So little for so long. . .

The wonder of photography continues to amaze me even decades after I first began to delve into it. And no, I speak not of the magic one experiences the first time they are in the darkroom with a variety of toxic chemicals, a seemingly blank strip of film and a small lonely red light to illuminate everything within.

Nor for that matter do I raise this point after continually being blown away by the astounding advances in digital capture and post-processing over the years, all of which enable us as photographers to do so much more with our images than we ever thought possible.

No, what truly amazes me is the simple fact that something that can take so little time to make can last so long! Think about it! In 1/125th of a second, maybe even 1/250 or 1/1000 (as in one one thousandth of a second!), you capture something that will be viewed and admired for all eternity! It will live on forever. It can be viewed for seconds or minutes or hours or days, if not longer. And what was the investment of your time? A fraction of a second. That's it!

Okay, so maybe you take longer than that to hone your craft or develop your photographic eye but think about it in the big picture (no pun intended). What other medium of expression takes such a short period of time (measured in mere fractions of seconds) to produce and yet lasts so long (a period of time that remains immeasurable)?