MINA THEVENIN

Shooting Sublime in photography happens rather unexpectedly. For me, it’s the feeling of  the experience, like gazing at the night sky and being suddenly surprised at the sight of a shooting star. And I say, “Wow! Did I just see that meteor?” And so I keep looking in hopes of seeing another one. It is a thrill, quite by accident. But even when it is only one shooting star, the taste of it lasts a long time within me. Do you know what I mean?

The image, right, illustrates this experience as photographer, this Shooting Sublime. A partially icy Colorado lake reflects the snow covered Rocky Mountains in the foreground. The ice line is divided in the photograph’s reflection with light tan aspen trees, vertical to the horizontal ice. 

I shot this image in the morning. A clear day with the bluest of skies, and the water was generally like glass. This experience of shooting sublime lasted much of the morning because most of the shots seemed in sync with the surreal beauty of the mountains and lake. Another image I chose to illustrate this is also from the same morning. With the lake like glass, I was mesmerized by the long trails when the mated pair cut through the water. He was sleeping with his head tucked in, a “cat nap” I suppose, and he followed her lead as they glided across the thawed section of the lake. I think it must have been a good forty-five minutes of watching them as I shot a series of images from my tripod. Later this Canvasback pair swam together with another mated pair (middle image below). The fifth guy showed up in hopes of finding a mate, but they pretty much told him to swim on. The final image illustrated here, is the quintessential flow of shooting sublime. Minimalism. Lots of monochromatic color schemes.

Shooting sublime is a natural high for sure, a Colorado Rocky Mountain high.