What Years of Photography Taught Me About Seeing

Photography has taken me from a pride of lions camouflaged in the Maasai Mara to the intimidating challenge of trying to take a selfie with a penguin. Over the years, I've found myself reaching for my camera not simply to preserve memories, but because the world offers something extraordinary in every single moment — if you know how to look.

Sure, photographs preserve memories, but it also teaches vital life skills — starting with patience. Waiting an entire day for a wild animal to emerge takes incredible endurance, followed by the absolute stillness required to not scare them away. You learn to sit, observe, and accept that the perfect shot might never come. It also teaches acceptance. After sacrificing more than one drone in pursuit of the perfect shot — sometimes inside waterfalls — you eventually learn that not everything needs to be documented (or retrieved, in this case).

It sharpens your powers of observation. You must notice a ferret coming out of hibernation before anyone else does. Event photography asks for something even harder: reading human emotions well enough to capture a smile before it fades, or a glance before it becomes a pose.

But the truest gift of seeing is capturing ordinary moments. Beyond typically "nice" or photogenic subjects, there is profound beauty in the mundane: ants carrying on with their daily routine in Costa Rica, a father cycling his daughter to school through the streets of Morocco, or a coconut vendor quietly beginning another day in Cambodia. These moments rarely make headlines, yet they tell the most humane stories.

However, there are moments at family dinners, mountain treks, or sunsets when I instinctively think, “This would make a beautiful frame.” But I know that by the time I fetch my camera, the moment would have already moved on.

I've learned there's a small regret in missing the perfect photograph.

There's a far greater one in missing the perfect moment.