I am spending much of my time in the field and just outside my door taking photographs of plants, flowers and insects with the occasional bird, reptile and mammal included when our paths intersect.
Doing this kind of work requires patience and focus. I find that I must slow down and concentrate on my subject.
Many times I fail to get a decent photograph. Other times the photographs are good but I am stumped when it comes to the identification of a plant or insect that I have not seen before. Even when I am starting to feel confident, knowledgeable about a species, I sometimes find myself starting over again, or at least second guessing my assumptions of what I thought I knew. Because a creature I thought I knew one day may appear on another day in a novel, for me, context.
For example, I might spot a bee species that I have often recognized without much trouble, but this one is foraging on a flower that suggests a new association (of pollinator to pollinated), or maybe the lighting is unusual, leading to visual or photographic difficulties. Some assumptions are bound to fall away. When that happens, I go back to review the characteristics of a species I thought I knew.
And that is part of the challenge and the reward of focusing on the natural world, it forces me to put one hundred percent of my focus on a living thing, not just glancing at, but really seeing the diversity and splendor of life around me. A key requirement is to see and record with me removed as much as possible. So the project is easiest when I forget where, what, who and why I am. The subject becomes, just for a few moments, the locus for all those conceits, the answer to all those questions.
