Reading The Great Picture Hunt and looking and David Snider’s pictures was extremely motivating.  I have always loved pictures, but have little experience with the camera, except little snapshots of my family and friends, which hardly counts.  David Snider’s pictures perfectly captured so many little moments that LaBelle described—those fragments of life that make statements about the human condition.  I especially like his line, “A moment is that magic time when all the elements, like bars on a slot machine, come together to pay pictorial dividends.”  The last picture of the two blind people was especially touching, especially because the caption says “My Parents.”  I’m assuming that means LaBelle’s parents are blind which is an interesting twist for a person with such a heightened sense of perception to have blind parents.  But then again, that is probably why he has developed such a keen eye in the first place.

I’m going to really work on patience throughout my journey in learning how to photograph well.  Not just patience, in waiting for a quality moment, but patience in developing the techniques, methods, and characteristics that LaBelle describes.  I am eager to instantly possess all these things, but I know it will only come after numerous trial and errors.  I really like the concept of his idea treee too.  I am a habitual note taker on pretty much everything, but I’m going to start incorporating more visual notes. Also, I never thought about searching the classified ads, the personals, or the yellow pages for ideas.  There were some very humorous examples of the odd things people have going on in their lives that few people know about…such as the man looking for a room to let his snakes exercise.