Thursday 7 July 2016

New ideas and old

Feeling all fished out after achieving my number one goal for the summer I've been wanting to get the cameras out again, but it's either been raining or too sunny. Despite the brightness I did take a walk the other day when I thought I might have a way to outline a project - metaphorically. Many wild creatures have a home range where they spend most of their lives, maybe venturing out in search of food or a mate. When I leave home on foot I also keep within a set area, limited by the roadways and paths and my energy. My plan was to take photographs at the outermost points of this home range. Junctions or turning points. The intention was not to make the final pictures but to develop a strategy for how I was going to do this as I took a walk.

At the first turning point I took a lot of shots attempting to depict the place itself. I soon realised that what I needed to show, or suggest, was the route. So I struck upon looking back where I had come from, and ahead to where I was going.

Because these were only test shots I used the widest angle lens I had with me. I could play about with cropping the shots when I got back to the computer. It was at the computer that I felt panoramic crops presented as pairs worked best.



I like the idea, but what I definitely dislike is the bright sunshine and the foliage. All those leaves spoil the view! It's looking like this project will have to wait until winter. Then I'll sally forth with my rarely used tripod and take more care over the framing and focusing of the pictures.

Once more a drive past the sandplant last week revealed another drastic change, so I snatched a quick visit there this evening. Even from afar it was obvious that the last of the big sand piles had gone. The site now looks very open. Not bare because plants are already starting to cover the exposed ground.




One new feature is a long, low pile of reddish earth that looked less sandy. I should have taken a closer look. Whether this is permanent or temporary remains to be seen. It looks as if this sandplant project is almost done and the hard part of pulling something together from the hundreds of pictures will have to start. Then again, the place keeps on surprising me. So I'll wait and see. Any excuse to put off the selection process!


I keep forgetting to use my fast telephoto zoom, but this time I took it along with my wide zoom in photojournalist style. They do make a good pairing. The gap in coverage between 35mm and 70mm is easily worked around.



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