Canyon Lands National Park,Island in the Sky,Mesa Arch,Southwest,Utah,buttes,canyons,sunrise

Becoming a better photographer

/ 03/11/2014 / Comments Off on Becoming a better photographer / Education, Mental Process, Uncategorized

 

Canyon Lands National Park,Island in the Sky,Mesa Arch,Southwest,Utah,buttes,canyons,sunrise

Canyon Lands National Park,Island in the Sky,Mesa Arch,Southwest,Utah,buttes,canyons,sunrise

 

Canyon Lands National Park,Island in the Sky,Mesa Arch,Southwest,Utah,buttes,canyons,sunrise

Canyon Lands National Park,Island in the Sky,Mesa Arch,Southwest,Utah,buttes,canyons,sunrise

 

Canyon Lands National Park,Island in the Sky,Mesa Arch,Southwest,Utah,buttes,canyons,sunrise

Canyon Lands National Park,Island in the Sky,Mesa Arch,Southwest,Utah,buttes,canyons,sunrise

 

Canyon Lands National Park,Canyonland national Park,Island in the Sky,Moab,Southwest,Utah,buttes,canyons,sunrise

Canyon Lands National Park,Canyonland national Park,Island in the Sky,Moab,Southwest,Utah,buttes,canyons,sunrise

 

Canyon Lands National Park,Canyonland national Park,Island in the Sky,Moab,Southwest,Utah,buttes,canyons,sunrise

Canyon Lands National Park,Canyonland national Park,Island in the Sky,Moab,Southwest,Utah,buttes,canyons,sunrise

 

Canyon Lands National Park,Island in the Sky,Mesa Arch,Southwest,Utah,buttes,canyons,sunrise

Canyon Lands National Park,Island in the Sky,Mesa Arch,Southwest,Utah,buttes,canyons,sunrise

Presumably  you are reading this because you would like to be a better photographer.

“You don’t make a photograph just with a camera. You bring to the act of photography all the pictures you have seen, the books you have read, the music you have heard, the people you have loved.”- Ansel Adams
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.- Ernest Hemingway
Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything- George Bernard Shaw
Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. Do not bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.- William Faulkner

It is wonderful to go to the great locations like Mesa Arch in these photos! I love the beauty.  It is was painful to watch people who got up at o’ dark hundred to arrive at the arch in time for sunrise waste their efforts.  How many of them will get an opportunity to do go to Mesa arch a second time?

The litany of things not to do.

  • No tripod, for the dark and low light shots of sunrise so the photos were blurry
  • Tried to handhold the camera (really the same as above)
  • No light or headlamp to see the settings on the camera, and so they lost time getting setup and missed sunrise
  • Didn’t know how to use the tripod that they had.  One person spent 20 minutes getting it setup.
  • Didn’t know how to operate the camera.
  • Getting the parts of people from the back in the photos

Things People could do that are beyond the normal camera on a tripod

  • Try different locations
  • Try vertical format
  • Try bracketed exposure
  • Use graduated ND filters
  • After sunrise look for other photos that are not the classic Mesa Arch

Once you have the camera and tripod, the rest is up to you.  For some of you, you may plan exquisitely and know exactly what to take, but for me I take a lot of things, and then if I need them they are available to me, kind of like having spare media because I don’t know how many frames I’m going to take.

Think about what you want the picture to look like, rather than going OOh ahh, click, then take the photo.

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