There’s a particular disappointment that only a hobby photographer knows. You get up before the alarm, drive out while the valley is still deciding whether to be foggy or just gray, walk along an old country road or hike a trail you were sure would deliver — and come home with nothing.

A memory card full of almosts: a maple prettier in your head, mist that evaporated while you got the lens cap off, a composition that looked profound through the viewfinder and looks like a Wal-Mart parking lot on the screen.

I used to take that personally. I would sit in my chair, scrolling through the almosts, doing the math every GenX dad does when a hobby starts feeling like a chore: time spent, gas spent, sleep lost, photos kept. Zero. Failing a test I had signed up for voluntarily is a special kind of ARGHHH!

Here is what I am slowly learning: the camera is not a vending machine. You do not put in a sunrise and get out a keeper. Some mornings the woods just aren’t performing. The fog comes when it comes. My job was never to order it around. My job was to show up and pay attention.

But here is the part the memory card does not record: I was still out there, walking under bigleaf maples turning gold, Douglas Firs casting their shadows over the land while the rest of the house slept, and me standing still long enough for my brain to stop worrying about life’s issues — a minor miracle for me.

And the empty mornings teach you the most. An empty morning asks an honest question: what was I actually looking at, what is God telling me about Himself this morning? Usually the answer is humbling. I was photographing the idea of the scene, not the story behind it. I shot the whole hillside instead of the one tree doing something interesting. The woods were not failing me. I was just in a hurry, again.

So, with that in mind, I look at things differently. I take my time to notice things. Did I see the vine maple turning red from the inside out, or outside in? Did I notice the best color right now? Did I walk out of the area calmer than I walked in? That last one matters most of all!

I am not a professional; I am a hobbyist and a dad with cold fingers and a lot left to learn, photographing God’s quiet places because standing still in them does something good for me that scrolling never will. Some mornings that ‘noticing’ becomes a photo worth keeping. Some mornings it just becomes a walk, and both count.

I am heading out again tomorrow up Little River Road, with no promises attached. The color is peaking, and the woods owe me nothing. Suppose I come home with a keeper, wonderful. If I come home empty-handed, I will try to remember I still got to spend time in His creation that morning — and that was the point all along.

Go and look at something this weekend. Stand still a while. And if you come home with nothing on the card, do not call it wasted. Call it practice.

God bless and talk soon,

David.