Postcards from the Creative Journey

784 Just Not What We Planned

This is what we were looking for...

This safari has something the others have not. A photo printer. Our accommodations are a bit more spacious than the pup tents, cab over campers we have used before. Part of this extra space gives us room for an Epson SC-P700 printer. and we stayed in this morning to make some photo prints and lay out some plans for this afternoon and a few days ahead. Back in the olden days, it took months to develop the sheet film from our safaris because I had to fit that task into the rest of my life. Now, in the digital age, we can see the results immediately and now we can make a print for almost instant feedback. An amusing morning. We made prints from images from the first two days, deconstructed my website with an eye toward improving the user experience for visitors and talked about the future of technology. Fifteen years ago we would have discussed optimum developing of film. We have grown and changed with technology.

This was about the only thing we found worthwhile in the afternoon.

When we finally got finished with the printing this morning, it was no longer morning. It took a lot longer than what we wanted. After lunch we took off working north from Bandon. We unequivocally proved that there was very little of photographic interest to us between Bandon and Coos Bay. There was a lot of great conversation but not very much in terms of photographic output. Our observation was that if there was beach access, the beaches did not appeal to us photographically. Oh, well, tomorrow is another day. 

783 Stepping Foot in the River

Fog, Cape Blanco

There is a maxim about stepping twice in the same river. It’s never the same. I changed, the river changed, and my camera changed. Nothing really stays the same, but yet we do go back to see if we can recapture the magic. Maybe today’s magic is different. Or maybe today’s magic is just not there. 

We headed south from Bandon this morning and did our “photography by driving around.” We did some exploring and tried to find some old places we photographed while looking for new places. We stopped by at Cape Blanco for a little bit as the morning fog was swirling around and coming from the landward side of the Cape and flowing down to the Ocean below.

Window and Shadow, Hughes House

On the way back to 101 we stopped by the Hughes House because we had photographed it last time we were in the area. It’s always a good idea to go back and look for things missed on the first go round. Here’s what I saw the first time at the Hughes House.

We could only photograph the outside of the house because the “Moose out Front” said the building was closed until May 2022. I made a few exterior type photos and we headed further south. 

After a great seafood lunch in Port Orford, we headed back to a sign directing us to the Elk River. We were both certain that we had photographed the river before and had very good images from a place we called Jump Off Joe’s. We set foot in the river, but it was not the same. 

Again, we could not find Jump Off Joe’s. This was a problem. Last weekend, after reading my youngest grandson a bedtime story, I pointed at a photograph in his room and said I was going to go back and visit that place. He looked at me and said, “Will you take a photograph of that place for me?” Well, what are you going to do? 

Elk River Overlook

This is what you do; make a photograph for your grandson.

 

782 Where To Stand, First Published 9/7/2014

Where to stand is one of my two rules about photography. (When to press the shutter button is my other rule.) If you know where to stand and when to press the shutter, you have increased the chances of making a nice photograph. I thought about this the other day because one of my co-workers is an aspiring wedding photographer. Her viewpoint will be unique because she is not even five feet tall.

Cameras must be moved left or right, forward or back and lastly, (and maybe most importantly), up or down. Most photographers ignore the up and down component of camera placement and the eye-level camera position is responsible for 99.99% of all boring photographs ever made.

I learned about camera height a long time ago photographing my children’s swim meets. I quickly figured out unless I got the camera down to the children’s eye level the photographs looked terrible. I spent a lot of time over several summers on my knees and sitting on the ground to make sure my photographs were from the children’s point of view. When I was photographing the Alkabo School as part of “A Sense of the Seasons,” my first photographs taken at adult height weren’t very good. Once I remembered to lower the camera to a child’s height, the compositions looked “right”.

Where to stand also includes height above the ground, a very important component of camera placement.

 

781 (Un)conventional Wisdom - Photo Safari XXXV Day 1

Bandon Beach, in fog

Yesterday was an all day travel day. Left the Old North State about 9:00 AM Eastern time and made it to the Campground in Bandon about 7:00 Pacific Time. Turns out we had to change campgrounds because  our reservations did not include water or sewer hook-ups. The real killer was no WiFi. Happily, that was taken care of before I arrived. It took a couple of hours to drive from Eugene to Bandon after the Coast to Coast flight. A long, long day. It was a slow start this morning because of the jet lag and other start up chores at the camp site. We didn't get out until mid morning. Turns out that wasn't too much of a problem for us. We missed the "golden hours" in the morning because of the fog. 

