2 Photography Lessons From The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Trying to be Creative #34

This voiceover is an experiment just in case there’s someone who prefers this. I should also add that it’s unedited so there may be mistakes from my reading and background noises from life happening. Hope you enjoy it!

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (photo from shot.cafe)

Hey you,

Today I learned that there's a time, a moment really, when we as photographers don't have to take photos.

Now, I can almost hear you asking: what are you talking about? What’s the point of being in a beautiful moment with your camera and not taking photos?

Well, to answer that, let me start from the beginning, you know, give you some context.

I had planned to write to you about something else this week, but I just finished watching The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.

It was amazing, I absolutely loved it and can't stop thinking about what I found interesting. So here we are.

This isn't a movie review, but this movie has a few connections with photography, the obvious one being that Walter Mitty (the main character) works as a negative asset manager in LIFE magazine. In other words, he’s in charge of the negatives of all the photos used in the magazine (It’s a film photography-specific job from what I understand).

Anyway, I thought it would be interesting to point out the 2 things that stood out to me. So here they are:

• The compositions were stunning. I'm a sucker for minimalist compositions and there’s plenty of it in this movie. Other than that, the general composition of the scenes was fantastic and did a great job of telling the story.

  

  The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (photo from shot.cafe)

  I loved the landscape shots as well, especially when Walter found himself chasing Sean O'Connell (a photographer) in Iceland.

  

  The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (photo from shot.cafe)

  This movie makes me want to travel and take photos. It makes me want to go on a trip to a place I’ve never been before, take a lot of photos (both good and bad), come back home, and relive everything through the photographs.
  

  Now, those scenes were great, but

• my favorite scene in this movie and one I think will interest photographers is when Walter finally meets Sean in the Himalayas.
  
  Sean is there to take a photo of a snow leopard (ghost cat) which is rarely seen, but when the leopard finally appears, he doesn't take the photo. Walter asks him when he'll take it and he replies

  sometimes I don’t. If I like a moment… I mean, me, personally… I don’t like to have the distraction of the camera. Just want to stay in it… Right here

I had to rewatch this scene because this is not something I had thought of. Whenever I'm with a camera, I'm usually chasing moments and when I find moments that I like, I usually experience them through the camera.

That's how I know how to live. That's what I've always thought I should do.

I don't know about you, but I've never looked at the camera as a distraction in those moments but now, I'm excited to try this.

To maybe NOT take that photo. I don’t expect it to be easy because it's not something I'm used to. But maybe sometimes, even with the camera, when we find a moment we personally love, we should just stay in it.

What do you think about this?

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Some Other Unrelated Thoughts I’ve Had Since The Last Letter

• “The magic you're looking for is in the work you're avoiding”
  I came across this quote and I related with it. I spend a lot of time planning and not executing… like making plans of photos to take and videos to make but my output is too low for the time spent planning.
  
  However,

• as creatives, we still need to set out time for brainstorming…It might feel like we're wasting time, but I’ve been doing this recently, and just having these sessions has given me so many ideas that I think are good. Of course, brainstorming is just one half of it, execution is the other half and the most important and is something I’m still working on… I’ll let you know how it goes

• The feeling I get when I find a new, good playlist is something I can’t put into words

• ok, bye.

Thanks for reading this far.

Thanks for sticking around.

Keep making photos, experimenting, and breathing.

See you December 30.

Last newsletter of the year. Don’t know what I’ll do yet, but I’m excited.

x

ash.

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No New Videos Since The Last Letter But Here’s Some Of My Recent Writing and Some Other Interesting Articles I’ve Read

The Best Niche is No Niche (This is something I wrote on Medium)

I'm Getting Bored with Always Having a Purpose

Like Getting Hit In the Face With a Bag of Pythons, I Finally Understand AI

A Few Thoughts And Questions On Finding Your Way As A Writer

Do it Afraid