This past week I had to rush to Kelowna for an appointment and I didn’t want to be late. As I drove I noticed that I was missing some great photographs — two coyotes hunting in an open field, a large owl on a roadside post, hawks sitting by a marsh and the sun glowing off the white cliffs along a lakes as I passed.
As I began to write this article I was reminded of a long trip to Salt Lake City, Utah that my wife and I made some years ago. Our route was to head east to Calgary, then turn south to the boarder and follow the Missouri river as it snaked it’s way through canyons and gullies, then head west to Salt Lake City.
We left later than we should and were driving with as few stops as possible because I had promised my brother I would be at his house for a family event the next day. That was the first (and only) time I took that scenic drive. We kept realizing we should be stopping over and over again. Linda said, “We will never do that to ourselves again, we need to leave lots of time, even days, to photograph subjects when we see them.”
I think that many photographers have had the circumstance where the chance at a great photograph was missed because of the wrong lens or camera.
I remember a photograph of a moose wandering in the hazy morning fog. All I had was a cheap point and shoot camera. Sure I got the shot, but the photo was lacking because of the limitations of the small sensor and short lens. I spent time working on it with Photoshop, eventually changing it to a black and white because the image was noisy with a purplish cast and the quality of the final image was poor. Wrong camera.
The Boy Scouts say, “Be prepared,” and I think that is a good idea for photographers. When film use was common, most serious photographers had more than one camera; one loaded with black and white film, one with colour negative film, and sometimes one with colour slide film. I used to put a short zoom on one and a telephoto on the other. Since digital imaging many photographers only carry one camera, colour or black and white images can be chosen with any computer program.
Now I have my main DSLR camera, and two little mirrorless cameras; A Fuji I have mentioned in other articles and a fun little Nikon V1.
Sometimes I like the portability of a little Canon G1x digicam I also have. I don’t use it much — only if I am going to a party or walking around town. It is one of the rare digicams with the crop size sensor that’s found in many larger cameras, I mainly use it for subjects that are close to me and rarely use it for scenic photos.
Concerning roadside photo opportunities, I’ll mention my father. The chance of him taking a good picture was never very good, but he was certainly dedicated. He was a contractor that worked all over the Utah and there was usually a very dirty camera jammed under his pickup seat or sometimes stored on his excavator and he rarely missed an opportunity to photograph anything that interested him. The sheer volume of pictures he took out weighed the bad pictures. He mostly used slide film and my brothers and I looked forward to his evening slide shows. There were always lots of interesting photos and it was fun to view pictures that he hand fed in his old projector.
Like my father, we not only should be continually looking for photographic opportunities, but we should prepare for them by having some kind of camera with us. I’m not a fan of camera phones, but as they say the camera that with you is better than none.
Stay safe and be creative. These are my thoughts for this week. Contact me at www.enmanscamera.com or emcam@telus.net.
