On a walk to a lake with a young person who was using a camera for the first time, excitedly crouching, zooming, snapping away. He photographed cow parsley, a passing puppy, daisies, obliging moorhens, oblivious ducks, bracket fungi, all sorts of colourful delights. On approaching the water we could see roaming dragonflies, too far away to capture. Then small clusters of fast moving, long bodied, startlingly blue relatives of the dragonfly, so it seemed. They clustered near the shore.
He zoomed in, tried to create images of these iridescent wanderers yet as soon as he approached, they disappeared, almost too fast to see. He sat in the sun. With the benefit of age and the patience it brings, I took the camera and stood next to a bush by the water’s edge. He looked at me. ‘You won’t be able to get a photo, they’re too fast’. I waited. And waited. He laid back, watching clouds slowly drift, rearrange themselves. I waited some more.
Then, after five minutes at least, an obliging insect took station on a leaf before me. Slowly I raised the camera, turned the barrel to get as close as possible without scaring it away, focused, pressed the shutter.
Later we discovered that this is a common blue damselfly – probably a male, judging by the black marks along its body. They have been decorating waterways almost everywhere on earth for over 100 million years, and each has a lifespan of about a month. Population declines have been attributed to human destruction of natural habitats. It struck me that such a short life, of this beautiful example in particular, going about his day, oblivious of us, can have a profound effect on the lives of both myself and the young person.
Showing us that bustling up to him, camera pointing aggressively, he will inevitably scarper. Wait, however, show that you’re not a threat, he will ignore us and rest awhile, allowing us to create an image. We spoke about what we can take from this, both in terms of connecting with nature, but also when it comes to achieving goals in life. Sometimes it’s best to allow things to come to you. Perhaps the harder we try, the more elusive our target becomes.