Tag: family

Never Get Tired

I never get tired of the same place. I might think I got most of the place on a single trip but after a while I want to revisit the place, see it again with new eyes, experience it with me being different than last time.

About a month ago when the weather was absolutely dreadful in Seattle as it typically is at the end of November my wife, my son and I went to Hawaii. It was a family trip but as I always do I hauled all my photo gear with me.

My focus during a family trip is of cause on family activities such as building sand castles with my son (ironically, first time I misspelled it as ‘sun’, which is very much the case, he is our son and our sun). I take all the gear with me on a family trip nevertheless just for a chance. If the Nature gives me an opportunity I would be able to use it.

My wife understands my passion for photography (after all she is into photography herself). Thus she gave me most sunrises and sunsets and was rewarded with nice breakfast and romantic nights. I was limiting my range of subjects to the ones that are close by, so, I would be back in time of my wife and my son waking up in the morning or in time to kiss my son good night in the evening.

Having such limits is an interesting challenge. It makes me find something interesting in otherwise mundane landscape; pre-visualize what place might look like at sunrise or sunset; carefully plan where to go by looking at maps and areal photos ahead of time. The limited area of travel also meant that I would visit the same places multiple times, see them in different weather and in different light.

So, get ready for a series of photos from that trip, see how I dealt with the challenge, and experience the same places in different ways.

I’ll start with this one which I really like for how the waves of clouds in the sky repeat the waves of the ocean, the row of yachts resting on the water and great light breaking thru the the clouds.

Adrian is 5

My son Adrian turned five three days ago. It is a big milestone for him and for his parents. Now he is old enough to participate in family activities. Last summer I took it on a photo trip with me. He has a lot of fun. He had his own camera taking pictures as well as pressing a shutter on my camera.

Here Adrian explains that he took a photo of a beautiful flower on a chilly morning:

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Next year we’ll do several trips like this. Especially, since he expressed specific interest in certain things. Like he wants to see how wheat grows. So, several trips to Palouse will help him to see it.

Photography and Family

This is a series of posts with translation of my interview published in Russian at http://landscapists.info/vitaly-prokopenko. The question from the interview: “What your family thinks about your photography and travel?”

My wife is into photography too – she likes portraiture. She is also my best critic. As authors of our photographs we often see in them what is not there because we still remember the world around the photograph and what we felt when we took the photograph. The photograph might not have captured all that. I often ask my wife to look thru photographs that I’ve selected. She has good taste and she honestly tells me what she thinks. To have such critic close by is a blessing.

My tree year old imitates me. We presented him a real camera (while he is only three he can understand the difference between real things and toys). He takes pictures of everything he sees around. When we go somewhere together and I take photographs, I let him take click a shutter release button. Then with a proud he tells his mother that he has just taken a photo on a dad’s camera.

With the birth of my son of cause I do much less fine art photography. But I don’t regret even for a second. Right now raising my son is the most important thing for me – I want him to rise a good person. Maybe, when he grows up, he’ll share my interest in photography and we’ll be photographing together.

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