Read the full transcript of photographer Tony Baldasaro’s talk titled “How A Nature Photographer Lives In The Moment”, at TEDxPortsmouth, September 20, 2025.
The Moment Everything Changed
TONY BALDASARO: You remember the last time you lost your wallet? You remember the panic that washed over you when you realized that you had no money, no credit cards, and maybe worst of all, you were going to have to go to the DMV to get a new driver’s license? I do. I was sitting in seat 1B on flight 394 to Fresno, California, on February 4th, 2020, the last time I lost my wallet.
I can still remember vividly looking at the bottle of water that I was holding in my hand that I had just bought at the Denver airport when I had the realization that my wallet was still on the counter of the shop where I bought that bottle of water less than an hour before. And then I had the unique but highly overrated opportunity to spend the next 75 minutes flying away from my wallet.
With the help of many on that day, I made it to my final destination, which was Yosemite National Park for a landscape photography conference. And with just the idea of trying to clear my head and forget about the fact that my wallet and all of its contents were sitting in the hands of somebody in the middle of Colorado, I grabbed my camera gear, found a trail, and went for a hike.
I just needed to photograph something beautiful on that day. And after all, I was in one of the most beautiful places on earth at the most beautiful time of day, sunset. And the loss of my wallet and everything that that entailed was just going to have to wait.
This was the moment I needed to be in.
Preserving Natural Moments
As a nature photographer, I am a preservationist of sorts. I preserve natural moments, moments that would otherwise have been lost to time. Moments such as sunset over the Grand Teton National Mountain Range. Or the solitude of a lone tree standing tall after a snowstorm. The soft, subtle pastel colors seen just before sunrise. Or those seen just after sunset. The surprising sensuality that is the Mojave Desert. And the duality of photographing life and death in the natural world. This was a great moment for the eagle, not so much for the fish.
To be fully present in such moments, I’ve learned to slow down, to appreciate, and to be grateful. The win for me has been found being in that moment, not necessarily photographing it. That’s become more and more difficult to do these days, as life’s modern conveniences have resulted us worrying a little bit more about what’s next, and not necessarily about what’s now.
The Value of Being Present
Like other commodities, the ubiquity of digital images and the ease with which we can now take them have the capacity to lower their value in the very moment that moves us to take them in the first place. Thankfully, this isn’t an either-or situation. We don’t have to either enjoy our moments or take pictures. I believe very strongly it’s a yes-and. Yes, we can be within the moment, and yes, we can take wonderful pictures as a result.
It does require a shift in our thinking, however. A shift away from taking a picture of something to taking a picture from within something.
Waiting for the Aurora
Let me take you to an evening when I sat in the cold darkness of an early spring night waiting, well, hoping, for a forecasted aurora to arrive. All indications pointed to a really powerful aurora that evening, and my north-facing vantage point over Mount Shikora and the lake below were the perfect place to be.
At about an hour in, there were some little flickerings of green and magenta and red above the mountain, but they were fleeting and otherwise unremarkable. And then, as the night passed and the northern lights refused to appear, my dreams of photographing the northern lights over Mount Shikora were beginning to disappear into the darkness in which I was standing. I mean, it was a beautiful night, but it was cold, and it was dark, and I was losing hope. But I stayed put.
About three hours later, those greens and magentas and pinks, they reappeared, except this time they didn’t go away. For the next ten to fifteen minutes, the light built and built and danced over my head and lit the lake beneath. The aurora had arrived, and it was spectacular. Patience, perseverance, and a willingness to believe that which was forecasted would come true allowed me to be within and photograph an incredible natural moment.
And then there are those chance moments, the moments that you don’t expect to have happen, but just do. Moments that can change your life if you are willing to be present and not worry about what’s next.
The Vermont Cow Story
I was reminded about that one summer in Silvermont many years ago. It was a perfect evening. The sun was setting to the west. The clouds were turning the reds and pinks and purples that they do at sunset. There was a little dairy farm off in the distance with acres and acres and acres of meadow in between and a split rail fence leading the way from me all the way to the farm. This was going to be my Yankee Magazine moment. It was the quintessential Vermont sunset.
And then came the cows. There were a couple at first, and then maybe a dozen, and then by the end there were perhaps a hundred. I would pick up my camera and move to compose it so that they weren’t in the shot, and the cows would just move with me. They would move left, I would move left, they would move left, I would move right, and they would move right. The flipping cows just wouldn’t get out of the way. In truth, I was getting angry. They were ruining my Yankee Magazine moment.
And then it struck me. The fence line wasn’t the story. The acres and acres and acres of meadow weren’t the story. The dairy farm wasn’t the story, and the picture-perfect sunset wasn’t the story either. The moment were those cows. I was too busy trying to take a picture of something that I forgot to take a picture from within something. The moment was literally mooing right in front of me, and I was too deaf to hear it. So I took my camera and I placed it down low and I took a single frame. I didn’t get my Yankee Magazine moment that day, but this young lady turned out to be quite the cover girl nonetheless. A simple shift in perspective, one that allowed me to take a picture from within the moment, led to my first cover as a photographer.
The Connection Between Denver and Yosemite
So you might be wondering, what does me losing my wallet in the Denver airport only to be hiking in Yosemite National Park have to do with a cow in Vermont? Well, experienced Yosemite photographers have been known to chase the light from the sunset down the valley to the west as the sun fades off. But not me, not on that day. You might remember that I was just going for a hike to forget about the fact that I lost my wallet, my money, my credit card, my ID, and I was thousands of miles away from home.
I had no idea where I was going to walk to, I had no idea what I was going to see. I had no idea that the light was going to pierce its way down the valley, and I had no idea that that light was going to land on the most perfect little cluster of pine trees as if spotlighting the lead to a Broadway play. I had no idea that the trail that I chose to hike was going to lead me to the banks of the Merced River, and I had no idea that the calm waters of the Merced River were going to be the perfect reflection for those trees on the other side.
I had had a terrible day that day, but I chose to wander, I chose to seek out, and I chose to find the moments that lay ahead. And that moment was this beautiful scene. I had the opportunity to be within and photograph this beautiful moment.
The Power of Human Kindness
Two weeks after I left my wallet in the Denver airport, I shipped two prints of this image to the two flight attendants who returned to the Denver airport, retrieved my wallet, and overnighted it to me the next day. Yes, I had my wallet and all of its contents in my hands before leaving Yosemite Park that week.
Finding Your Own Lens
But this image, this image still remains as the backdrop of my iPhone. It serves as a reminder for me to slow down, seek out, and live within the everyday moments that have the capacity to change your life. I do that through the lens of my camera, and today I invite you all to find your own lens to do the same. Thank you. Thank you.
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