Postcards from the Creative Journey

Lessons Learned from the 2013 Photo Safari

Late afternoon,  between Hanksville and Torrey, Utah

We learned quite a bit from last year’s safari to southern Utah (September 23, 2012) and put those lessons to good use on this year’s return to southern Utah.

1. I carried extra eyeglasses so I didn’t have to use them.
2. DeLorme map books are truly wonderful in their old school kind of way and much better than any electronic thing when you are way off the grid. A paper map lets you dream, while a GPS will just give you “directions.”
3. Weather forecasts are not as dependent altitude as you might think. Sometimes, the weather forecasts are just plain wrong – by 15 to 20 degrees. I suspect the farther you are away from a large population, the less accurate the weather forecast will be.
4. You cannot maintain proper hydration with beer alone. Water is still a good thing. Dasani water is better than any house brand grocery store water.
5. Cold water is wonderfully refreshing, warm water keeps you from being dehydrated. Both do the same thing, but I’d rather have cold water.
6. Rain in the desert is both a beautiful and terrifying thing. We think we are powerful until the fury of nature is loosed upon us.
7. Exceptions to “normal” can upset your plans. So what. Make new plans.
8. Red mud is a predator. It will seek you out, find you and attach itself to you – forever.
9. Developing a checklist for your camera set up first thing in the morning will save you from ruining several hours-worth of photography. Custom menus for your camera are a very good thing.
10. Ruining several hours-worth of photography will give you the opportunity to go back and re-photograph the same things the next day. You will see it better the next time.
11. Camping out under the stars is really nice. Nicer if you have a camper to go back to at the end of the day. Camping is a wonderful addition to the photographic process. It keeps you closer to where you are supposed to be photographing. (This means you can photograph a little bit more in the evening and sleep in a little bit later in the morning – both good things.)

The biggest lesson learned is for next year: Lower altitude, higher humidity and cooler. This desert photography is nice, but you have to remember, it's a high desert and it's hot, dry and the air is thinner.

Random Memory II From the 2013 Photo Safari

Henry Mountains at 70 mph

I remember when we were making our tour of the area surrounding Capital Reef (September 2, 2013) that I was in “happy snap,” not serious, Fine Art Photographer mode. I need to be in a spot for quite a while before I can get in the proper frame of mind to create a photograph that is more than recording what is in front of me. Mementos of a good time are valuable, but I aspire to produce something that has quite a bit more of me in it than just what is in front of the camera. The problem with landscape photography is the temptation to make a pretty picture (easy to do in southern Utah) is not really what I want to do. The goal is to make a pretty picture that says something about yourself and your relationship to the subject and be able to say that something to the audience so they understand it. It’s a triangle that has to be completed: the artist, the subject and the audience. While the world can always benefit from more beauty, the goal is to make the beauty meaningful. That’s not easy.

To make that connection with the landscape and the audience takes time. Without going all mystical on you, I have to get a feel for something before I can make a photograph. It could take a few hours, it could take a few days, or it might even take years. Yesterday, as we rolled through the Utah landscape, it was great to see wonderful scenes that can I may be able to come back to in the future.

I didn’t make many "artsy" photographs yesterday, but I did make many more memories. Memories usually improve with time, most photographs don’t.

Random Memory From the 2013 Photo Safari

From Rhythm and Patterns

Have you ever noticed that when you stop by the side of the road with your camera on a tripod, people will slow down and rubber neck the scene, or pull over, jump out of their cars with their cameras to see what interests you? Isn’t it wonderful how many of them spend a few moments (think Clark Griswold at the Grand Canyon in “Family Vacation.”) making their vacation snapshots and just wonder why in the world that guy with the tripod is making a photograph because there is nothing beautiful there.

 

Vintage Is Important

From Rhythm and Patterns

Vintage images are prized by collectors. A close proximity between the date of the negative and the print is supposed to have some significance. In the case of processes where there is a high likelihood of the discontinuation of the materials used in creating the photograph, there is some merit to that increase in value due to rarity.

I think this is completely the opposite if one is thinking of digital images. Cameras and software are improving so quickly and so rapidly that “old” digital images are not as good as the new ones. I found this out a few years ago when I had to re-do some folios. The software and my use of the software had improved so much (not in equal measures, of course) that the images processed with the latest software look much better than the original versions.

It will continue to get better, too. Brooks Jensen shared with me a photo he made in China a few years ago. It was visibly blurry and not usable by then current standards. With Adobe Creative Cloud software’s “remove blur filter” (or some such other software wizardry) the processed image was more than a usable image. The increase in sharpness was downright astounding.

The lesson? One should always make photographs. With the improvements in technology that are sure to come (and of course, your improving skills) you might not be able to make the image you want now, but will more than likely be able to do so in the future.