End of Year Walks - Part 1
I wouldn’t call it a New Year’s resolution, more of a resolution of 2023 issues and the leaping over the final hurdle (my driver’s license) that has me excited about photographing again. Sure, I would say that nothing should have stopped me from carrying a camera around or visiting places, but the fact was that I was becoming so frustrated about the wait for my drivers license that I had stopped thinking about trip planning and photographing all together. I wasn’t going to do anything until I had license in hand and I could finally do something about anticipations. Now I have it and now I can. Not only start planning photography trips mind you, I can start photographing again, which will surely make me want to get out more.
As it turned out, it didn’t take me long to start getting excited about things. On Christmas Eve, Ann and I decided to take a mid-day walk (it was raining during our normal morning walk time and there was no reason to walk in the day on a holiday). I decided to grab the Q2MR just in case my eye wanted a work-out. Fortunately for me, my eye decided to cooperate (or was it more of a, “Finally!”). Not that it produced anything spectacular, but I am the one to blame for being rusty. Very rusty in my seeing. No amount of developing images can replace the practice of making images in the camera. It’s a skill you have to keep up or risk losing.
We quickly came across some cut hedges and, instead of leaves on the ground, I decided to experiment with leaves on the bushes.
I don’t think the compositions were the best, but it was a start. Hand-holding close-up shots is really, really difficult.
As we made our way along our normal route, we came across a couple of horses we occasionally see and, every so often, visit with. The friendlier of the two is the larger horse, who will often come our way when we walk by, as he did that morning. The other one, well, can be a bit of a pill. Which is why she didn’t surprise me when the black horse turned back cautiously to check her back when the smaller white face one finally decided to come over.
The caution wasn’t entirely unwarranted, because a minute or so later, the white faced horse bit the bigger black one. Don’t ask me why, I’m no horse whisperer.
As we made our way along the path, there was something about the scene below that made me stop to think about making an image. I’ve photographed this view a couple of times (with phone and camera), but it has always beguiled me as to why, or what, to make of the image. They have been, so far, underwhelming, as was this file when I downloaded it. It wasn’t until I realized that there were two things about this image that made me stop. The first was the interplay between the barren tree line and the billowing carpet of clouds above. The second was the bleakness of the image. Once I embraced the idea that the photograph is meant to convey the gray Netherlands winter bleakness, I felt I understood how to develop the image, with certain subtle aspects (like the birch trees in the distance off to the right) adding to the feel of the image
If one thinks about imagery that conveys a sense of place, this is how it feels many days in the Netherlands.
The next image comes from one of those trees off to the right in the image above. They are full of texture and, given much of the bark is silver to white, they offer plenty of contrast that reveals various textures and shapes. Every day we walk by (when there’s any real light to see), I scan each tree to see what parts would be interesting to photograph. This time, I had a camera in hand and made several efforts. This was by far the best and is, at best, adequate. It has some interesting qualities that can engage the eye, and sometimes that’s enough for an image.
The last image of the walk for me was one that I really wasn’t sure about given the sheer chaos within the image. Ann was busy working with her own images and I’d looked at, and rejected, a few of my own. When I looked at this scene, there was something about the tree on the right and the smaller, twisting trees on the left. It wasn’t until I lifted my camera to my eye and looked through the viewfinder did I see the real potential in the image. Once I downloaded the images and looked at this one, it didn’t take me long to realize that I had mentally seen it in black and white, because the color image is indeed a chaotic mess. It immediately began to materialize when I converted it to black and white, but even then, it still took a bit of massaging, but I finally was able to produce an image on the monitor that captured what I was seeing.
I suspect for some, it’s like a Jackson Pollock painting, the chaos is hard to get through. Some won’t mind it, others will hate it. I get that, but for me there is something there. Something that I don’t quite fully grasp, but feel is within my reach. If I can understand that, I have a feeling that visual doors will begin to open. Isn’t that what photography is all about - learning new ways to see. For now I have to see if the qualities of this image come out in print even more. If it does, then there may be something worth pursuing on later trips.
Well, that’s the end of part 1. But 2023 wasn’t done with us, because in our quest to see some of the worst flooding in the area (the scale of the flooding was shocking, but fortunately, was not life threatening), which we did not photograph, we swung by a near-by park to see what it had to offer. Join us for part 2 in a few days.