As you may have heard, we’ve had a ridiculous amount of flooding in Washington State this week, I made it out to Snoqualmie Falls (which I usually vist several times a year) and was astonished at the volume and the power of the falls.
This was my favorite shot, the amount of spray coming up from the falls made it extremely difficult to photograph (like it was raining the wrong direction, up from the ground instead of down from the sky).
That picture doesn’t do it justice, this video does a little better job at that, but there’s no substitute for seeing it in person:
One of the constant frustrations of being a non-professional photographer is the 50+ hours a week you can’t spend taking photos because you’re busy working (so that you can afford camera equipment among other things). I continually feel that I’m not out shooting as often as I could be, and now that the year is over, I decided to see how well I did, and here are the results (there is some margin of error here, my ability to count and deal with basic arithmetic should make everyone a little suspicious).
Number of days where I took a photo: 133 (once every 2.75 days)
Number of days out shooting at dawn/sunrise: 41 (11 of those were in August, not a single sunrise in July or November!). About once every 9 days. August and September had early enough sunrises where I could get some decent shooting in well before work.
Number of days out shooting at sunset/dusk: 56 (fairly uniform, most months had 5-6, only 1 in November). About once every 6.5 days.
I would also like to see a breakdown of weekday vs. weekend (my totals from Saturday and Sunday probably eclipse the totals from Monday through Friday), as well as distance from my apartment. I didn’t take more than three days off in a row all of 2008 (I certainly wanted to!).
These numbers are about what I expected, not as high as I would like, and I’m going to attempt to eclipse them in 2009, we’ll see…
The snow doesn’t help the commute, but it does make for pretty pictures (these were all taken within walking distance of my apartment in Bellevue, WA).
That’s a dumb excuse. If you’ve ever said that, or used it as an excuse to avoid a location, slap yourself in the face for me. Harder.
Even though the location is the same, the following probably aren’t:
The time of year.
The time of day.
The light (direction, color, quality…)
The clouds.
The weather.
The photographer! Hopefully you’ve changed too.
So that’s one thing that’s the same (the location), and six things that aren’t. And I can come up with more than six things. I’m sure you can too.
Now, that’s not to say that you should avoid new locations and stick to locations you’re familiar with, but given the choice between a familiar location and no location, a familiar location wins every time. And often the familiar location is familiar because it’s easy for you to get there. If you force yourself to shoot at only new locations, you’re not going to be taking as many photos, and the quickest way to get better is to take more photos.
Here’s an example from the 12th Ave S bridge in Seattle. This location is just a few minutes from work, so it’s very convenient for me to shoot before or after work. Even if the composition is the same as it is in these examples, the light and conditions can change dramatically.
It was either taking these photos or not taking any at all. I didn’t let the fact that I’ve shot from this spot before keep me from taking photos.
