Finding Ourselves In The Majestic Vistas

As I was sorting through a year’s worth of photos that might qualify to be the 12 most representative to publish for Earth Day 2024, I made a set of discoveries about my photography. I’m still exploring the idea.

My first selection of photos for Earth Day was the more majestic vistas of Westerville. Landscapes, forests, streams, creeks, farm fields, and parks. They included wide-view panoramas and detailed closeups.

The majority of my published photos were from this selection of photos. Grand expositions of the city’s nature. Photos I liked enough to use them in the retrospective.

After the gallery, linked above, was published I looked through my selection and realized I’d made a mistake. I’d gone through each month’s edited photos looking for the vistas and landscapes, not for the people. Only four of the twelve photos were of people. Photos of people in the vistas and the landscapes, enjoying themselves in the very reason Earth Day became a national day of recognition of Earth’s beauty and our need to preserve it.

There is nothing wrong with the majestic views. I’m fortunate enough to have a talent to render them in photographs that capture their essence. But I think the better photographs, the ones that express the need to do what is necessary to conserve the planet, are best expressed in the photos of people participating in the beauty.

One of the tenets of Earth Day is that we’ve become complacent about our activities. That we’re taking the Earth for granted and lost respect for what it provides us.

Participation in the magisterial actions of nature requires us to respect its power and importance. Watching children play in a small park under a canopy of trees at midday or birdwatchers searching a lake surface for an elusive feathered find are better examples of Earth Day. We see ourselves in the moment. We see ourselves in the majestic vistas and landscapes, In the panoramas and the vistas, as participants and not observers.

It’s one thing to peer over the edge of the Grand Canyon, in the chasm created by eons of water flowing across the land. It’s another to dip your hand into the waters of the Colorado River splashing the crisp, cold liquid across your face.

It’s one thing to see photos of spectacles that surround us. It’s another to see ourselves as a piece of that display of beauty.

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