I’m really frustrated tonight and every little thing is irritating me. When I feel like this, I tend to want to do two things – eat and sleep. Not exactly the most healthy choices.
I think I placed too many expectations on the day and therefore was setting myself up for a letdown. Sure, it WAS nice out today, but everything is still BROWN and DEAD and not worth photographing. I am going out of my mind not being able to take decent pictures because I’ve ran out of subjects. I do not like street photography because I don’t think people are interesting. Truth be told, most people annoy me. And having pictures of strangers just doesn’t float my boat. My passion is nature photography, but one can only take so much dead grass, leaveless trees, and melting snow before they want to scream.
I think I’ll go watch The Ring now and try to stop thinking about this stupid day.
With Spring being only a week away, a lot of things may look brown, but I assure you they aren’t dead. The very beginning of Spring is custom-made for people who love macro photography like you do. Just this morning, I can see there are green blades of grass in every square foot of my backyard, and three different shrubs have nice green buds on them. I’m sure if you readjust your viewpoint from the bigger picture down to the extreme close-up level you like so much you’ll find plenty to photograph.
Maybe you could even approach each photography field trip based on a different theme, or even group photos from other outings into a new theme with new photos to augment and/or enhance or frame the revised theme set.
For instance, you could go out today and specifically seach for and photograph only signs of Spring. Another theme could be a study of only bare tree branches and sky – that could be especially cool if you make sure to shoot at all different times of the day because the sky can really be so dramatic. Or how about a theme based solely on water at this time of year – in all its forms, such as ice, puddles, ponds, streams, rain or snow while they’re falling, fresh snow in the sun after a storm, clouds of all different kinds.
Or how about revisiting places you shot in other seasons and trying to tie the different times of year together through common subjects? Adding an element of time to your photography could really lead somewhere.
If you don’t just look at each shot as an isolated piece, you could develop larger works that function as a collection – collections can have a large impact. And while you’re at it, you’re indulging your passion for nature photography, you’re training your eye to see differently, and you could even use all this as an excuse to experiment with your camera, etc.
The possibilities are endless. There’s so much you could be doing right now!
You’re either missing my point, or I didn’t go into enough detail. I don’t LIKE pictures of dead grass and trees. It’s not my thing. I like colors other than brown. Colorado is probably different than Chicago this time of year. I did not see any green this weekend and I am usually pretty good at looking at the small stuff. I saw nothing interesting to me except squirrels and I’m getting a little tired of them too. I’ll be happy when the buds start growing and the bugs come out to play (I did see a wasp today). =)
I think we missed each other’s points, now that you mention it. I was only trying to think of ways to help a nature photographer in the Chicago winter out of a frustrating rut. Sounds like you’d rather be more of a wildlife photographer, and I can’t help you there. :-(
On Saturday we went downtown, not to the parade, but to walk around Michigan Avenue and take pictures. We got to see the river after it was dyed green, and took a few shots of some crew team practicing in the GREEN GREEN GREEN water. That was a hoot! (At least that was something green in the city! ;)