I got to this little park in Leesburg and thought, 'Any other place would be better for pictures.' I usually think this when I get to a site. Shame on me, I know. Thinking about all the wonderful pictures that I'm missing out because I'm not in Bryce Canyon or at Yosemite. Or because the light is not right, it won't be good and such.
So today I said, "The hell with it… I'm just going to use what is here and now and make the best of it." No excuses. Matter of fact, I didn't even bring my big camera, Just my point and shoot (fuji x-100). I started to scan around to see if there's anything interesting.
Where do you decide to see things from dictates your perspective of the photo. I knew that the snow on the ground was something that I was not used to seeing at this park so I headed into a small area of brush where the tall grass held onto the snow more than the wide open field where the ground was starting to show through.
The more time I spent on the snow looking around, I started to see some details that I liked. The fixed 23mm lens on my Fuji x-100 (35mm equivalent on the smaller sensor) was bit too wide where it showed too much stuff around, complicating the photo with dark patches of grass. So I used my zoom function on the camera… my feet.
I closed in for detail shots of the little branches, grass, peeking out of the snow. This camera allows me to get pretty close so that I can clean up the background giving it a nice quiet feel.
Once again, I did not have pristine snow drifts where isolating an element in that clean background would be easier but It looked like this.
Instead of complaining about it, coming in close and using smaller elements allowed me some intimate shots. I compensated the exposure a bit (+1 stop) to keep the snow bright. But I kept the exposure so that there will not be any blown hot spots. I wanted the powdery texture to be visible.
I shot most from a bird's eye view, almost perpendicular to the ground. This angle almost got rid of any depth so the lines look very graphic and two-dimensional, which I though it would help the graphical nature of this scene. I did some adjustments in PS to give it a softer, cooler look to the snow.
So, would being at Yosemite National park with my large format camera be better for photos? Probably yes. Was I there today? No.
I'm also finding out that in life, we need to take a similar approach. Dealing with what we're faced with, not fantasizing about what you don't have and why what you do have is not good enough. Photography:1 Me:0.
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