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rockport

Patience and Persistence in Landscape Photography

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Twin Lights moon
The Buck Moon rises next to the South Light on Thachers Island in July of 2019. Fuji X-T3 w/Fujinon 55-200 exp. ISO 400 1/13s @ f5.6. Luckily it was not real windy so the long shutter speed was fine. This is a fairly large crop from the original as I don’t have a lens longer than 300 (35mm terms).

A couple of the things that I preach with workshop attendees is that in most cases you will be rewarded when using patience and persistence. This image of the Buck Moon rising next to the South Light on Thacher’s Island is an image that required both. A friend had called a few days before reminding me of the Buck Moon and that it would be rising very close to sunset and that it would be rising between the the Twin Lights of Thacher’s Island in Rockport. As the appointed hour started to approach, which was at 8:21 PM, the clouds started to move in. What a real bummer it would be if the clouds blocked the moon. As the time approached I got even more apprehensive. Should I bother to go? Here is where the persistence came in. I decided to go and just see – who knows what will happen.

It still did not look promising as I walked up to our location on Eden Rd. From this location you can’t see the moon as it rises as the island blocks the horizon. I estimated that we would see the moon around ten minutes after it rose. So as we talked about the possibilities, the moon slowly poked out of the clouds and gave us a brief glimpse. So our patience paid off as we got about five minutes of shooting in before it rose into the clouds. It would show itself again later when it was dark but not near the lighthouses. The difficulty came with trying to time the red light on the lighthouse. I first counted how long it took to come around and once I figured that out it was just a matter of hitting the shutter a milli second before the light came around. So luck and skill were involved in making this image.

Others on social media have cheated and merged two images, one taken well before when it was obscured and another when it was well up in the sky. So in this case the image is not reality. The blending of two exposures to balance the dynamic range can make for a dramatic image. Unfortunately it produces images which are not a representation of reality. So I tend not to do them.

Therefore I give you this image which is and example of persistence and patience which is reality!.

Don’t let lousy weather keep you indoors

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During my workshops one of my mantras is practice. Always have a camera with you whether it be your phone, a good point and shoot or your regular camera. There is no excuse for not having one of them with you. Practicing looking for compositions should be something you enjoy doing whether you happen to make an image or not.

This week the weather report was awful – rain for the whole week. I was not looking forward to sitting in the house banging on the computer.

So on Monday with the drizzle and fog I headed out for a morning walk to see what I could find. It turns out I found quite a bit of interesting things to photograph.

 

Practicing hyperfocal distance is an art form. The Fuji system shows you a hperfocal distance scale with a blue bar that shows what’s in focus and what is not at every aperture. Very useful. Everything in this image is tack sharp front to back.

After I walked around the waterfront I managed to find some more great images along the way.

A person waiting in the fog for the bus with blooming jonquils.
A shop window filled with Rockport coffee mugs waiting to be sold.
An finally left over faux Easter flowers hanging out of a mail slot on a door.

When I got home and let my dog “Kodak” out it was still kind of drizzly and when he came back in he was a little soggy looking. I had the camera with me and I immediately thought I could get a great shot of him looking back out the door with some great background separation. B&W is quite often a great option for this type of photo.

Lousy weather is no excuse to not get out there and shoot. It just might be the opportunity you were looking for to capture a great image.

In a Rut! A Photographic Rut!

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Different perspective
Lobster buoys, lobster shack and tree. Fuji 55-200 at 55 (in 35mm terms 85mm)

So how often do you find yourself in a photographic rut? Like doing the same thing over and over again! Like sunrises day after day. Or sunsets day after day chasing Instagram or Facebook likes and shares like they were candy on Easter morning.

I have been one of those photographers that does not do that. Photography is not about making images of the pretty postcard scene everyday just to get those shares and likes on social media. Plenty of people do it but does it make them better as a photographer I would say it does not.

I like to walk around looking for interesting every day things shown in a different light. Today was one of those days as the light was peaking out from behind the clouds. I found a scene I and many others have shot more than a few times. But today I chose to use a long lens and shoot against the light.

When you find yourself with photographers block – change it up! With today’s new lens designs everyone has a good short or long zoom and that’s all they walk out the door with. If that is all you have, find a focal length you never use and tape the lens in that position. Shooting with a focal length you never use will help you gain valuable insight into making great photographs. Then experiment with different f-stops. Very few photographers I know and teach like to shoot wide open. It’s an eye opening experience give it a shot.

The image above was shot at 55mm (85mm in 35mm terms) I almost never use this focal length. So I forced myself to shoot at this focal length. I can’t stress enough how important it is to make yourself move around instead of standing in one place with the zoom lens. Using a fixed focal length lens is a great way to do this. I’m not in a rut at the moment but it does happen and this is how I break out of it.