Postcards from the Creative Journey

785 I Never Saw That

I sent some images to a friend to collect feedback on some landscape photographs. One of his comments was, “Why did you leave a phone pole in that image? It doesn’t help the composition or the mood.”

My first thought was “What telephone pole?” I went back and saw that he was correct. I had a phone pole in the image. See it on the left hand side? Gosh golly he sure was right.

A noobie mistake for sure. That darn camera recorded just exactly what was in front of the lens and didn’t tell me I had a big goof in my composition. No matter how many photographs we take, we can still make the rookie mistake. I was able to “fix it in photoshop.” I used the crop tool.

See, isn't that better?

784 Just Not What We Planned; Photo Safari XXXV, Day 3

This is what we were looking for...

This safari has something the others have not. A photo printer. Our accommodations are a bit more spacious than the pup tents, cab over campers we have used before. Part of this extra space gives us room for an Epson SC-P700 printer. and we stayed in this morning to make some photo prints and lay out some plans for this afternoon and a few days ahead. Back in the olden days, it took months to develop the sheet film from our safaris because I had to fit that task into the rest of my life. Now, in the digital age, we can see the results immediately and now we can make a print for almost instant feedback. An amusing morning. We made prints from images from the first two days, deconstructed my website with an eye toward improving the user experience for visitors and talked about the future of technology. Fifteen years ago we would have discussed optimum developing of film. We have grown and changed with technology.

This was about the only thing we found worthwhile in the afternoon.

When we finally got finished with the printing this morning, it was no longer morning. It took a lot longer than what we wanted. After lunch we took off working north from Bandon. We unequivocally proved that there was very little of photographic interest to us between Bandon and Coos Bay. There was a lot of great conversation but not very much in terms of photographic output. Our observation was that if there was beach access, the beaches did not appeal to us photographically. Oh, well, tomorrow is another day. 

783 Stepping Foot in the River; Photo Safari XXXV Day 2

Fog, Cape Blanco

There is a maxim about stepping twice in the same river. It’s never the same. I changed, the river changed, and my camera changed. Nothing really stays the same, but yet we do go back to see if we can recapture the magic. Maybe today’s magic is different. Or maybe today’s magic is just not there. 

We headed south from Bandon this morning and did our “photography by driving around.” We did some exploring and tried to find some old places we photographed while looking for new places. We stopped by at Cape Blanco for a little bit as the morning fog was swirling around and coming from the landward side of the Cape and flowing down to the Ocean below.

Window and Shadow, Hughes House

On the way back to 101 we stopped by the Hughes House because we had photographed it last time we were in the area. It’s always a good idea to go back and look for things missed on the first go round. Here’s what I saw the first time at the Hughes House.

We could only photograph the outside of the house because the “Moose out Front” said the building was closed until May 2022. I made a few exterior type photos and we headed further south. 

After a great seafood lunch in Port Orford, we headed back to a sign directing us to the Elk River. We were both certain that we had photographed the river before and had very good images from a place we called Jump Off Joe’s. We set foot in the river, but it was not the same. 

Again, we could not find Jump Off Joe’s. This was a problem. Last weekend, after reading my youngest grandson a bedtime story, I pointed at a photograph in his room and said I was going to go back and visit that place. He looked at me and said, “Will you take a photograph of that place for me?” Well, what are you going to do? 

Elk River Overlook

This is what you do; make a photograph for your grandson.

 

782 Where To Stand, First Published 9/7/2014

Where to stand is one of my two rules about photography. (When to press the shutter button is my other rule.) If you know where to stand and when to press the shutter, you have increased the chances of making a nice photograph. I thought about this the other day because one of my co-workers is an aspiring wedding photographer. Her viewpoint will be unique because she is not even five feet tall.

Cameras must be moved left or right, forward or back and lastly, (and maybe most importantly), up or down. Most photographers ignore the up and down component of camera placement and the eye-level camera position is responsible for 99.99% of all boring photographs ever made.

I learned about camera height a long time ago photographing my children’s swim meets. I quickly figured out unless I got the camera down to the children’s eye level the photographs looked terrible. I spent a lot of time over several summers on my knees and sitting on the ground to make sure my photographs were from the children’s point of view. When I was photographing the Alkabo School as part of “A Sense of the Seasons,” my first photographs taken at adult height weren’t very good. Once I remembered to lower the camera to a child’s height, the compositions looked “right”.

Where to stand also includes height above the ground, a very important component of camera placement.

 

781 (Un)conventional Wisdom - Photo Safari XXXV Day 1

Bandon Beach, in fog

Yesterday was an all day travel day. Left the Old North State about 9:00 AM Eastern time and made it to the Campground in Bandon about 7:00 Pacific Time. Turns out we had to change campgrounds because  our reservations did not include water or sewer hook-ups. The real killer was no WiFi. Happily, that was taken care of before I arrived. It took a couple of hours to drive from Eugene to Bandon after the Coast to Coast flight. A long, long day. It was a slow start this morning because of the jet lag and other start up chores at the camp site. We didn't get out until mid morning. Turns out that wasn't too much of a problem for us. We missed the "golden hours" in the morning because of the fog. 

Landscape photographers live for the “golden hours” of the day; the two hours after dawn and the two hours before sunset. The conventional wisdom is that's the only time to make landscape photographs. It’s great when the weather cooperates, but on the Oregon Coast the weather did not cooperate much today. Fog got in the way where we wanted to photograph. So what do you do when you can’t see very far? You adapt and take what Mother Nature gives and work with it. Keep at it and you will figure out something that works for the day. We worked with the fog and made it our friend instead of our enemy. 

No bright blue sky, with puffy clouds, today. Just a lot of fog and a difficult time seeing the horizon.  A good time to look closely for starfish in the tide pools. 

At least the sun tried to get through the fog late in the day. The fog was trying to life but where we were photographing it pretty much stayed around all day. We'll try moving around some tomorrow to see if we can find a micro climate that isn't covered in fog.