By Scott Shephard
There’s no real silver lining to the Covid-19 pandemic unless, like some demented folks, you see it as a natural (or man-made?!) eugenics program on a grand scale. “Is it all bad that the aged, weak, un-well and useless are dying?” they ask.
Well, yes, I for one think it’s bad. First, it takes lives other than the kind that I’ve listed. Also, while I am healthy, I am 66 and all I do these days is take and process photos, camp from time to time, watch a little news and read. I also listen to audiobooks when I’m not doing those other things. By the standards of my earlier life as a teacher I’m pretty much useless.
But as much as I am troubled by what is happening in this world due to this virus, I’m not struggling with a profound existential crisis these days. Don’t ask me the myriad of ways that I think my life has meaning but it does. I can’t speak for you, but I would guess that your life has great meaning, too. You may be a world changer or you could, like me, feel, as James Taylor sings, that “it’s enough to be on your way . . . “
When I stepped out of my pickup truck yesterday morning on this mesa above the Missouri River in south central South Dakota and launched my drone, all thoughts of pandemic and the meaning of life went away. When I am seriously engaged in my creative photographic processes, “I” cease to exist. Time doesn’t stop - it goes away, too.
Photography aside, it’s easy to get lost in a landscape like this and its hard not to feel at least a little insignifcant - especially if you consider the eons of geologic time that shaped this place. The “great wide open” can make us feel small. But at the same time, it can be uplifting - even if we aren’t flying a drone.
Be safe. (And know that you have meaning.)
Mavic 2 Pro 1/120sec f.5.0 100iso 5 frame HDR
