Sometimes I'll use the self-timer. Usually, though, I just hold the camera at arm's length and use the judgment I've developed from experience to construct a photograph. I deployed that technique the other day during one of the stops Skylar and I made to look at the view on our drive up to the Sawtooth Mountains:
Frequently, when someone sees me holding the camera at arm's length, they ask whether I would like them to take a photo for me. And I always decline the offer, being sure to thank them for the offer. The other day, though, when a man on a purple Honda motorcycle said he would be willing to snap a shot for us, I went against precedent and said, "Why not?"
As he was getting ready to release the shutter, I wanted to tell him to watch out for the ugliness of the guardrail and to be sure to get as much of the mountains in the distance as he could. But I stopped myself short. The point of letting go is not to hold on.
I was glad to relinquish control for once. It was a good move, too. Later, when we were stopped at a long delay for road construction, the same man who had taken the picture of us got off his bike and walked over to chat for a while. I'm not sure if he would have come over without having shared a moment with us earlier on the drive. And he was an interesting character well worth meeting. How could someone riding the Continental Divide from Mexico to Canada not be?
When I was looking over the photos from the trip to Idaho that Skylar and I made last week, I came across the one the motorcyclist had taken. At first, I bemoaned the way the guardrail bisects the frame, the fact that our hands are cut off. The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized that giving up control over the camera, however temporarily, was the best move I could have made. Sometimes, it takes giving up the reins to figure out their true value.
