Some wonders need time to be revealed

Some of our most spectacular national parks are the result of exploration. Once they’ve become a dot on a map, however, we stop looking further even though there’s so much more we could discover.

Seeing slowly is not wasted time

The teenage philosopher Ferris Bueller once said: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” In the nearly 40 years that have passed since Ferris took a day off to appreciate the fleeting innocence of high school, life has only moved faster. And we look around less.

The great irony is that we’re supposed to have more free time than ever. Each technological advance promises to make our lives easier and give us the freedom to enjoy life. But we don’t gain freedom. We’re expected to be even more productive.

The storm between the calm

In art, religious works glorify the Creator. Portraits convey personality and status. Still lifes showcase technique. But landscapes, up until relatively recently, were, well, just landscapes.

We now know landscapes can be just as expressive as any other form of art. That doesn’t mean that every picture of the environment is a creative masterpiece. Over the course of a year, a million people may take turns taking a quick picture of Half Dome at Yosemite’s famous Tunnel Overlook. Is every one of them a work of art? Probably not. But then not every snapshot selfie holding a wheel of cheese at a farmers’ market is a deep exploration of what it means to be alive.

Autumn on the world's largest sponge

It was the squishiest place I had ever hiked. As I took a step, I felt the ground compress slightly, accompanied by a sound that was part hiss and gurgle. As I stepped again, the ground where I had been snapped back into place.

Walking on the lowland tundra of Katmai National Park and Preserve in Alaska is like walking on the world’s largest wet sponge. It’s a place where even when you can’t see water you can feel its impact.

You had to be there

As I watched a brown bear dive into the water of the Brooks River in Katmai National Park, Alaska, creating a splash so big it obscured most of its 1,000-pound body, I briefly acknowledged that I was lucky to witness what most wildlife photographers come here to see.

It is an experience to behold. There’s silence as the bear works to identify a salmon it hopes to catch, then a sudden burst of activity as it launches after it. The splashes grow larger and louder. The bear soon disappears behind a curtain of water, its sharp claws the last to vanish. There’s now a moment of suspense. We must wait a few seconds for the water to settle to see if the bear caught its fish.

But there is so much more to the bears. These moments of drama made up but a few minutes of my week with them, yet these displays of raw power are typically what we think of when we think of them.

Snapshots and souvenirs

Today is World Photography Day — a day to appreciate “the art of capturing moments.” For me, photography was the gateway to appreciating the moments themselves.

The truth is beneath the surface (and also above it)

Between editing software and artificial intelligence, photographs are no longer trusted as presenting an absolute truth. It’s a different world from the one nearly 150 years ago when Eadweard Muybridge showed racehorses can briefly fly through the air. But even an unedited photo represents only one version of the truth. That’s because there is no such thing as a completely unedited photo.