At Home with Tech

When you think you’ve just snapped your perfect vacation shot like I did while sea kayaking in Alaska, don’t put your camera away just yet. The best may be yet to come.

You can plan all you want, but finding the best moment to visually capture the awesomeness of your vacation will usually be an unexpected opportunity.

During our Backroads’ Alaskan vacation, that happened to me during a fifteen-minute break after we had finished our amazing group sea kayaking expedition around Yukon Island in the Kachemak Bay near Homer.

Downtime can be your Magic Opportunity
We were all waiting around on the island’s beach for the water taxi to pick us up and transport us back to Homer. The group slowly began to focus on skipping stones on the water. This was technically a slight delay in our schedule (as if you could ever perfectly align every minute).

I had already taken my share of photos and videos with my waterproof GoPro while my son and I traversed the Kachemak Bay in our kayak. It was hard to know how successful my shots would be as I snapped away, but I felt satisfied with my attempt.

That said, I can’t deny that I still felt the painful memory of my iPhone kayaking disaster back in Connecticut earlier in the summer. The incident was still fresh. So, I had been a bit preoccupied to avoid a similar incident. Sure, my GoPro was more impervious, but I didn’t have it locked down. I could have easily dropped the GoPro into the bay. (But if I had, that would have certainly been the topic of this post.)

Time to Put my GoPro to Work
I already had ample opportunity to capture beautiful shots and record a few videos while on the water. I was done. Or was I?

For me, a big challenge during this kind of trip was to snap away… and also keep up.

Remember, I was always in motion with the group… kayaking… bicycling and hiking. I never had fifteen minutes to really take my time and craft the perfect shot. And then it hit me…

I was standing there on a mystical island in Alaska in perfect weather conditions. I had nothing to do for fifteen minutes while our group waited.

Holy cow! This was the moment! My opportunity! It was like a lightning bolt hit me. (And yes, sometimes I need that to see the obvious.)

Every view from this rocky island beach was spectacular. My mind raced as I considered my options on how to best use this creative opportunity.

By this point in our vacation, I had realized that the wide Alaskan vistas were my ‘money shots.’ I had come prepared to zoom in tight with my Panasonic Lumix ZX200D and its 15x zoom lens. But I quickly learned that the opposite approach demanded equal attention.

GoPro… this is your moment to shine!

But wait, I didn’t have a tripod with me. D’oh! I looked about at the craggy shore and angled boulders littered about. (I felt like nature was smirking at me.) Then I walked up to one of the rocks and peered closer. Yep… I could see a few flat spots… Enough space to balance my GoPro.

I looked behind me. Everyone was happily skipping their own rocks, and nobody noticed my absence.

I had found my moment. And I put my GoPro to work. Here’s what it captured:

My Alaskan Zen
It’s often difficult to be in an incredible environment and appropriately capture its imagery. And in trying to do so, you can easily forget to fully immerse yourself in that space.

This fifteen-minute exercise enabled me to do both. Admittedly, my video clips only offer a limited view on this mind-blowing Alaskan space. But I can happily report that these fifteen minutes also became my minutes of pure Alaskan Zen.

Slow Down
I returned to the group as the water taxi arrived. I boarded the boat, and nobody knew what I had just experienced. I had joined with the Alaskan wilderness for those few minutes. It was a true gift.

When you’re wired to always be on the go, it’s useful to sometimes slow down and embrace the unscheduled moment. That’s where the magic often resides.

For your camera… and for you.