| Back to the image. I hadnt a chance to do any pre-day scouting. I arrived so late the previous night, I hadnt even driven through the location to get a few ideas. I had no idea what the area looked like and was going to "wing it". Instead of disciplined planning and setup I was going to start the "fire drill" right from the beginning. After a few false starts exploring shapes, shadows, and colors in the dawn light, I decided to drive further through the Hills. The morning color change was long gone. The sun still hung low over the White Mountains to the east. The "Magic Hour" was quickly ending. I wasnt expecting much because I figured the light was on its way out. Right next to the road was a large pile of round boulders stacked as if a giant kid had collected his marbles. The light was making some very interesting shadows across the desert. I climbed the pile with my wide-angle lens hoping to get some sort of distorted perspective with the shadows, rock, and sun as subjects. Im in an extreme perspective phase these days so Im always prone to look at images with that view. To ease the scamper among the boulders, I didnt bring a tripod and planned all my shots handheld. While contrary to most landscape photographers, I purposely had been leaving my tripod behind to remove the inconveniences of tripods as deterrents from exploring a scenemaximize flexibility. So, off I climb and crawled among the boulders looking for my image. Despite my initial attraction to the area nothing was coming together. Nothing seemed to take advantage of the light, boulder, or contrast. I was disappointed because the initial feelings seemed so positive. I turned to leave when I caught my shadow on a larger boulder behind me. The most obvious feature was my hat and its brim shooting out from my head. All I did was assess the potential compositions and fired a couple of shots. One shot with the camera obviously up to my eyemy elbows sticking outthe other two shot with my camera at my hip to avoid the tale-tell signs of the self-portrait. Now this was an interesting image. The last two images were the keepers. Both were unexpected gems because nothing foreshadowed the eventual success. I guess after all of this there are only a couple of lessons to learn. First, you have to be persistent. If you dont have the drive to just keep going no matter what, youll miss all those special moments. It seems in photography, as Ive written before, at the moment of ultimate frustration the answer will present itself. If you arent persistent, you wouldve given up early and missed the whole event. And second lesson, open vision is required. While the concepts of open vision are worthy of their own articles the idea here is being able to soak in a view, assess its potential and then take risks with the possibilities. Its not the muscle that will get you to cut your losses early and abandon a situation. Oh no, thats something else. Open vision is the tool that guides you to results no one else wouldve thought about. The road I traveled to make this image was quite interesting. In most respects the road traveled to make any quality image will yield an interesting story. While there are times when images just fall into your lap, persistence and an open mind are necessary for any hope for success. Cheers Tom 25 Nov 01 |
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