See this picture? It’s certainly nothing special. In fact, if I were to critique it, I’d give it pretty low marks. It’s way underexposed, mostly due to the huge patch of snow in the foreground. I really had to bump up the exposure in Photoshop, which caused a great deal of distortion and color shift. Compositionally , it’s boring, and besides, who wants a jet trail in their mountain photo? Also, it’s got some glare from the sun streaming in from the top.
But imagine this scene with better light, no contrail and a hiker on the snowfield near the lower left corner. Now that’s what I’m talking about. Slap on a different lens, change up a few elements and this scene actually has promise, which is exactly why I took this shot. By the way, I shot it with my iPhone. I didn’t even have my camera with me.
Now that doesn’t happen very often, but yesterday I decided to go fast and light. Camelbak, boots ice axe, gaiters and a t-shirt. No cameras and no lenses. My goal was to get up on the ridge and hike to the top of a particular mountain as fast as I could.
However, just because I didn’t have any equipment with me doesn’t mean that I wasn’t looking. I’m always looking and scouting for new locations, places where I can take a model, or scenes that might look awesome in great light.
As I always say, you never know what you might see when you put yourself out into the world. You might stumble across some really cool subject matter, but for whatever reason, the timing isn’t right for you to make a good photograph.
If you think you might go back there, then make a note of the location and jot down some some possible ideas, whether in a small notebook that you carry with you, or else just take a quick reference shot with your camera phone or a point and shoot.
Then, someday in the future when you’ve got great weather and really good light, you can refer to your scouting list, return to one of those locations and make a really great image that will do the place justice.
Stay tuned. I’m not sure when I’ll go back here to get the shot that I really want, but if I do, you’ll be the first to know.
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