I have travelled to the Sonoran Desert around Tucson, Arizona about fifteen times in the last decade or so.
Over the course of these trips the way I see the desert has evolved. Each time I’m there I become a little more comfortable, and each time I notice things that were invisible to me before. It’s hard for me to reconcile myself with the truth, when I first started hiking and photographing in the Sonoran Desert I really had no idea what I was looking at. On each subsequent trip my experience was changed by the prior visit and my current explorations were changing the way I would interact in the desert on my next trip.
I guess that’s how life really works; we build on everything we knew before today with our current experience and again tomorrow and so forth. Maybe this shouldn’t be a revelation at fifty years old, but at least my acceptance of it as reality is new to me even if the fact of it isn’t. In retrospect I know I have been this way since I was a kid, searching, learning, applying that experience and searching some more. That’s just part of who I am and have always been even if I didn’t know it.
The way I look at this today will help me to continue to grow as a photographer and a naturalist. The way I approach a new situation today is by starting with as much research as I can gather, then trying to be aware of the world around me and taking note of things I’d found in my research. I believe this gives me a much better point from which to start building experience.
I guess the truth is I’m blessed to have the chance to visit these places and gain these experiences at all, and as long as I continue to know I’ve got a lot to learn, I will.
