While on vacation in Colorado with my family recently, I thought how I’d capture the getaway with photos and words. The land we hiked in was magnificent. Even though I had been to the area multiple times I found a brand new inspiration in capturing my surroundings.

I was sitting on a rock after hiking some heart pounding miles nearing (11,000ft elevation) and waited patiently. Waiting for the light, the wind, the clouds, or a bird to fly over the lake. I sat still and occasionally stood up and observed my environment. I’d snap a photo and wait some more.

I was using a new camera mount for my Sony A7iii and I was absolutely loving it. I was able to adapt all of my old Nikon lenses to it and the images were turning out pretty swell.

Gazing across the lake I realized I hadn’t moved about the waters edge much at all. Maybe my legs were exhausted from the recent brutal climb/hike or maybe I was just soaking up the mountains’ sunset. One thing I knew for sure is that where I was standing was almost the perfect position for this certain shot. I couldn’t move much farther to my left or I’d be in ice cold water which was 15 ft. deep and I didn’t really want to go swimming again (more on that in soon).

So I waited a little more and fussed with my cameras settings. Taking a shot, not liking the color, changing the white balance, picture profile, aperture, contrast, saturation, I took another shot. . . there it was! Taking another, my excitement grew. I eventually had the perfect color and exposure I was looking for. A few minutes had passed and clouds eventually took over in that direction. I climbed off the rocks on the lake and crawled my way back through the trees to our camp. My heart was happy, my mind racing on what I’d say about the image, and my spirits were high. It turned out to be one of my personal favorite images from the trip. I think partly it was how I got the photo and how long I had waited. I easily could have moved on the other side of the lake and captured a flying bird, an assortment of wild flowers, or something else.

Patience sometimes is a lot harder than Hustling. We can hustle, drive, push, and hurry as much as we can but eventually our fuel is going to run out and then we won’t be able to move at all. And then we’ll be forced to have patience.

In a world of constantly trying to keep up, figuring out who’s better, who’s worse, what way is right, and what way is wrong. A mountains presence can put you in that patient position.

In order to get to the top, you’ve got to climb AND have patience.

On top of all of that I also took my 3rd plunge in a <10,000 ft elevation mountain lake before taking the above shot haha! Yes, it was cold. . .

Never stop shooting.