Make a Mistake

“Life is the art of drawing without an eraser.” – John W. Gardner

One thing that I am working on embracing more is the power of a mistake. Too often, we see mistakes as failures and not growth opportunities. What I don’t mean by a mistake is going out intentionally and doing something to harm yourself, that’s not worth it. What I mean by a mistake is when you are trying to do something, you think you have it right, then you mess up. Most times when that happens, we give up. Instead, we need to push through and try and figure out what we did wrong. For example, every honest photographer will tell you that they have deleted a bad photo because it didn’t turn out right. I know I have. I indeed get frustrated at that moment. No one wants to lose a great photo, but sometimes it happens. I try to fix the photo as best I can, but sometimes it doesn’t work out like I want it to. I look at the photo, check the settings saved in the preferences, and correct the mistake so I don’t do it again.

Last winter, the family and I visited a butterfly sanctuary in the Dominican Republic. They grow butterflies to support the surrounding plantation. I was able to capture some amazing photos of these butterflies while I was there. I wouldn’t have been able to if I hadn’t tried to do the same in Charlotte the summer before. There are times when you might drive in front of my house and see me chasing a butterfly with my camera. From a distance, it might look ridiculous, but to me, it’s practice. There was this one really pretty butterfly in front of my house once, and I tried for almost half an hour to get a shot of it. I didn’t get one. They were all blurry and out of focus. At that moment, I did some research, learned some tricks, and was able to apply them when we went to the butterfly sanctuary last winter, and I was able to capture these amazing photos.