An hour at the lake

[britishbeef]

I spent an hour at Portishead lake which is local to me. I thought I'd see what photo opportunities I could find in that hour. I tried photographing the swans and can now appreciate how hard they are to capture. They never stay still for long (especially if you're sticking a lens in their face) and when they are still, it's hard to frame them successfully. I've seen many swan photographs many times better than mine here on PBase and I have great respect for the photographers responsible for photographing such beautiful but difficult birds.

Gallery link here: http://www.pbase.com/britishbeef/an_hour_at_the_lake

Sample:



Regards,

[lhaskins]

Well....all I can say is it was an hour well spent! Nice work

[andesheng]

The whole thing of “expectations” is of interest to me. Back in the old film days I used to have a goal of shooting 100 images per week, maybe 5,000 images per year. I would lug a tripod around and really work to capture the best shots possible. This was all 35mm work. Later, looking at the slides, typically a shot that I had pinned my hopes on, a shot that just seemed “perfect” in the field, would ultimately disappoint me, but maybe a shot that struck me at the time as not so very special would turn out to have real merit. My hope was that at the end of the year I might have 10 really superb images, 100 more-than-adequate images, and perhaps another 250 really-pretty-good images. The rest got dumped.

Today, what with digital, and image-stabilized lenses and all, the problem for me is that it is all too easy to take a lot of really-pretty-good and more-than-adequate images. Superb images are still quite a challenge, thankfully. In the old slide days, a lot of interesting compositions got dumped because of technical shortfalls – poor exposure, lack of sharpness, etc. Today the camera algorithms are so darn “smart,” that most exposures are technically pretty good. That is probably a good thing, because it forces photographers back to judging their own work primarily in terms of composition and the successful conveyance of a theme or subject to the viewer.

Personally I find digital to be exasperating because of the relative ease of taking a lot of “OK” shots. What I am moving back to is not film, but rather back to the tripod. Lugging a tripod around is not a favorite activity, especially now that I am approaching 60, but the tripod forces a discipline onto the photographer – i.e., onto me – that I seemingly will not impose on myself otherwise.

OK, Geoff, I have drifted far away from your gallery, and the subject of this thread. Looking at your images I would say that there are a couple to feel quite good about, and for an hour of time that is quite a good return on your invested time.

Mark from Minnesota, USA