Dwight Jones
Every photographer has had magic days when everything works and other days when nothing works. I stopped at this pond last month while on my way to work. I only had a few minutes to spare. I didn't have my "good" camera. But for some reason, the pictures seemed to work.
I have stopped at this same spot may times, but only occasionally find the magic. I tried to duplicate this shot several times, but without magic. The leaves are falling now This one shot will have to do for the fall of '06. Each season has its own magic if we will only stop to see it.
posted by gravitas et nugalis at 11/22/2006 02:02:00 PM
2 Comments:
Even on good days, results are not always predictable. This was brought home to me yet again a few weeks ago when I was in Yosemite shooting fall colors. I had stopped at a spot with wildly colorful autumn foliage and I was carefully setting up shots from different points of view and with different framing. At one point I decided to move up the bank of the river a ways to frame an image that included reflections of the leaves in a still pool.
While walking along I looked up at a completely different subject from the one that was on my mind and somewhere deep down in my brain thought "that might be a good picture." But I was too focused on the other image, so I just hand held the shot (at least I enabled IS!) and moved back to my original subject.
When I got home I found that the foliage photos were fine but not spectacular... and this one photo that I had almost off-handedly grabbed was possibly the most effective one of the entire trip.
I find that if I am trying to get a shot, it doesn't work. If I go to place with no expectations or previsualizations, I got much better photos. I let the place speak to me as I wander around and absorb the energy and sights. Often, I see things as I drive and it can be the same place I've driven by hundreds of times, but like you, when I've seen it look different and magical at a certain spot for some reason on some day, I just have to stop, because something says in the back of my head that it won't be like that ever again and I better get it now or never. I can't go back and try to capture it again, because that magic moment is lost - that very moment is gone. I've learned to go with my gut instinct and stop now when I see things on my everyday drives now, even if I know I'll be late, because those are the moments when the pictures are asking for you and those are the ones that will work.
I hope this wasn't too disjointed of a ramble after all that holiday eating!
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