World in motion

Ground rush
Ingersoll, ON
October 2012
Thematic. Fall colors. Here. There's still time.

I attended a writer's summit in Toronto last week and once I added up the cost, time and hassle of driving into the big city, I realized it made a lot more sense to take the train. Because I was packing light, I left my camera behind. The iPad was going to be my only photographic weapon for the entire trip. Admittedly, I was only going for a couple of days, but it made for an interesting experiment all the same.

The first thing you learn: the thing has no manual controls over anything. I'm sure if I had thought of it, I might have downloaded an app or two that added some customization to Apple's decidedly bare-bones baseline. But that would take planning, and I was - and presumably still am - not up to the task.

Once I realized the combination of fast-moving train, absent shutter speed or aperture controls, and decidedly wimpy hardware doomed me to, um, less than perfect exposures, I got into the spirit of the thing and started to compose with the device's limitations in mind. Before long, I was doing the deliberate-blur thing. With my BlackBerry showing a real-time GPS map, I was more or less able to figure out where the next farm was going to be. Yes, I got some stares.

I couldn't plan this one, a nicely composed window of distant picket fence and field amid a close-in rush of green and red. It sure won't win best of any show, but it reminds me of why we do the photographic thing in the first place. It isn't necessarily for the perfect outcome, though that's always a nice bonus. It's for the memory of the experience, the freezing of the moment in our memory. I'm glad I froze this one, as it was a good day, and a moment I wanted to bring home to my family.

Your turn: Why do you shoot?