In the hustle and bustle of modern life, it has become very easy to lose touch with the calm and beauty of the natural world. Amidst the chaos, there exists a timeless remedy: the harmonious blend of hiking and photography. I had not discovered this powerful combination until the pandemic changed our world in 2020. With no way to go outside without being scared for your health and family, hiking became an immensely important portal for me that would just let me enjoy the outside world in serenity.
Every weekend and multiple times a week, my family and I would plan our hikes at different places and spend our time outdoors as much as we could. I think it was our hikes that kept me going through the pandemic. I learned the amount of resilience one had to have to finish these hikes as strongly as they started. No matter how tired I would be feeling, I had no choice but to keep moving forward.
It was when the hikes became “normal” that I started taking my camera on the hiking trips. Each time we hiked, even if it was the same mountain, I would always be on the lookout for something new. With each step, there were new landscapes to see, crawling animals to be careful of, and beautiful sights awaiting. I would take my time, being patient and mindful to capture the perfect shots. This is definitely when my family and I started enjoying our hikes even more. We all had a “phase,” if you want to call it that, where we just would talk about the plants and animals we could see on different mountains, the best trails for the best sights, and who in the family handled the camera the best (it was definitely me).
After school and work opened in those next couple of months, it was definitely a lot harder to keep up our streak because of our routines, busy schedules, and responsibilities. That period of time was an eye-opening time in general because things that seemed to matter so much didn’t when a life-threatening virus was killing thousands of people everyday. My family and I still value those times, just because it can never, ever be replaced. Spending time with your family 24/7 and being able to learn, grow, and make memories with each other would be something we could never get back.
Discovering a new hobby for ourselves, one that would let us spend so much time with each other, one that helped us gain new skills as well as build our resilience and strength, was probably the best thing we could do for ourselves during the pandemic. It served as an even greater reminder to slow down, enjoy the journey, and find beauty and happiness in the simplest of moments. Through the lens of the camera, we all embraced a new artistic endeavor, allowing us to take moments till date to capture moments that might otherwise go unnoticed and freeze them in time to be admired forever.
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