As you probably know I went to Canada a month ago for spring break.
I've already blogged about field shells, bear skulls, and the quiet life I experienced there...but now I'm finally posting my photo diary.
The main reason I loved my short trip so much is because it was a few days that I could complete devote to photography.
Even though I consider photography one of my biggest hobbies/passions I hardly ever experiment with my camera! I find a mode/way of shooting I like and I stick to it.
This trip was different. Although I've probably been to Canada 25 times in my 20 short year of life, I had never been in March (or early spring/spring at all).
Everything looked completely different from the winter and summer months.
I was shocked to discover how unusually colorful yet insanely dull all of the nature looked. Does that concept make sense?
For example one moment I'd goes outside and the world was blanketed in gray and beige; however, I'd walk for 10 minuets and the forest floor would be glowing with neon mosses and fungi. It was so so so so perfect for my photographing escapade!
(So if you like the pictures don't credit me credit mama earth....)
((Actually please don't steal my pictures credit us both))
I'm usually a really heavy shooter and take tons of photos that I then edit down later, but this trip I carefully selected each photo I took (I tried to channel my inner film photographer self).
The result of this was I got a lot more pictures I liked; however it was so impossible for me to edit down on my computer and ya know...post 10-15 Canada photos like a normal person....I feel so attached to them all.
Even though I took multiple cozy naps by the fire, ate towering seafood feasts, wore Native American moccasins and Irish knit sweaters (like a mo-fo), and lived a pretty aesthetically pleasing indoor life I mostly saved my picture taking for outside. AKA the pictures below don't have that much variety. They are about 75% trees 10% moss 10% ponds and 5% rocks.
I always think that a huge part of being a good photographer (or artist at all for that matter) lies in the way you present your work. I always admire blogs and websites where the photos are carefully chosen and presented in a clean, simple, narrowed down way...I'm so bad at doing this...if anyone has any tips please tell me HOW...literally whenever I have to send out my portfolio for a job it always has like 70 too many slides because I just can never choose WHAT THE HECK to include and not to include.
So I created a read more tab...as to not overwhelm the blog with too pictures of beaver dams and buoys. I would be so honored/happy if people actually did click 'read more' and told me what they thought. I'm pretty pleased with this little body of nature/landscape photo work.
We found some buoys in the field. I always wonder how the coolest stuff ends up there of all places!
Beach early in the morning at low tide.
One of my favorite sea mobiles my sister made when she was like 12.
Beaver dam.
The most amazing cluster of rope I found on the beach.
Dad and I cleaned up trash on the beach for a bit.
I never knew baby pine trees & blueberry plants turned these striking colors in the early spring. Wow right?
And although you probably won't believe me...THIS WAS THE ACTUAL COLOR OF THE MOSS IN THE FOREST.
Seriously fairy/Caroline paradise. I laid down in this spot for over an hour and thought about ways I could transport the forest back to my dorm room back in NYC...I have yet to come up with a solution...
In a different part of the woods on a different day the moss looked completely well for lack of a better word....different. March is such a light trickster!
And of course I hunted for seaglass...all day err day :)
And look I found a fairy house!
1/3 favorite photos of the trip.
2/3 favorite photos of the trip.
I've loved this Birch tree since I was a kid. Each year it grows sideways, a little tiny bit closer to the waters edge.
3/3 favorite photographs of the trip...can I seriously just pack my life up and become a fungi photographer? Is that a real thing? Can I make it a real thing?
until next time....
(& in case you were just really into that and want to see last years winter photo diary here it is)
The single tip that I would give you: Use your camera.
ReplyDeleteTake pictures, and then take more pictures. The main, and most important advantage digital has over film, is the ability to take millions of pictures with marginal cost. Use that to your advantage.
It's true that your first 10,000 are your worst. That was in a film age. 278 rolls of 36 exposure film. Now, it's probably truer that your first 50,000, or even 100,000 pictures are your worst.
So take pictures, and then take more pictures. Don't be afraid that 'all your pictures look the same'. Trust me, if you peeked into any photographer's cache of pictures, you'd find thousands upon thousands of pictures, most of which look the same, but one or two in each 'look' will be stellar.
Take all your pictures after a shoot, don't edit them. Just scroll through them, at a rate of, say, two pictures per second. You'll find that every once in a while, there'll be a picture that you just can't scroll past. The one that's better than the others.
Mark that picture. And mark every other picture that has the same effect. After you've found them all, take them, and look at all of them. Try to figure out what made you stop, what makes the picture precious.
It might be a splash of something that you hadn't noticed when you took the picture. Something extra. A color, a shape, the composition, the lighting.
It might be a picture so perfect, that every single time you see it, sticks a hook in your heart and take you straight back to the place where you took that picture.
Look through them, then look through them again. Find the patterns, ideas, and emotions within the pictures. Sort them, make them tell stories (curators are pretty much people who might not be artistic themselves, but are amazingly good at arranging things to tell stories). A story, an idea, a feeling = a blogpost.
Keep everything that you liked in your pictures in mind when you go out to photograph again.
Take pictures, and then take more pictures. After a while - it might take a week, it might take a month, it might take a year, but in the end, you'll start seeing all the perfect pictures before you even take them.
That's really the art of photography. The art of seeing. And the art of letting others see what you've seen.
P.S. Also, try editing your pictures, Canons do a good job of processing jpegs straight out of the camera, but start shooting in RAW (NEF) and even try manual mode once in a while (I started shooting RAW and manual a year into photographing, and I've never looked back).
Don't spend hours editing a single photograph if that's not your thing. You can still play with everything, the curves, the contrast, the saturation. Even in the darkroom, all the photographers still have to process the pictures to get the perfect highlight and black.
woah thanks for this hefty reply! great advice! all of the above is the was are how I ALWAYS approach photography...I take soo many photos and don't look back
Delete..this little 2 day trip was just an experiment :)
almost all the the above photos are RAW files actually which I am slowing getting more comfortable with as I'm teaching myself and learning from the goods and bads...but yeah everything takes time! I'm just happy i'm not a photo major because I never feel pressure and can just let nature take its course..which I feel like is honestly such a gift in this age of artistry
p.s. these photos were by no means ALL the pictures I took in 2 days..I had about 3/4 times the amount of above images and edited down...I just meant I took way less pictures compared to normal!
DeleteGlad to hear you're shooting more RAWs, they're in a totally different world from JPEGs (although they take longer to edit in the beginning). Once you're used to them and start using photoshop actions/lightroom presets to edit them the way you like them, the editing'll be a breeze.
DeleteAnd it's definitely better to let nature take its course. It's the eye (we're back to seeing again) that makes the photography, not the training.
Beautiful shots! X
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thankyou for your lovely comment!
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