I sometimes exasperate myself, feeling I’m a bit of a slow learner, needing to relearn what I already know. Let me explain. We recently needed to be in Auckland for a couple of days in the middle of two adjacent weeks. To avoid commuting home and back we chose to spend the intervening time just north of Auckland. Apart from another episode of self exasperation (but that is another story) it was a good choice giving us some days to explore beaches, walk a regional park and photograph some coastal birds.
The source of my exasperation followed our return to Auckland for Edin’s book launch of Birdlands. Two days later she was due to help lead a NikonNZ trip to Tiritiri Matangi and I had the opportunity to tag along. What should have been a reflex yes turned into an internal debate on how to justify this against a pull to get back and prepare for a big home improvement project and the obvious financial cost of staying away longer. I decided to forego the Tiri opportunity. The unexpected arrival of a friend at the book launch who was independently heading for Tiri pushed me to reconsider my decision to miss the trip.
To try and further justify the trip I invited someone else along and almost risked my decision on their decision not to make the effort. Fortunately logic prevailed. I booked a ferry ticket and we arranged accommodation convenient to the ferry and spent the intervening day visiting the Muriwai gannets.
The next morning, a quick trip (being a retiree with free access to public transport has it’s benefits!) on the new Auckland city loop rail had me waiting at the ferry with a group of excited, like-minded bird photographers. A perfect day unfolded with lovely weather for our ferry travel over the Hauraki Gulf, excellent guides on Tiri and, as always, so many lovely sightings and opportunities.
I know all these things, I should not have to relearn them. Every trip to Tiri (and Muriwai) is special and an enormously positive experience. An immediate access to a happier internal world from a mind opening external world. Why then does it take time and energy to make an obvious decision?
I think partly it comes from an upbringing that promoted avoiding selfishness and promoting consideration for others. It is not enough for something to be a sensible choice for me. It has to not impinge on others and ideally be of benefit to others.
In the end my decision ended up achieving largely everything. A stunning and uplifting visit to Muriwai and Tiri, some images that make me happy (and will remind me of the experience in the future), precious time with Edin, meeting new people with similar interests and catching up with a friend. Collateral benefits were that my wife got to spend a day with her sister exploring an art exhibition and catching up over tea and lunch, an opportunity rarer than it should be. The decision potentially positively impacted the experiences of multiple people.
I have been told by a younger friend that I overthink things. I’m not entirely sure what that means but I suspect she is correct as she usually is about such things. The bottom line is that I need to be more instinctive and just jump to positive experiences without overanalysing and trying to justify enough positives to balance the costs. Be wise enough to choose what will be good for you and have faith that other benefits will flow from the decision. Part of this comes from a lifetime and profession built around risk/benefit analysis for health outcomes for others, but transitioning away from this now I must focus on adjusting my priorities and learning new tricks for an old dog. I remember my father counselling me (when I suspect he thought we should be considering starting a family) that too much analysis leads to paralysis. I guess he recognised this trait in me!
Apologies for the introspective nature of this post but I think the basic message is important. Grab opportunities for positive experiences without too much analysis – the benefits to mental health have far greater value than any monetary costs and in reality could not be bought for any amount of money. Every trip reveals opportunities for images that would be forever lost if the trip is missed. A bit of an analogy for life I guess – grab opportunities while life and health allow.
To make this more justifiable as a photography post the big issues with birds in the bush is low light so high ISO (6400) was needed for many images. Processing these in DxO PureRAW yields clean, crisp files. Manual exposure with a live histogram and preview enables good exposure on the subjects even with bright sky bleeding through the vegetation. Focus set for bird recognition in a small area worked well to pick subjects out in the busy environment.
Photos with Nikon Z8 and Nikkor Z 400mm f4.5 VR S.
