Sandias in the Mirror

We were sitting in traffic watching the sun slip behind the horizon, when I got a quick shot of the mountains in the the side view mirror as I spied a gap in the traffic. With a perfectly clear sky, the sunset had nothing to offer other than giving the mountains a lightly red hue for a few minutes, which we watched in the rear view mirrors.

When we finally turned onto Corrales Road, the Sandias were clear and crisp, but very flat, colored steel blue and gray in the low light of dusk. They looked more like a painting than real mountains, an effect I really couldn't capture with the camera. There is so much that I simply have to experience and remember, because the camera will not see it  as I do. I just can't reproduce the image as I saw it, and record how it impressed me at the time. 

Back in the days when I used film, I would often look through the viewfinder for some time and not take a photo. If I couldn't get the composition or effect I wanted, I wouldn't waste the film. I still do some of that, but digital photography makes it so easy to "waste shots", take chance shots, do true point-and-shoot without looking at the camera to see what I get, and, of course, I can do all kinds of photographs while driving.

I believe doing photography changes the way you look at the world, and for me, digital photography has really changed the way I look at the world as it has allowed more of the world to become subject to my photography.