Very interesting. I often go out walking too. For me there are two ways to approach photography.

Sometimes I walk out with the intent of taking photos. This delivers me an altogether different way of observing my environment, both at a larger and a much smaller scale. The photos, then, are an outcome of my different observation and noticing skills.

More often I walk and experience the environment without any intent whatsoever. In this case, my practice of observation and noticing is blank and without any sense of goal-orientedness. I am open and receiving. This requires exercise: all too easily I flip into the mode of observation with a photographer's eye and mind. But diligent exercise I find worthwhile. Now I see what comes to me. I see the hitherto unseen. Sometimes I see something that strikes my sense of research and curiosity to know. Then, I find myself lucky to have brought a camera with me. Snapshots and consequent Google images searches have brought light to many of nature's mysteries. I am grateful for the tools we have.