Putting the Quotes to the TEST

There are a lot of quotes out there in photography… “It’s not the size that matters”, “Want a better photo, pick a better location”… and my favourite from Ansel Adams, “Sometimes I do get to places just when God's ready to have somebody click the shutter.”

But I have heard two quotes lately that have stuck in my mind. A friend of mine Gary Simmons said to me, “you have to visit a location a minimum of 25 times to get the photograph you want”, and another friend of mine, Gary Stortz said to me, “It’s the six inches behind the viewfinder that makes the difference in a good photograph”.

These two qotes entered my mind the other night while at a location I have never been to before… and I began to ponder these two sayings ...and ya know what, these two things are soooooo true.

Planning, researching and understanding the idiosyncrasies of the location makes a huge difference in the photographs you take home after a photo shoot. Knowledge is power, or in this case, knowledge and planning takes a better photo.

As for coming back to a location time and time again… well, the other nights outing to a location that I have been admiring for over a year was proof of that. I went on a whim and got there only to find, the tides were wrong, the bugs were ruthless and it was too cloudy. I also realized that the shot I really wanted was going to have me ask for permission to get onto someone’s lake front property.

I am going to have to go back after I do some research on the location. I have admired photos from here for a long time and thought, “hey, I can go get those for myself”.

Wrong… not on Friday night… so, I will go back to the drawing board. I will do some research, ask the locals some questions, get permission to access that property and go back… again, and again, and again.

Then I thought, I have this blog, I have a lot of people that read my blog, most novice photographers, why don’t we chronicle me getting the perfect shot, well MY perfect shot out of this one location.

So, stay tuned, watch for the twitter posts at @kpepphotography, watch my site and follow the blog as I detail the steps I take, how many times I go back, just to get a few photos that I know this location offers.

The following three titles in Bold Font are links to the photos I got on my first time to this location… enjoy, its not that I am not happy with them, it just wasn’t what I personally wanted.

The First of Many Photos from My Latest Obsession

Lakeside Serenity

Recession


So here is the plan…

#1 – check photographers Ephemeris to identify sun and moon locations at different times of day.
#2 – research those damn bugs… the looked like shad flies, but I do not know. All I know is I am not standing on that beach getting swarmed again… LOL
#3 - Get permission to enter the private property
#4 – Schedule a trip back this location that’s over 200km’s (100 miles) from where I live