Daily Dose of the Southwest: Death, Life, and Saguaros

Much of the time, how we look at nature is “too perfect” — in photographs or even in our mind’s eye.

Now obviously I use post-processing on my images, which gets a bad rap by the general population, but great photographers have long “manipulated” their images. Even the OG landscape master Ansel Adams — for he leaned toward black and white film because it was easier to manipulate in the darkroom compared to color.

Of course, it’s a different world now with suites of Photoshop-style software plus the advent of generative AI, and social media platforms where you can look at the outstanding work of others and feel the pressure of creating “perfect” photos constantly and relentlessly.

And yet, there’s something to be said about capturing the imperfect. Our world — natural or otherwise — is messy. Whether you’re walking in your local nature preserve or a world-famous national park, more often than not there’s dead trees or scraggly bushes or big swathes of dirt or whatever else doesn’t fit in our pristine view of how nature should be.

So while for many years I obsessed about finding the “perfect” scene that eliminated all of the unsightly things, these days I’m more comfortable including some imperfections — especially photos that are purely of my own artistic expression.

In this particular photo from Catalina State Park, there’s a dead stump and some old crusty tree branches laying about. I could easily “photoshop” them out but I chose to leave them, because death and decay is part of the cycle of life.

In the world of landscape photography, it’s too often we see images — many of my own creation — that try to make us forget that. However, we must remain aware of the mortality and fragility of life on this planet, for us not to take it for granted.

Got a bit dark there, but our world feels a bit dark these days. But I hope you all will keep looking up and find your way through life’s imperfections.

-Jake

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