, even though they saw them yesterday. At some point, the children lose their sense of wonder of ordinary things just like us. Maybe, we should be more like the little children to see the wonder in the world around us. We don’t have to stop traveling to exotic places but think how many more wonderful things we could see even in those exotic places if we can still see the wonder and interest in ordinary things.