Sometimes Photography Means Putting Down the Camera and Learning to See
The state of Rhode Island is full of great locations for photography, from the coast ways to the farm country. On a recent Saturday afternoon my wife and I took a ride through rural Scituate, Rhode Island. It had been a rainy and gloomy morning, and I had no intentions of doing any landscape photography. I hoped that the overcast skies would create nice soft, even light, and that if I found the right subject I might create something beautiful. Perfect conditions for some marco or wildlife photography.
Reflections on Scituate Reservoir
We started out driving the back roads of Scituate, and happened across a spot that you can really see a nice view of the reservoir. As I was driving by I spotted a gorgeous swan lazily drifting along the water. I quickly found a place to park, grabbed my camera and headed off to try to get a photograph or two of this beautiful bird. In my minds eye I could already see the photograph that I was going to make! However, after about 30 – 45 minutes, I realized that the swan was never going to come any closer to the shore, and that at this distance I wasn’t going to make the photograph that my mind could see For a consolation prize, I created a few photographs of the wildflowers by the side of the reservoir, but my heart really wasn’t in it. I could only think of the photographs of the swan that I wasn’t getting.
During this time my wife patiently waited for me by the side of the road, quietly observing my antics. She is more then a little familiar with my photography and how I can get. She might have even rolled her eyes a time or two. Can’t say as I blame her, either. I told her about my exploits with the swan, and she simply asked if I had at least taken a photograph of the beautiful sky over the water. Beautiful sky? What the hell was she talking about? I looked around and realized that she was right. I had gotten so “focused”, pun fully intended, on getting a photograph of that swan that I had failed to see what was happening around me.
The storm clouds were disappearing, and starting to reveal a lovely blue sky. The wind had died down, and the water had stilled creating beautiful reflections of the renaming clouds. I switched the lens on my camera from my telephoto to my wide angle and started making some photographs of the clouds and the sky. It only lasted a few moments, but I was lucky enough to catch one of them. Played with the image a bit in Photomatix Pro, an HDR software tool for processing high contrast images, This photo ended up being my favorite of the day.
I learned a valuable lesson that day, one that I hope will stick with me for a long time to come. Often we get an idea for our photography in our heads, a vision of something that we want to create. Sometimes the world works with us, and sometimes it doesn’t. The only thing that is guaranteed is that all of the time that world around us is changing, and we need to take our eye away from the camera once in a while, just for a moment, to take a look around. Who knows, you may just find something special.