If you will indulge some musings, I was struck by the contrast/evolution of Paul the Photographer over the last 20 years.
This was precipitated by a recent trip to Washington and chance to reshoot Willaby Creek Falls.
To create context, I had visited Willaby Creek Falls circa 2000 when vacationing in Ocean Shores. It was roughly my second year as a "serious" phootgrapher, i.e. I planned vacations around potential photo ops. My equipment was a K1000 film camera and 2 Kitstar lens becuase my photo equipment budget at the time was nearly zero. As such, my standard image was captured at f2.8 and 1/60th of a second (because I had read somewhere that that was the slowest shutter speed one could reasonably expect to create decent images handheld). I purchased ASA 400 film and pushed it to ASA 1600 when developing.
I mention this so that the focus is not on the "poor" technical aspects of the early image. The low resolution scan certainly doesn't help either.
What really struck me was the composition of each image, the conscious choices the two Pauls made. It's the same waterfall, with the same opportunities, yet the younger (amateur) me chose the blurred foreground object framing "method". Until today, I had never really analyzed or realized the change in photographic style that has taken place of the last two decades. Since the first photo was taken, I have been judged, juried, crucified, praised, featured and castigated in various measures with regard to my work. The most obvious scars would be the "never ever had a blurry foreground object" mantra that had never more obviously manifested itself in my work than these two images.
The most recent was taken per my standard methods of crawling down a moss covered embankment of rocks and perching my tripod precariously across two rocks with the third leg in the flowing stream. At all times my bag and myself were within inches of plunging into a 6-8 foot deep stream....lol. Now bear in mind, this was a consciously chosen vantage point determined by a compositional eye honed over the last 10 years after I decided I was going to try and make some extra money selling my photography. I have been successful enough at this venture to have paid for all my past and current equipment with my earnings, so there is some validation of my expertise.
Compare that to the younger me, and the framing which was just as meticulously chosen. I remained on the trail, never venturing to water level. Instead I found various angles in which foliage shrouded portions of the image. I took 5 different images, which in film, and on my budget, was extravagant. I still remember the excitement, the sense of revelation when I "discovered" this waterfall, as if its a ghost still haunting me. Additionally, I still find the compositional choices of the younger me somewhat intriguing, although they break a cardinal rule in landscape photography. Then again diabetics still love chocolate, too....
What was the lingering fascination with this particular waterfall? I had spoken numerous times of wishing to return to reshoot Willaby Creek falls, because I remembered it fondly; it was cool, awesome, cute etc. Yet interestingly enough, I had not bothered to look at the old digital scan in close to a decade.
Fast forward to a few weeks ago... As I approached Willaby Creek Falls on the trail, my first thought was, "That can't be it." I asked my hiking companion (sister) to confirm that this was indeed the waterfall I had longed to reshoot. Indeed it was. Sadly, it was. So what changed? How jaded I have become after shooting nearly one hundred waterfalls across the country? Poor little Willaby Creek Falls no longer held the same mystique. It was a realization echoing in my head throughout the hour or so I spent trying to make amends with my fancy camera and fancy lenses. I was determined to recreate that magic.
But I could not, did not. Today when processing the new image, I could not shake a sense of disappointment, a sense of somehow being "betrayed" by my own expectations.
For reference, here are the two images prompting this introspection:
Last edited by nomadkng; 06-27-2017 at 07:27 AM.