Oh gosh, I WON'T let my age get in the way.
In actuality, I was "speaking" metaphorically when I indicated that I'm so damn old I can't see any other way other than taking my time for each shot. In this case, though I did a poor job of paraphrasing the actual thought I had, I actually meant that it is somewhat difficult to let loose of old habits.
Thank you for the encouragement, and really I don't feel old at all at age 60. I'm still doing a lot of hiking, and some of those days I'll rack up 20 miles or so, especially if I'm set on just "sightseeing" rather than devoting time to photography.
That said, I DO perceive a slowdown in my ability to change elevations by foot. Going up or down is harder on the body than a basically level trek, of course. But last summer, even though I was scaling hillsides that were up to 1500 meters in relief differential, I was doing it with more rest stops than even 10 years ago.
And I always have the reminder of sweat running down my face and dropping of the tip of my nose, that I'm working hard at it!
My hope is that I can do this into my 80s. After that...well, I guess it will be time to start looking through the literally thousands of transparencies from medium format and 35mm cameras accumulated over the years. And also, using the ever-increasing abilities of software to render nice images from digital files. And that would be just a fine alternative if I'm no longer ambulatory.
Even if my survivors are daunted by all the images, and decide to just throw them out, I'll still have been enriched by images, if only for myself.
And this brings out a larger question that I put to anyone who would care to answer: What do you expect from all your images after passing away? Are you like me, and just like to have the images for personal memories and personal satisfaction of any of the "good" shots - with no real cares about what happens to them? Or...is there another purpose that you hope to fulfill with the images?