Being Less Predictable
Towards the end of last year, I was attending a meeting of my local camera club. Our club has a monthly salon, and many very talented photographers. The last several meetings I attended, when my images came up for judging, someone sitting by me would ask, "Is that your photo?"
I got to thinking about the fact that people seemed to be able to pick out my photos rather easily. Was this due to a particular style, or technique? Do I tend to shoot variations of the same theme? Is it simply the order of the photos in the salon?
I started playing a little game called guess the photographer when looking at all of the images in the salon. I discovered that I was able to correctly identify about 2/3rds of the photos of the photographers that regularly submit images.
Time to mix things up a bit. I had a number of photography trips planned for December and January. I thought this would be the perfect time to do some experimenting. Typically, my landscape shots show very little sky. I am more concerned about the subject matter on the ground instead of what is happening in the sky. Sunrise and sunset shots tend to have the sun placed towards the top of the frame offset to one of the corners. My goal was to capture some images where the sky was the subject. Here are a few photos that I captured while experimenting:
I had a lot of fun trying a few new techniques. This is just one of many different things that I tried. I also worked with textures, close-ups, telephoto landscapes, and detail isolation. Experimenting can open up a whole new world of photographic opportunities.
Upcoming Classes & Workshops
If you would like to learn more about landscape photography, join me at one of my upcoming classes or workshops. I will be co-teaching a ½ day class on March 18th with Alan Boucher where we will cover landscape and waterfall photography. I also have 2 weekend workshops scheduled. One in June and one in October. For more information on these and other learning opportunities please visit the course catalog at Frozenhiker.com (http://www.frozenhiker.com/course-catalog)
