Parkour

My Thoughts

Rise

I wouldn't have dared to take this shot if I hadn't first learned a bit of the how and what of parkour.

The day I took this shot I happened to wake up just in time to come downstairs and look out my kitchen window to see this beautiful scene before me. But I couldn't see all of it. The backyard wall was in the way. I quickly grabbed my camera and stepped outside to stand on the picnic table. But there were still too many street signs and trees in the way.

Weighing my options, I quickly decided that my best bet was to hop atop the wall. I felt comfortable enough sitting on it, so I took a few more pictures, but the angle wasn't quite right. And I was running out of time. (You'll be surprised to find how fast the sun rises when you try to capture it.) A great friend of mine had been teaching me the basics of parkour, how to execute a safety vault, getting comfortable in high places, and becoming more confident in my abilities.

I decided I'd stand on the wall and take my picture from that point. I wasn't so much worried about my safety as I was about my camera. If I lost my balance, (which isn't too hard to do if you have your eyes closed, which, when taking a picture at a distance, it's basically the same thing) I'd probably scrape a knee on the rock landscape below. But my camera would probably get smashed. For all the cars that drove by, I'm sure they thought I was stalking them.

Something my photography teacher said to me was this: "Chances are the more ridiculous you look, the better the shot will turn out." I think there's a bit of truth to that.

And thank you, Conrad, for teaching me parkour. It has allowed me to have the confidence and determination to stick it through and take the really cool shots. Parkour is also about the creativity of movement. I've started to see things differently. There is so much beauty in this world.

The Mind's Eye

My Thoughts

Aspiration

I had a thought the day I took this shot. It was something like this: Even if we could instantly create what we see in our minds eye, it would still not be as beautiful as what we create with our hands.

Allow me to explain my reasoning. Before setting our upon the adventure to create something, our mind has conceived the idea of what it thinks it should be like. So we try to create that. But along the way, we discover beautiful setbacks and enlighting challenges. By the end, we come up with something that may be completely different from what was originally envisioned. Therein lies the beauty of it; we learn more when we must toil to create what our minds see.

I will admit, it would still be nice to create what we see in our minds on the first try. But for now, I have learned to appreciate the adventure, because I learn so much more because of it.