An Evening Affair

After my last sunset outing I was prepared to head down off the mountains and pick up dinner for the evening. As I went to turn around i caught a glimpse of the rising moon over some mountains, I needed that shot. I spent fifteen minutes or so working on the exposure, only to finally turn around and catch a glimpse of something more. The remnants of sunset in a lovely blue hour light framed against silhouetted trees. It caught me off guard, I was so focused on a different exposure I didn’t even see it, but when I did, I knew. I hadn’t stopped for the moonlit night, I had stopped for this last capture before the light vanished. It’s simple for certain, but to me it’s compelling in its own ways.

When you’re in the field working a scene, it’s easy to become hyper focused on certain aspects and forget to look at the world around you. You get caught up in a type of tunnel vision. This isn’t a negative trait most of the time, however it can lead to missing the shot happening all around you. I’ve on more than a few occasions become so engrossed in my composition that I forget to look around and see what else is happening, and have missed shots far more compelling. Of course I preach patience, stay put, keep focused… That’s not always sage advice, sometimes you should come up for air, and pay attention to the world around you, you never know what you may be missing.

Next time you’re out with your camera, get your composition locked in, then while waiting for your light, take a look around and see what else is going on, is it worth dropping your composition for something else? Maybe, maybe not, that’s up to you, the photographer to decide in the end. The natural world is always changing, always evolving, clouds may block your light, corpuscular rays may drop in behind you, rainbows could come spiraling out of the heavens… .But is it worth moving on from your composition? Well, if you don’t look up form the back of your camera, you may never even know they were there.

Until Next Time!

Aperture: f6.4
ISO: 400
SS: 4secs
Focal: 26mm

Fujinon 16-55mm