Last week I got an email from my sister in Alabama. The content was a YouTube video that she’d come across, which had been shot in the county where she now lives. The portrayal of the people featured in this video was, in a phrase, less than flattering.

The email subject line read “These are the kind of people who live here.”

Let me backtrack here. My sister had just moved to Alabama a few months ago when her husband took a job in Birmingham. From the time she first found out about the move, though, and well before she had ever been to the area, she’d decided that she hated it.

I’ve lived in the south before; both in Savannah, Georgia and south Florida. The former is culturally southern, the latter only geographically. I’d moved to Georgia from Wisconsin in my early twenties not knowing anyone, so I understand very well what it’s like to move to another region of the country that is full of strangers with different social norms.

My time living in Georgia, however, was filled with great memories and many people with whom I’m still friends today. In so many ways, the experience shaped the person that I became. So as soon as I found out that she was going, even though I was sad that she was moving far away, I was also excited for her new adventure (not to mention the opportunity to visit a new place).

My sister, on the other hand, decided from the minute the move was imminent that she hated the idea. She’d never even visited the area, but in her mind it was full of rednecks and absent of culture. To her, the whole experience was over before it had even begun.

I bring up this point because I think that as humans, we’re naturally inclined to fear change. We need to fight this urge, however, because it is only in constantly pushing our boundaries that we ultimately achieve a richer and more interesting life. Life may be short, but can be made meaningful when we fill it with as many experiences, memories and friends as possible. We can only accomplish this when we open our eyes and our minds to the world around us.

As an artist, I try to learn new things every day and appreciate the many amazing sights of the world. That can only be achieved by keeping an open mind and not making too many prejudgements about places I’ve never been or people I’ve never met. And while there’s nothing wrong with being homesick while far away from family, there is something wrong with closing oneself off to new experiences.

I’m looking forward to visiting my sister in her new town, hopefully later this spring. My plan is to seek out some of the local culture and try to coax her into soaking it in with me. Maybe we’ll both learn something new.

One of the highlights of the day for me was the incredible aquarium in the museum’s basement that simulates underwater environments ranging from the Great Lakes to the tropics. Especially notable were the colorful coral reefs and the jellyfish tank, lit in a soothing shade of indigo. The manner in which the creatures fluttered through the water was graceful and hypnotic, and it would be easy to spend hours watching their underwater dance.

Here are a few photos from the aquarium that I captured on my phone, as well as a video of the jellyfish tank.

To me, this photo is a reminder that there is a bright side to everything, and that everything in life is determined by one’s perspective. Whether we see something as a nuisance or a thing to be enjoyed is entirely up to us.

The event is wildly popular, and by the time I’d arrived just before the festivities started there were already people lined up out the door and around the block. I introduced myself to one of the event coordinators who gave a brief run down of the night’s schedule and pointed me back stage to shoot some behind-the-scenes photos of the gifts on the table and the kids getting ready for their dance performance.

The staging area was crowded and bustling with activity as the young performers fixed their makeup and costumes and inspected the gift table. It was then that I spotted another photographer across the room. He looked to be there in an official capacity, and I guessed him to likely be part of the event, hired by its organizers to document the evening.

What caught my eye, though, was the way in which he was photographing the children. He’d get down at their eye level and shove the camera practically in the faces of the kids, holding it there for uncomfortably prolonged shots. I found it an odd and impersonal way to interact with a subject, but shrugged it off and just kept collecting the photos that I needed to get to tell the story of the event.

I didn’t think much of it until it was time for the performances to begin. I’d made my way around the crowd and had found a nice spot next to the videographer that was off to the side but still with a great line of sight to the stage. Just as the music cued and the young dancers entered the stage, he appeared: the guy with the camera that I’d seen backstage earlier. With no apparent regard to his surroundings, he ambled right in front of us, directly blocking both my and the videographer’s cameras as he started shooting. After a few moments passed and it was clear that he had no intention of moving, the guy running the video camera silently gestured for him to move out of the way. His reaction was startled, as though he had no idea that there was even anyone behind him.

It continued from there as the man proceeded to walk onto the stage as the children were dancing, distracting from the performance and creating a visual presence that ensured I’d later end up having to spend time editing him out of a number of my shots. At one point, he even began dragging a ladder on stage during the dance numbers, all the while oblivious to the distraction he was causing to everyone in the audience. It was after this happened a few times that one of the organizers finally said something discreetly, and he stopped.

I don’t think that any of this was done out of intentional rudeness, but rather by temporary blinders resulting from his eagerness to capture shots of the event. The dancers were graceful and captivating and their costumes colorful and elaborate, so it’s understandably easy to get caught up in the excitement of the moment. But there was a line was crossed, even if unintentionally, by this type of unprofessional behavior.

A photographer friend of mine who began his career as a photojournalist told me a great piece of advice a few years back, and it’s something that I’ve tried to abide by since. He told me that a photographer’s job is to capture the action, not insert oneself into it. By interfering with the event’s natural flow and making himself a distracting focal point, he put the audience and the professionals documenting the evening and detracted from the children who had worked so hard to perfect their performance.

As photographers, it’s easy to get caught up in the moment. But it’s worth remembering that subtlety and respect for one’s subject is just as important as capturing the perfect shot.