I have been watching a Masterclass by the adventure photographer Jimmy Chin. He relates that for one spread of 10 to 15 photographs published in National Geographic, he will take between 30,000 and 45,000 photos. He gets to the final set of photographs by what he calls "ruthless editing".
The the past two weeks, I have probably pushed the shutter on my cameras 200 times, "ruthlesslessly edited" down to twenty-two images, and finally arrived at one photograph that I thought rose to the top.
While there is the old adage that "a photo equals a thousand words", I always feel that there is more story to tell with a photograph. So, here is the story...
I went out looking for spring peepers. The sun had long set. The stars were covered by clouds. A misty fog was rolled over the fields. I was wading at the edge of the pool, muck and slime swirling around my boots as I moved. I could hear one or two peepers sending out their calls. But hidden under the mat of reeds, I was darned if I could find one.
More and more peepers joined the chorus until the din was quite deafening. Now it was impossible to find any one particular peeper because they all blended into to one ear-splitting peep. Then, like a slow eruption, peepers began to emerge everywhere. You suddenly couldn't miss them.
These two seemed keen on possessing the same section of reed. They peeped in turn, their throat sacks bulging in and out. Like miniature sumo wrestler they pushed and shoved each other. Finally, one seemed to gain the upper hand. It was his section of the marsh and his alone. Battles like this would continue until the sun came up in the morning.
