Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Territorial Wildlife & What I Want to be When I Grow Up


Today was an exciting one for me as a photographer.
I decided to go to a place called the Mission Marsh Conservatory where I knew there would be a ton of wildlife. Here in Northwestern Ontario we actually have an overflow of deer and normally they just sort of sit on the side of the road and stare at you if you decide to watch them and they don't often feel threatened. However, when I pulled over to snap a photo of this guy from my car window, he seemed very frightened. He just sort of stared at me for a couple minutes as you see in the photo above but basically as soon as I hit the shutter, he LEAPED over this snowbank right in front of my car. I was terrified! I slowly backed my car up and he slowly followed me (of course at this point I'm snapping photos with my cell phone too!) and then once I was far enough away, he went back to eating. I'm not sure if he was protecting his food source or perhaps their were babies nearby but he did not want me around. There was a house about 10 feet away and about 7 other deer also eating so I wonder how those people go into their homes?

I took a risk taking this guys photo as he was obviously protecting something and even though my heart was racing after my car almost got mauled by the buck, I got the photo I wanted. I feel like I hit some sort of milestone with my photography and I couldn't be more proud of myself.

Which leads me to another thought.
Most people know me as being flighty with my interests.. I'm definitely one to flip flop between different ideas of things that might excite me as a career or a hobby and I've always struggled to find my "it".
I realized today that I've been taking photos now for over a year and I feel like I get more and more excited each time I go and find photo opportunities. It's something that feels exhilarating to me and a hobby that's lasted a lot longer than a couple of weeks.

After a long time of wondering and waiting for the thing that I'm actually good at, I've found it in photography and I couldn't be happier.

So what do I want to do with my life?
I want to take photos. I want to travel to a new place at least once a year and snap pictures of everything & anything. I want to take photos of interesting people, breathtaking landscape, wild animals & more. I want to take photos of places within my hometown of Thunder Bay - constantly reminding myself that where I live is just as beautiful as places across the world.

I just want to take photos. That's what I want to do with my life.

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