“Vision comes from shooting from the heart, from making images more about how you feel than what you see.” Darwin Wigget

About a week ago Paul made the suggestion in his comment to my comment to I let him use my Nikon 80-400m lens so he could find out for himself if it was any good. Well, I would but first there’s a story about that lens that has to do with this image. Another photographer and I spent a week in the Smoky Mountains back in October of 2003. I think it was day 4 that I picked up my tripod and dropped my camera and the lens to the forested floor. That happens when you get excited and forget to lock it on the tripod. The front of the lens took the impact and buckled which saved the camera body. As I picked it up the lens and camera I quickly realized I now had a tilt-shift lens that would not focus. Total trash! I had to shoot the rest of the trip with a 24-85mm, an 18-35mm and 105mm macro and still had a great time using what I had. Even though I destroyed a $1,400 lens I brought home images I enjoyed. More importantly the experience of shooting those mountains will stay with me for many years. I took images with what I had and with my heart.Heck, Paul, if I still had that lens I’d just give it to you. There were no lose parts rattling around, solid as a rock and no scratches on the glass. 🙂