I don’t need any more photographs
of white birds.
– Overhead conversation
As I pass two unknown-to-me photographers on the nature preserve’s trail, I laugh ruefully to myself. I, too, have folders of photos of white and mostly white birds: great egrets, snowy egrets, cattle egrets, pelicans, storks, black-necked stilts. I have photos of white birds fishing and white birds catching. I have photos of white birds in trees and white birds on nests in trees. I have photos of white birds in the water, in the air, and in that exquisite moment when they’re in both. I have photos of white birds in reflections. By any reasonable standard, I can’t possibly need any more photographs of white birds.
If that’s true, then it follows as the night the day that I must have enough: ipso facto and QED. By the same token, I must have knit enough socks, sweaters, blankets, and scarves for family and friends. Hosted enough dinners. Listened enough to someone’s problems. Explored enough new subjects just for fun. Talked to enough strangers in the grocery store.
But here’s the thing: In some things, there is no enough. As with all the things we do for love–love of a subject, love of a process, love of both–the visible output is not the point. The love is the point. It does my heart good to see white birds (indeed, to see most birds, to be honest), to appreciate them, and to share them. Getting the picture is just the easiest mechanism. Having the picture is just the reminder.
I don’t need any more photographs
of white birds.
The only reason to stop taking photographs of white birds would be because I’d stopped loving it. It was never about needing the photograph.
