Tag: trip

Long Trip for Dandelion

Dandelions are everywhere. I even have them in my backyard and yet I have not taken a single photo of them where I live. At the same time on my last photo trip to central Washington and Oregon thousands of kilometers from home I was stuck around a dandelion parachute ball for an hour taking photo after photo – searching for best angle and experimenting with different depth of field. I found it to be extremely interesting. Why is that?

I have two states of mind – daily routine and photographic creativity. While in the first state I’m completely consumed by the daily errands, not having time for anything beyond that. On a photo trip on the other hand I start seeing interesting photos in even simple and widespread things. Driving or flying away from home is my trigger that opens my vision to a different perception of the world around me. I need to put a significant time and distance between me and home to isolate myself from daily routine and start thinking photographically.

Being able to isolate and focus on photography is very important to me and I suggest you try to find your own trigger that will help you with that.

Dandelion

Getting Out There

The best thing you can do for your photography – get out there and start photographing. Don’t wait for the right weather, don’t wait for the right light, don’t wait for the right mood. Just pick up camera, drive or work or ride somewhere, and start shooting. Photographs will come only to those looking.

My son has grown up quite a bit and does not need as much continues care – he can play by himself and with other kids. Which means I can get out there and start photographing again. So I did last weekend with a fellow photographer. And what a joy was that!

We’ve planned for this trip for a week. Saturday morning though looked miserable. The weather forecast did not promise anything good – rain for weekend for central Washington and Oregon, where we planned to go. We were ready to call it off. Then my wife said that I must go, if I did not go, I would regret later. She was right – we went and it was great. The weather was nice and I brought back a lot of photographs to work with.

I think Jay Maisel put it best once when he said “Don’t be afraid to fail, be afraid to stop trying.”

Here is one of the first photos I’ve made on the trip: