undoing the damage of haste

Art is the means we have of undoing the damage of haste. It's what everything else isn't. You must believe: a poem is a holy thing -- a good poem, that is... -Theodore Roethke

I'm not a professional photog, so I'm unable to speak eloquently on craft and form and meaning of photographylike Susan Sontag. In fact, my photos as you can see, are marked the lines, colors, and gradients of an amateur or, even more accurately, a tourist photographer. However, I've come to realize that when taking photos, I have to stop and breathe for a while before proceeding. If I don't the pictures develope very blurry. The more anxious I become, the more frustrated I feel, and then nothing comes out properly. Recently, I was taking photos in Monterrey, and there was a particular flower I needed desperately to photograph. I can't even recall how many shots I snapped before giving up. The angle was wrong, the lenses weren't working, automatic didn't fix it, manual didn't help, the wind was blowing too hard, the sun was hiding, etc. I had to walk away because none of the shots took. I remember being frustrated because the wind was constantly blowing. Thinking back, having the wind's movements blow through the flowers was probably the best thing ever. It didn't need to be perfect, and how silly it was to wish that the wind could stand still.

For Roethke, art is the tool to unravel the knots of haste, the solution to patching up whatever kinds of destruction haste created. This art, this patience, that I lacked -- it was the damage of haste. Walking away from the spot where I was standing to take pictures, I felt partly saddened because it was an opportunity, a moment, that I'd lost, let slip away, because I was too hasty, because I wanted to capture the moment before it was gone. By doing that, I'd lost it before it ever happened.