The Little and Big Pictures

In my photography I have always composed photographs that were “little picture”, “medium picture” or “big picture” images. That is to say up close images of landscapes like individual images of trees, plants, and animals or medium pictures of canyons and rock formations and finally “big picture” views of the mountains and landscapes. I must admit a fondness for “big picture” views and enjoy creating multi-image panoramas, either low level aerial panoramas or ground based images. I even figured out how to use my aircraft to create a nodal point for making large aerial panoramas and always liked to obscure scale clues so the viewer would have to create their own interpretation of the scene.

Cities from space, a low level aerial "little picture" in false color.

I notice that as I progress down this path that my days become a mixture of little, medium, and big picture views of life as well. But the distinction now is that I spend much more time on the little picture aspects of life. Such as remembering to take my medications, remembering to eat, and other mundane activities that comprise life, plus pain management. Part of it seems to be the amount of time it takes to get anything done, any little activity that would normally occupy a few minutes now takes an hour and afterwards I'm pretty well spent and need a nap. Another aspect is the frustration associated with the amount of time I must devote to these activities. It is a battle between the realization that my time is limited and spending lots of time on these mundane activities detracts from my achieving other goals. This is one reason for the blog posts, they help me focus on “big picture” aspects of life and keeps me from falling into a trap where I'm focused only on the “little picture”.

A "big picture" view of the eastern flank of the Chiricahua mountains.