Where's the Fear?

I wondered about the radio traffic around these aircraft this afternoon. One was a Southwest Airlines plane headed for landing at Port Columbus. The other towing a banner for a soon-to-open BJs warehouse. I know they are some distance apart both in elevation and distance. Still, it was a fun moment to imagine the radio traffic.

I put myself in the pilot’s seat of the smaller aircraft and was reminded of a thought that runs through my photographer’s brain when I’m working, especially around people. When I’m working to make the best photograph possible. When I’m trying to put the subject at ease, to not worry about the result and how they will be portrayed, to let me be in control in narrow fractions of a second, to let go and be entertained by the moment.

“I tell myself ‘I’m not afraid of you. I’m afraid of me.’”

I’m that pilot in the small plane not concerned with the larger aircraft. I’m just worried about me and that I will do everything in my power to make this work.

I’m that pilot in the airliner not worried about the smaller plane. I’m just worried about me and that I will do everything in my power to make this work.

I am both pilots. I am photographer and subject. I must become the subject to understand the subject. Understanding the subject changes me. Takes me back to that Zen connectivity continuing to change reality. A reality that changes me, a photographer, into someone who now is more afraid because of the connectivity. More afraid and more eager.

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