While more and more used in music and sound art, field recording remains under theorised. This paper aims to study this practice in relation to the technology and to modes of listening. I argue that field recording cannot be thought without its technological tools: microphones, headphones, recorders and speakers. I discuss that this set of audio technologies acts as a way of ‘translating’ the environment by allowing for a detachment toward what is listened to. I also conceptualise listening as a creative stance. To support my claim, I deploy historical examples from the sound hunting movement alongside recent scholarly works that investigate the role of imagination and empathy in music extending this method to ambient sounds. Finally, I argue that field recording can be used as a method to engage creatively with the environment.