Mother Nature Takes A Selfie

If you’ve ever been anywhere. You’ve seen them.

If you’ve passed a lookout, a beach, or god forbid a pair of angel wings painted on a wall, then you’ve seen plenty of the same thing.

People taking pictures in nature.

And that’s what inspired the picture above.

It’s a picture that I took of my brother’s phone while he pretended to take a picture of the trees.

The picture was taken in Iargo Springs, Michigan. It’s one of the most beautiful places in the state. You walk down a truly frightening amount of stairs and at the bottom you are treated to a boardwalk with a series of lookouts along with a natural spring as well the river.

It’s one of the coolest places I’ve ever been to.

One of the nice things about it is that it’s pretty secluded. It's not near the lakes which attract all the tourists in the summer, and you have to be borderline suicidal to walk up and down all the stairs.

But as I was walking around that day, I noticed that there were far more people than usual.

And everyone was taking pictures.

That’s also when I realize that the only reason I was there was to take pictures.

And there’s nothing wrong with taking pictures. There’s a lot of beautiful places but I think people sometimes forget to look at what’s around them and only experience the great outdoors through their phone screens.

That’s when I had the idea to take this picture.

I had my brother open his camera and then I took a picture of it. The canopy is very heavy there and blocks a lot of light. So it didn’t quite work when it was in color. So I played with the editing and brightness and changed the filter to black and white. The phone and hands showed up much better, and with the black and white filter you can make out what’s on the screen which is kind of the whole point of the picture.

I also liked the effect the filter had on the hands. It gave them this ghostly surreal quality. So it looked more like a mannequin.

There could also be a pretentious point to be made that with it in black and white, people aren’t seeing the real nature and that looking through the phones that you’re not seeing the living, breathing forest, but an imitation. Pictures aren’t alive but nature is.

I’m not nearly good enough writer nor photographer to make that point though. Instead, I went for a cool photo and it turned out better than I thought.

Do I think people shouldn’t take pictures in nature?

No, I think it’s fine. I’d hate to come off as some curmudgeon telling kids to get off my lawn.

Do I think some people should be more cognizant of experiencing the world around them and worry less about getting the perfect picture for the Gram?

Yeah, I think that would do some people good. There’s more to life than Instagram. Not much more, but more none the less.

Do I think people should take fewer selfies if they are going to take pictures?

Yes, selfies are dumb.

Not to be rude but they are.

Take a picture of that tree, or lake, or lookout. But no one wants to see the same thirty pictures of you with slightly different backgrounds.

People will still know you were there. it’s your picture. You’ll still get the cool points, and your photos will be better.

And so in closing, I took this picture because I thought too many people were taking pictures.

The irony isn’t lost on me either.