Walking around a space I have not seen before, and I have to tear myself away from behind my camera lens. Acadia National Park is a beautiful place. It is so easy to get lost in your surroundings. It is just as easy to get lost behind a camera.

This moment was the first time I sat down in a long time that day. I tiptoed on wobbly rocks to get to one that was flat enough for me to rest upon. I stretched my legs out and looked. I looked up and over and down and out. Little fish were swimming through the shallow water beneath me. Birds were flying through the sky. Trees blew in the summer breeze. I stayed still.

In that moment, I was the only thing not moving. Me and the rock beneath me were still as I centered myself in a new universe. The hills ahead are slanted in the same way my head was trying to take it all in. A day of seeing all new things is exhausting and I was feeling that as I rested for the first time and felt my body relax. My feet instinctively reached out for whatever rock was in front of me. My hands instinctively reached for the camera by my side. More so than at any other point that day, I wanted to capture this moment. A moment of stillness.

A moment when I truly felt centered in the world around me. So often I find we take photos to capture others, to capture the unknown, to capture what we feel like we should know, what we should remember. We do so without centering ourselves in that universe, in that story. It so easy to remove yourself from a photo you take and from the universe you capture in that snapshot. On this day in Acadia, this was a rare moment when I recognized the space I take up.

It would have been so easy to take this picture and crop my sneakers out. Maybe some people would have made that choice. But as much as this view is the subject of my photo, so too are the shoes that got me there. Without them, this photo could be taken by anyone at any time. But it wasn’t. It was taken by me in the midst of a global pandemic just trying to center myself in a vast new space. I was worried less about remembering the spaces surrounding me and more so the feelings of being there and the memories I made resting on that rock.

In my opinion, there is no right or wrong way to take a photo or share a photo or create a photo. All I know is at any other angle, this photo would not be the same and I am glad it is what it is.

Being a photographer, much less a human being, in today’s society is subject to debate, criticism, etc. I have no criticism of this moment because that’s exactly what it is. It is more than a photo. It is a moment I chose to share.

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