Lessons Learned: Photo Safari XXVII

Random Rock Form and Shore Acres

Every time you photograph is a learning experience. It comes even more of an experience if you travel to make your photographs. So, after Photo Safari XXVII (that's twenty seven) here's what I learned.

Any Project Manager worth their salt will tell you it’s important to analyze performance after the event is completed. Coaches review game film and project managers will do a “lessons learned.” You’ve read the daily reports from this years’ photo safari 2014. Here are the lessons learned.

1. "It just works." No, it doesn't. Attempts to blog from the field on a fruit named device failed miserably on many levels. The individual products are quite clever and work as advertised. Just don't ask them to play nicely together. "It's probably a software compatibility problem."
2. "We have free Wi-Fi." - It doesn't say how fast, how reliable or what the capacity of the network is.
3. Seeing "No service" on your cell phone means you are probably in a good spot for photography. Definitely not in the right spot to update your blog. Even if you could get the software to play nice.
4. I'm wondering if the iPhone will replaced the "noisy cricket" (Lumix LX3) as my happy snap camera.  I am not sure if that is a good thing or not.
5. Be happy if your friends have the same camera you do. You can borrow their expensive lenses.
6.  Don't start out the day with less than three fully charged batteries. (When your batteries run out in the middle of the day, you can borrow fully charged batteries from your friend with the same camera you have.)
7. Numbering batteries is a good thing to make sure that you don't use one battery more than one of the others.
8. Don’t trust the belt clips on walkie talkies. Corollary: If you pull that dropped walkie talkie out of the puddle quickly, it may not be ruined.
9. Using your camera's custom menus is a very good thing. Make sure you go through your camera settings prior to heading out to make photographs. That way you will be ready at the first opportunity.
10. A motel shower cap will keep your camera dry in a rainstorm. (Don't forget to collect one on your next trip.)
11. A forecast of rain does not mean it will rain everywhere you are for the entire day.
12. Blown highlights are blown highlights whether you are photographing with film or with a digital camera. You can't recover from that mistake. Just a friendly reminder.
13. Neutral density filters are a good thing. The graduated ones are especially useful for photographing into the sun.
14. Campgrounds reek of diesel exhaust.
15. Getting the image out of an iPhone or iPad to a place where it can be printed would be a wonderful thing to learn. I haven't worked that out yet. The pictures really look nice on the screen. I hope they look that good when printed.
16. Forgetting lunches when you go out photographing is really not a good idea. It is tough to photograph on an empty stomach. That being said, I would rather photograph on an empty stomach than eat kippered snacks.
17. It's tough to photograph the landscape if you're not a morning person. Basically, you just cut your opportunities for photographs in half. There are "morning" and "afternoon" places to photograph.
18. The rear lift gate of an SUV can provide a surprising amount of shelter from wind and rain. This is a really great place to set a single, solitary, one and only one camera to make a picture when the weather is not perfect.
19. Laundry services are much, much better than  small town laundromats. They will even fold your underwear. (Just don't expect that type of service when you get home.)
20. Photoshop Touch is not photoshop. I think adobe hired IKEA to engineer the interface. What do all those little symbols mean?  For what it is, it’s really quite clever.