Ruminator

Friday I was able to revisit somewhere I have been wanting to do for quite a while.  With my camera in hand and nerves in check, I did it. In 2016 as I was driving home one day I saw a man out cutting down his field with his John Deere farm equipment.  I pulled over on the side of the road and snapped the shot above.  As he approached me I engaged in a brief conversation and told him I took a picture of him.  He said that it was perfectly fine and told me he owned the farm down the road.  In appreciation for this shot, I printed off a copy and dropped it off at his house (he was not home).  I got a call later that day stating that “was the nicest thing anyone has done for him in a long time”. Moving forward to 2018 I contacted him and asked if it would be possible to come to photograph him or his workers when they are cutting their corn, he happily obliged.  I got the call early last Friday that they would be cutting “in a few hours and going until dark or the rain comes”, a...

Photo by: Tim Bindner Photography I embarked on my first hike of the season this morning with my good friend Kristin and her two dogs Gambit and Mathis.  The intentions and plans were good, the outcome, not so much. We met in the parking lot of Mt. St. Francis and I could tell immediately that the dogs were super excited.  I was not sure if it was me or they were excited to hike (I will assume it was me).  I grabbed my backpack and camera while Kristin unloaded the dogs from her car and I have quickly met with wagging tails and licking tongues.   I said my hello to Kristin and off we went. As we passed the gait and headed down the familiar paved path towards the lake we saw three deer to our left staring right at us.  They were frozen like statues except for an occasional movement of their tails.  We had a brief staredown then the eventually scampered off and we resumed our path towards the lake. I could already feel the change in my body that I can only get from nature.  It sounds str...

Photo by: Tim Bindner Photography After taking the Enneagram test a while back I decided to sign up for the EnneaThought for the day email based on my test results (I am a six).  I receive these emails daily and they are usually spot-on, but two I received recently hit home to me.  The first stated “the overall keynote of Sixes is alertness.  Their minds (mine) are wired in such a way that their attention is immediately drawn to anything out of the ordinary in the environment.  This serves Sixes well, to sense a shift in another person’s actions or motives.”  This applies to me profoundly.  As a photographer, I tend to see things many people miss.  I sometimes capture those, sometimes just observe.  I also notice this in other aspects like visual media.  When watching movies or tv, I tend to notice flaws in the shows or movies and also notice actors from other shows/movies and remember what they previously played in.  Recently I had an experience with someone who fully and energeticall...

Photo by: Tim Bindner Photography Today I am going to write about something that will probably get many responses from people telling why my thinking and behavior are  wrong .  This is how I feel and how I am wired. I do not like taking vacations.  There are many reasons for this, but it most cases vacations increase my anxiety and reduce my ability to relax (more than normal).  First, there is the guilt of missing work and knowing all the work and emails I will be coming back to upon my return.  On every vacation I have taken I have either checked work emails while on vacation or consistently thought about what I would be facing upon my return while I was on vacation. Next, my idea of a vacation does not align with most people including my family.  As someone who no longer enjoys being around medium to large groups of people, especially strangers, the so-called vacation hotspots tend to draw the masses to those locations.  Places like Holiday World, King’s Island, Disney, Cedar Point,...