-
Recent Posts
Archives
- January 2019
- December 2018
- November 2018
- October 2018
- September 2018
- August 2018
- July 2018
- June 2018
- May 2018
- April 2018
- March 2018
- February 2018
- January 2018
- December 2017
- November 2017
- October 2017
- September 2017
- August 2017
- July 2017
- June 2017
- May 2017
- April 2017
- March 2017
- February 2017
- January 2017
- December 2016
- November 2016
- October 2016
- September 2016
- August 2016
- July 2016
- June 2016
- May 2016
- April 2016
- March 2016
- February 2016
- January 2016
- December 2015
- November 2015
- October 2015
- September 2015
- August 2015
- July 2015
- June 2015
- May 2015
- April 2015
- March 2015
- February 2015
- January 2015
- December 2014
- November 2014
- October 2014
- September 2014
- August 2014
- July 2014
- June 2014
- May 2014
- April 2014
- March 2014
- February 2014
- January 2014
- December 2013
- November 2013
- October 2013
- September 2013
- August 2013
- July 2013
- June 2013
- May 2013
- April 2013
- March 2013
- February 2013
Monthly Archives: July 2014
Unexpected Opportunities
Matchstick Trees.
Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado, 2014.
Last week, I drove up to Rocky Mountain National Park (about an hour from my home in Northern Colorado) on a great weather day. By great weather day, I mean stormy – rain, thunder, and lightening moving through the area in the late afternoon and early evening. Stormy weather often creates great conditions for landscape photography, in the form of dramatic cloud formations, interesting plays of light, etc. I envisioned these elements superimposed on the already stunning landscapes of the Trail Ridge Road area, and was really looking forward to seeing some expansive vistas and grand landscapes.
What I found when I arrived was – none of that. The cloud deck had sunk down below the tops of the peaks, and the entire area was fogged in. Thick, soupy fog of the kind where you can hardly see the taillights of the car on the road in front of you. There was nothing to shoot, because there was nothing to see. I figured the day was a bust and was about to turn around and go home.
But then I remembered a stretch of the road where there was a large grouping of tall, bare trees that, from a distance, look like a collection of matchsticks. I had photographed these trees before, but was never pleased with the results. The frames always looked cluttered (I never could seem to find a simple, clean composition), and the light on the trees always looked too harsh and with too much contrast to my eye.
How would these Matchstick Trees look in the fog, I wondered? Quite nice, as it turned out. The fog reduced the distracting clutter in the frame, enabling me to create more simplified compositions. And, naturally, the fog diffused the light substantially, evening out the overall contrast in the scene. My vision for the image was to create a high-key, almost abstract rendering of these trees, and the foggy conditions really played right into that.
When confronted with unexpected conditions, it can be difficult for me to let go of my expectations and adapt to what’s going on around me. But, it’s my feeling that there almost always is something worthwhile to photograph, so I’ll have to remember to remind myself that it’s just a matter of being open to seeing it.
Backlogged and Out of Season
Abandoned to the Snow
Near Longmont, Colorado, 2014
Well, it’s the middle of July here in Colorado, temperatures are in the 80s and 90s Fahrenheit, so naturally here’s an image that’s all about snow!
Why am I posting an image that’s so out of season? For the simple reason that I’m quite backlogged in editing the images I’ve captured with my camera. It’s actually quite ironic. When I first began writing this blog last year, I wondered if I would be able to produce enough work to post a new image with each new blog entry. What I’ve found is that I’ve accumulated far more image captures that I think have potential than I realistically have time to actually work on.
As a result, my criteria for selecting images to work on have changed. Rather than simply working on my most recent captures, I find myself coming back to older captures that I meant to work on but never got to, or even simply just surfing through my archives and discovering things I had forgotten. Sometimes I’ll begin with the intent of working on one image, but in the process of searching my files for it I’ll see another one that catches my eye and work on that instead. Early on, I worked on image captures in a chronological manner because they were all I had. Now, I’m more selective because the pool of images keeps getting larger. It’s not unusual – in fact it’s quite typical – for me to work on images that have been waiting in my files for several years. By that standard, this image taken in early 2014 is positively up-to-date.
Is this a good thing or a bad thing, I wonder? Cameras enable one to capture many images very quickly, but taking the captures and making worthy photographs out of them is much more time consuming. Does the delay between image capture and image editing sever the connection between what I felt in the field and what I feel after the fact? Is it undisciplined to bounce around from photograph to photograph, rather than to focus on finishing a given subject or series? On one level, it’s frustrating not to be able to get to all of the captures I would like to be working on. On the other hand, it’s nice to have a pool of material to be able to draw on at any given time.
Regardless, that’s why I’m posting pictures of snow in the middle of summer. If it’s warm where you are, hopefully you’ll appreciate the contrast, and if it’s cold where you are, hopefully you’ll enjoy its seasonality.