Landscape photographers live for the “golden hours” of the day; the two hours after dawn and the two hours before sunset. The conventional wisdom is that's the only time to make landscape photographs. It’s great when the weather cooperates, but on the Oregon Coast the weather did not cooperate much today. Fog got in the way where we wanted to photograph. So what do you do when you can’t see very far? You adapt and take what Mother Nature gives and work with it. Keep at it and you will figure out something that works for the day. We worked with the fog and made it our friend instead of our enemy. 

No bright blue sky, with puffy clouds, today. Just a lot of fog and a difficult time seeing the horizon.  A good time to look closely for starfish in the tide pools. 

At least the sun tried to get through the fog late in the day. The fog was trying to life but where we were photographing it pretty much stayed around all day. We'll try moving around some tomorrow to see if we can find a micro climate that isn't covered in fog. 

 

 

780 The Concept Of Constant Thinking

A few years back I wrote about how my professional and artistic life complemented each other in writing. At that time my career involved a lot of writing and I found it very easy to create blog posts, project statements and other photographic texts because I was used to expressing my thoughts in written words.

Now that I have evolved into a “post career lifestyle” I no longer have a professional requirement to create a lot of text. My blog requires new content on a weekly basis, plus a reach back to earlier posts on each Thursday. It is getting more difficult to push the rock because I don’t have the convenience (?) of a career to exercise my writing skills.

Over the next couple of months I will be out and about and as a result I had to “get ahead” of the blogging requirements by preparing a month or two of new material. It was not as daunting a task as I originally thought because once I began “thinking photographically” the new topics miraculously appeared.

Momentum is important in just about all aspects of life we try to take seriously. Continual effort does pay off with results. The lesson learned is to keep thinking and the topics and ideas will appear. 

779 Creek, Oregon Caves, First Published 4/12/2015

It was my first trip to the southern Oregon Coast. We made it into the Redwood forests of Northern California. I found it most difficult to photograph because of the extreme verticality (is that a word?) of the Redwoods. On the return trip to Portland, we made an afternoon stop at Oregon Caves and took the tour to take a breather from our photographic adventures. We were able to “camp” in the parking lot overnight. The next morning, I awoke to the usual cloudy, foggy damp morning associated with the Oregon Coast. There was a little creek flowing through the parking lot right next to the camper. I unlimbered the venerable Conley 5 x 7 camera and made this exposure with all three tripod feet securely planted in the parking spot next to the camper. One would like to have a much more adventuresome story about making a photograph, but sometimes the best photographs are discovered because we take the time to look closely at what is in front of us.

This photograph is a sentimental favorite of mine. It was the last photograph I made with the Conley 5 x 7 view camera. Conley cameras were the working man’s camera, sold by Sears and Roebuck over a hundred years ago. The camera was of uncertain age and unknown pedigree and it served me well for the few years it was part of my photographic life.

778 Time To Check Out The Mental Checklist

I’ve trying to get myself back into photographic shape so I will be ready to begin photographing as soon as we leave the vestiges of civilization behind us. Our (that would be Brooks Jensen and myself) Photo Safaris have been going on annually for about thirty five years and we still learn from the many mistakes we have made in the past. Part of my preparation is to review some of the “Lessons Learned” from previous Safaris.

Here are some of the lessons we’ve accumulated along the way.

708 Lessons Learned: Photo Safari XXXIV November 22, 2020

Apparently we learned nothing in 2019. Puzzling, yet true.

553 Lessons Learned from Photo Safari XXXII October 28, 2018

476 Sixth Annual Lessons Learned From The Latest Photo Safari

411 Ten Lessons Learned from Photo Safari 2016 October 2, 2016

359 - Ten Lessons Learned on Photo Safari 2015

305 - Photo Safari XXVII: Lessons Learned

246 - Lessons Learned from the 2013 Photo Safari October 27, 2013

160 - Lessons Learned from this Photo Safari

098 - A Dozen Lessons Learned (9 through 12)

097 - A Dozen Lessons Learned (5 through 8)

096 - A Dozen Lessons Learned (1 through 4)

As my father used to tell me, "Good Judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from poor judgement." Here is a catalog of poor judgement. Profit from it.

777 Lightning and Lightning Bugs, First Published 8/12/2018

Tom Kite once said the difference between profession and amateur golfers is the difference between lightning and lightning bugs. The difference is in the attention to details, dedication and the willingness to never stop working. As photographers we should never stop seeing, observing and wondering about what we see in the world in front of us. We should also be ready to act on those observations when we are in the right place at the right time.

