Not knowing can be quite a bit more interesting than knowing. Do I know what I will see walking into a wood, or down a trail, or down a city street, even?
If I did, it would leave no room for discovery. Life is not mathematics, it is not a formula. Even if I considered the possibility that I might see a bird, a spiderweb, I could not know beforehand, hopefully, how I would respond to it.
Does a photo “lock in” the present? For the photographer, maybe. It can lock in a moment of experience. For the viewer, not really. The viewer can surmise what the photographer experienced in the moment, but the viewer has his or her own present which is, of course, just as valid.
Two weeks back, a storm went through so relentlessly and without warning that I had to ask myself what kind of weather event was it? The rain was so heavy, I could not see past my front yard, the rain flew sideways, large trees snapped. A microburst. Frightening and awesome in the true sense of the word. I walked up to a slightly higher elevation, to a park a short walk away. I was looking at a new landscape.
Evening on Tannehill