The other morning I decided to dig through my photographs from Bryce Canyon to see if I had any images that might compare to the one Ann printed in black and white.  Nope.  I did however find an image that I’d forgotten I wanted to work on.  Fortunately I finally have the skills to do it right.

Today’s answer: to find words.

Ann has a saying that she frequently uses with me, only half in jest:  “You have words.  I have no words.”  I would disagree, saying that, while she sometimes hunts for how to say exactly what she’s thinking, she usually gets her point across very well.  However, she’s right.  I tend to be able to rattle off my thoughts without thinking too much about it, and writing, while difficult, isn’t as much of a hurdle since I’ve been doing so much writing as a lawyer.  So, as usual, Ann’s right.  I have words.  Well, that is, until I don’t.

Ann and I decided to take advantage of having the Fourth of July off.  Given that it came on a Wednesday this year, we had to keep our trip short, so after work on Tuesday we headed up to Brice Creek.  It turned into a nice little excursion!

As we approached the Coquille River on the way to Bandon we turned off at Bullards Beach State Park, where we spent Christmas, hoping there would be a vacancy.  As we drove into the park we passed a truck towing an Airstream on its way out.  It was either a good sign (someone just checked out) or a bad sign (someone was hoping to get lucky like us and didn’t).  We drove up to the check in station the ranger there said, “You folks are in luck, that is if you only need a spot for one night.  Two campers just left so you even have a choice of spots!”  We got lucky!

Ann and I needed to get out again (and how) for a June Adventure; the question was, “Where?”  As we thought of different possibilities, one look at the tide charts showed us that we’d see some of the lowest tides we’ve ever encountered so that meant only one place - the coast!  Which brought us back to the same question, “But where?”  As luck would have it, we wound up at a couple of different places under very different conditions - both of them fantastic for photography!

It’s been awhile since we’ve printed images, almost too long for both printer (though fortunately no printer head clogging issues) and us.  Since our plan is to head back to southern Utah in the fall, I decided to dig into my archives and find a few prints from our previous trips there.  Ann printed an image from Bryce Canyon, in black and white, and it glows.  We’re planning a printing session soon to try hers again, but larger!  For now, you’re stuck with my images.

Today’s answer:  To realize how you were photographing.

That answer may sound a bit odd, but bear with me.  During our trip earlier this year to Yosemite, Ann and I spent the latter part of our last morning along the trail to Mirror Lake (though we barely made it down the trail).  It was where I took my spill (the damage to body and camera body still lingers on) and where I thought I was in photographic heaven - until I looked at my images at home.  I was resoundingly disappointed.  That was until this morning when, while studying Quiet Light,  one of John Sexton’s images made me realized that I had actually been photographing in black and white, not color, that morning.  So I set the book down and headed over to my computer. 

At the risk of spilling the beans about our June adventure, I decided to post a shooting-the-shooter segment from the story because each of the images I made at the time Ann photographed me carry on the theme about compositions that I discussed in a recent post. 

I’m definitely getting my money’s worth studying John Sexton this month.  As I’ve mentioned, he’s a master of black and white photography.  Perhaps it is more apt to say that he is a master of the millions of shades of grey between black and white.  So it should come as no surprise that as I was studying one of his images and his use of subtle tonal controls, I thought of a particular image of mine that I had never been satisfied with, and I knew what direction I had to take it to improve it.

Ann and I went on our June adventure last weekend.  We had an incredible couple of mornings photographing and, as happens when that happens, it’s taking me some time to process the images and get the blog story together about the trip.  In the meantime, I’ll tease you a bit by drawing from some of the images I made and discussing an aspect of potential “compositions” that I hadn’t really thought about much before, but came front and center in my thinking about some of the images I made.  That’s the notion of doing a still life. 

Call me a liar.  I could try to argue that I, in fact, did not lie because I always told the truth, just not the whole truth.  But then Ann would probably just roll her eyes like she does when she’s about to tell me to stop acting like a lawyer.  Even worse, she might start thinking that I’m part of the press corps, unwilling to call a lie a lie, or a liar a liar.  Yikes!  So call me a liar.  

One Saturday back when I was living in Liberia, I watched a B+H video talk by Adam Marelli where he was talking about photographing people.  One of the tips he gave was to find a stage, and then wait for the performance instead of trying to chase images by constantly roaming around a city.  I’ve found that a particularly helpful tip, even with landscape photography.  Once you find an interesting location, if you realize you’re not there at the right time then figure out when the light will be best and come back then.  And even then, wait to see if nature has something extra to offer.  It’s amazing what a flight of birds can do to a landscape.  So during our recent outing to the Portland Japanese Gardens, that bit of advice immediately came to mind as my eye caught a couple of fish moving around beneath some ferns.  

Glowing Aspens, Castle Creek Valley, Colorado

From the book "Listen to the Trees" by John Sexton

©1991 John Sexton. All rights reserved.

Earlier this month a strange thing happened to me.  Twice.  The first two times I opened John Sexton’s Listen to the Trees I got stuck on an image and couldn’t move onward.  The image is beautiful and compelling in a very subtle way.  Try as I might, I couldn’t figure out why it was such a strong image.  After a good 20 minutes, during the second time around studying the image, I started seeing things that revealed why the image is visually compelling and what makes it work.  And, to steal a line from the Intelligence Squared podcast, that has the makings of a great blog post.

A few days ago I was looking at some of my photographs from earlier this year, thinking about a small project I might do, when one particular image caused me to pause and to re-think the making of it.  I guess that’s one of the benefits of revisiting images.  Sometimes you see things anew and find qualities in images that you’d previously missed; other times you see how you can improve on the image and you learn from it.  And sometimes you just see things differently and it leads you to think not just about the image, but about larger issues related to image making.  This was one of those.