I went on a much-needed vacation in the Caribbean almost a year ago. It was the first time in nearly 15 years and long overdue. For those who don’t know me personally, I work in IT as an analyst, programmer and overall tech.
Basically, all I do is imagine the ways that people will try to break my work and get away with that. Sometimes they even do get away with it, albeit not for long.
The result of this aggressive thinking was that my mindset had become rather grim over time, as well as uninterested and “short-sighted”. Having to think about how your hard work is going to be broken is not exactly rewarding. Any programmer (old and young) will recognize that.
Where’s my Caribbean Sun?
To bring this to the photographic realm, it became clear that I was hardly interested in photography anymore. After all, I had photographed “everything” already several times, so why bother shooting it “again”? The quotes here have a meaning… 
Cloudburst
The Caribbean made me see the error of my ways, as well as a handful of youtubers. The mindset that if the picture is not perfect it’s not worth taking is a result of negative thinking. So the first morning after my arrival in the Caribbean, I was greeted with a load of (warm) rain instead of the expected sunshine. Already, the mood became grim, thinking that if it was going to be like this all week, it would be a total loss…
The Ovens
Then I remembered a number of youtubers/photographers who were always lyric about their environment. They could spend hours around a single tree with moss on it, or hours waiting for the right light for their precious composition. Both cases were absurd in my mind until I started to tell myself the exact same thing: “This is fantastic"!” instead of “What a miserable weather/subject”.
Fish farm
Once I did this consistently (I admit that it was not an easy task to remind myself every time of this), the dark mood that had been hanging around me like a wet blanket was lifted. At last, I could photograph things again.
Hideaway
Those things were also in my area, no longer in the Caribbean, that were seen in a new light. Once I got in that forced mood or forced perspective of being positive, my pictures became better as well. I won’t say that now every shot is worth a prize (perhaps a door prize?) but at least I am taking pleasure in taking those shots again.
Morning sun
Whether the sky was nice and cloudy and blue, or if it was raining cats and dogs, it didn’t matter to me. The pictures had regained interest. For me, this was an eye-opener. To many of you who are reading this, it might be seen as a “Duh!” moment… But for me, this was a necessary moment to realize that my mindset was in the wrong position.
Boat house
So this new year, I will try to keep that realization of “Wow, Nice!” in mind, instead of thinking that I already have plenty of pictures of the same subject matter and that I don’t need to shoot that again.
Tiny Scarlet Pimpernel
This “resolution” for the new year will even extend to the small stuff like this little Scarlet Pimpernel you can find in some places. This flower is only a few millimetres big but from up close it is a little beauty. It is clear from these pictures that I have tried to exercise my mind already with this new train of thought the past year, but hey, it’s sometimes difficult to stay the course.
Until next time…