Forests and trees

[Dave Worrell <dworrell@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>The pitfall is that some people get to a point where if they don't see
>a great shot from their car, they won't get out a look around enough to
>find that there is a great shot there.

I second the notion! I've been guilty of this in the past and, I'm sure, 
will be again in the future. Too busy going somewhere instead of being 
somewhere.

A good example happened to me last weekend. I decided to take advantage of 
the cold (-10F), clear weather to get some frost pictures. The trees in 
town have a couple inches of frost and I thought a hike in the woods should 
offer lots of great opportunities. I went out and got a few "good" shots, 
but as luck would have it, the trees in town were frostier. I'd have gotten 
the shot I had in my head without going nearly as far. And, of course, the 
wind came out the next morning and cleared off all the trees. None-the-less 
I had a great hike, and as Duane suggests, I've added a couple of locations 
to my list of places to return to when conditions are right. Like the birch 
over at the neighborhood church, instead of the forest of Chugach State 
Park. I couldn't see the tree for the forest ;-)

I've been fortunate enough to have visited some incredible places, and to 
live in an extremely "photogenic" place, but photography is not merely a 
record of a place, but a way of seeing. Every photograph, even a snapshot, 
is a perspective, a chosen view. Taking the time to think about which slice 
of reality I really want to record will do more to increase the numbers of 
"good" shots than randomly firing away. Random chance seldom, if ever, 
results in quality.

I shoot lots of film, but do what I can to make each shot count.

Dave

PS: Realist worked great at -10F. Try getting your P&S rig to work at those 
temps and you'll realize the big advantage of fully manual cameras. 


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