The amateur stops practicing when he does it right once; the professional stops practicing when he can’t do it wrong. In reality, the professional never stops practicing. They expect to perform at the highest level all the time because they have constantly practiced their craft. Shouldn’t it be the same for you and me when we have a camera in hand? Photography can happen any time and any place where we are. We need to be ready to react when we are in that situation. 

Exercise your photographic muscles every day. Don't stop looking at the world around you. Your smart phone makes a dandy camera to capture those scenes of your life if you left your "big camera" at home.

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Today’s photograph is a great example of thinking photographically on a daily basis and being ready to photograph when the moment presents itself. Today’s lovely landscape was made right behind the eighteenth green at Carolina Trace Golf Course in Sanford, North Carolina. I had just finished my round of golf, was closing down rangefinder golf app on my smartphone. Then I looked up. I went to my camera app and created this lovely photograph. Look at that. Golf and photography included in both text and pictures in this week's post.

776 A Disturbing Thought, Part II

In discussing last week’s post with a friend (please go back and read it because we’re continuing with that topic this week) pointed out another variable that comes into play. Quite simply it is the experience level of the photographer. While I sought to explain the change in content based on equipment a friend suggested that personal aesthetic development also has a much larger role in the creation of images than a piece of hardware. It is certain technical boundaries influence the creation of images, but that is only a part of the whole.

It is the person operating the equipment that decides the subject matter, the point of view and when to press the shutter release as well as making myriad decisions on processing and display. I think this is the far more important factor in deciding artistic and personal growth. With the advanced technology available to all photographers today it is sometimes difficult to remember these machines are tools used by a person who makes the decision on how they are used.

In short, it’s the photographer who is responsible for the success (or failure) of an image, not the camera. Good or bad, it is the photographer who makes or breaks the image.

775 - Through an iPhone Darkly, First Posted 8/7/2016

My wife and I attended a concert recently. We enjoyed the experience and we had a great time people watching, too. One of the things that we noticed was the number of people (of all ages, surprisingly) viewing the concert on the back of their cell phones. It was odd. The spectacle of the live performance was just in front of them, yet they were satisfied to avoid the experience and concentrate on the screen of their smart phone.

While I shake my head at the younger generation, I thought as photographers, we are guilty of the same thing. We look at the world on the external viewing screen of our DSLR rather than actually experiencing the world if front of our cameras. How often have we looked at a digital file, admired the photograph we made and failed to remember the experience? If we go out into a beautiful world to photograph, we should make sure that we spend some time to just enjoy the experience of the location. There are times it is more important to experience the real world before we capture the vision on the back of our camera. I think that is an important thing for people of all ages to remember that a real experience is much better than a digital capture.

I feel too young to be this damn old.

774 A Disturbing Thought…

In excavating the Lipka photographic archives I have made a meta observation about my photographs. As I progressed from the world of 35 millimeter film to view cameras and 4x5 (and larger) film I have noticed both a decline in the number of images and the variety of photographic compositions.

Not a great surprise, because the difference between 35 mm and sheet film is huge. The view camera requires a lot of time to set up, compose, focus and make an exposure. The process is slow and much more expensive than roll film. They are two entirely different styles of photography.

Now here’s the troubling part. It is obvious that I underwent a massive photographic change and looking back I wonder if it was for the better. The variety of image types and willingness to push creative boundaries disappeared when I switched to the large format camera. I now wonder if changing to a large format camera was a good creative idea.

773 - Long Lost and Now Found, First Posted 10/16/2016

The photograph in today’s blog was made on September 10, 2006 at 7:27:33 PM according to the EXIF data. I found it last week when I was trying to figure out what projects needed to be moved from my primary to secondary hard drive. Multiple exposures of this scene indicated I was trying to use High Dynamic Range techniques. Ten years ago HDR was difficult and required so much work I never bothered to perfect the image. HDR techniques are now ridiculously simple and wonderful so a couple of selections, a left click, a right click and voila, a perfect HDR image.

There are a couple of lessons here. The first thing that comes to mind Storage is cheap, so there is no reason not to make the picture when you see it. My oft repeated advice to make the photograph and worry about how to deal with it technically later is the second. Just because you don’t know how to deal with it now doesn’t mean that you can’t in the future. Technology constantly improves and (we all hope) we will also improve technically and aesthetically.

This photograph could have been part of a project that was completed a long time ago, but it missed its’ chance. This image doesn’t really have a home other than on this blog. I’m fine with that because it’s finally going to be seen by an audience. I’m happy to finally share my interpretation of this place and time with you these ten years later.

How many more of these lost digital files will I find if I keep looking? What if I start looking through contact sheets from the long ago days of film photography?