Waiting for the Mountain
On a quiet morning radio show, the host welcomed an unusual guest: a mountain photographer whose pictures hang in galleries across the country.
“You have spent thirty years taking photographs in the mountains,” the host began. “How did your passion for photography start?”
The photographer smiled. “By accident, really. When I was young, I used to climb mountains just for the views. I never thought about pictures. Then one morning, I was standing on a high ridge, watching the sun come up. The light was so beautiful that I wanted to keep it forever. So I bought a cheap camera, and that was the beginning.”
“And what was that first experience like?”
“Terrible,” he laughed. “The photographs were awful. But the feeling was not. I was trying to capture something that words could not describe. That feeling has never left me.”
“Many people say your work gives them a strong impression of silence,” the host said. “Is that something you plan?”
“I do not plan it,” he said. “Previously, I thought a good photograph was about the perfect view. Now I think it is about the moment. The mountains were silent long before I arrived, and they will be silent long after I am gone. I am only there to wait.”
“To wait for what?”
He thought for a moment. “For the mountain to show me something. Sometimes I wait for hours. Sometimes for days. And sometimes, the best performance of light happens the moment I put my camera away.”
The host smiled. “And then?”
“And then,” the photographer said, “I wait again.”