Sometimes Photographers get lost

Sometimes we get lost

Sometimes we get lost. Not just as an artist or as a photographer, but as a person. It happened to me. Our reasons for getting lost might be different but the struggle is the same. A loss of identity and a loss of confidence. And it greatly affects our abilities as creative folks.

Dramatic Skies over Newport Bridge

For several months I have struggled, and on a recent photography outing it came to a head. It was a beautiful morning with a great sunrise, yet I fought my camera the entire morning. Nothing I tried seemed to work. Eventually I packed the camera back into my bag and found a rock high along the coast.

That morning I watched the sunrise. I did not photograph it, I simply watched it. It was beautiful. As I sat on that rock watching the sun slowly climb across the sky, I took stock in my life and realized many things. That morning the healing began.

I did not use my camera for close to a month after that morning, but I was becoming more like my old self with each day. I began to build my confidence each day, stretching my wings and facing my fears. It was scary, but tremendously liberating at the same time.

On a recent Sunday afternoon a buddy sent a text to see if I wanted to go out and shoot sunset. I hesitated, but then agreed. It was time to pick the camera up again. – quote this!!!! As we shot sunset in Newport that evening, I felt the old familiar burn. The excitement about what I was about the do, the passion of creating!

The Photograph

The photograph “Dramatic Skies over Newport Bridge” was my favorite image from the evening. Created just after the sun dropped below the horizon, the clouds in the sky began to glow and come to life.

I set my ISO to 100 to get an image as clean and noise free as possible. An aperture of f/11 would give me plenty of Depth of Field, and I know that my 24-70mm lens has great image quality at that setting. With my camera on a tripod and using a cable release I simply did not care what shutter speed gave me a histogram that I was pleased with. The camera and I settled on 1/30th of a second for the shutter speed.

For this photograph I made the choice to allow the bridge to stay a silhouette. This is purely a personal choice, but the drama in the sky and the colors in the clouds was more important then the detail in the bridge itself. I felt that the silhouette was more then strong enough as a design element.

With the technical decisions out of the way I was able to make several photographs of the bridge in only a matter of a few minutes. I placed the bridge in a variety of locations within the frame, as well as placing the horizon at several different locations. I zoomed in and zoomed out, making the bridge larger or smaller in the viewfinder.

Ultimately the photograph that you see in this post is the one that I liked the best.