You can see the VLOG to the BLOG at the bottom of the page or you can reach it via this button:
Gear:
Sony a7IV
Sony FE 2.8/16–35 mm GM
Life as a full-time working engineer, family man and ambitious amateur photographer is not always easy to juggle. So you take every opportunity to get your camera out and take photos. This morning, however, the focus was clearly on a discovery tour through the forest with my daughter. And she did just that.
My wife was allowed to relax at home, as we are expecting our second child soon and any opportunity to recharge her batteries is very important for her. I discovered frogs, herons and ducks at a lake with my daughter. We looked for beautifully shaped flowers and leaves or mushrooms on the forest floor. We looked at snails up close and were even able to observe a deer in the wild a few meters away from us. It was a very exciting morning for my daughter (and for me too).
To ensure that this walk in the woods was really about my daughter and not about vlogging or taking photos, I set myself the challenge of only pressing the shutter button on my camera once and only filming the bare minimum with my vlogging camera. My daughter was even allowed to help decide which scene should be photographed.
But trust me, there was more than one great photo opportunity, as you can see in the vlog below.
Sometimes, especially when you’re out and about in unfamiliar territory, you get excited about everything that’s new to you and start snapping away like crazy. The result is umpteen pictures, but none of them are really convincing. A good composition, taking into account the direction of the light, the right use of technology and possibly filters — there are many things that you may simply not pay attention to in the hectic rush and “snapping” and which you may not really value because of the euphoria. Concentrating at this moment on just one photo, which alone reflects the story of the day or the essence of the surroundings and landscape, focuses your concentration.
If you end up taking 2 or 3 pictures, that’s not really a bad thing. In any case, you save a lot of time on the computer when editing and selecting images.
But sometimes you can’t see the wood for the trees 😉 You can’t really see what’s actually worth photographing. In this case, it also helps to ask yourself these simple questions: What is there in the landscape? What makes this landscape special? What is the lighting situation and how does it affect the scene?
When you think about your surroundings in this way, you sometimes form the idea in your head of what you actually want to depict from the landscape. For me, it was the ferns that I kept finding along the edge of the path throughout our hike. Behind them was the very dense shrub layer of this forest in summer. As the sun and rain were alternating a bit this morning, I actually waited just a minute for it to shine through the light patches in the background. (By the time I took the cover photo, above, for the blog entry, it was gone again). So for me, this one picture exactly characterizes the forest we were walking in. It shows the essence, so to speak. It may not be an absolutely perfect portfolio shot that you prepare for, that you are on location in ideal conditions, or, or, or, but you should note that it was taken at 12 noon in summer, during a father-daughter walk in the forest. 😉
Of course, it could also have been a detailed shot. There were many possibilities, but for me this picture shows this forest as a whole in a small scene.
This and all other shots of this post you can request under “Prints” as an art print for your wall at home directly from me.
Take a look at the VLOG. You’ll see lots of scenes there that would have been worth photographing. Which ones would you have taken?
Suddenly over 1000 followers! 1000 thanks to you all! I actually wanted to tell you about the Faroe Islands this week, but I’m still struggling through the videos and pictures. So you’ll have to be patient a little longer. But to make sure you hear from me again, here’s a short entertaining video today. Out and about with my daughter, I set myself a photo challenge. But see for yourself! 😉
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