I am always on the lookout, during any of my travels, for a special image that may not have been taken before. During a recent trip to Milton, NY I traveled on a busy road which passed over this small bridge. You get in the habit of looking at what is beneath bridges (usually water) and this time you could see into the leafless fall woods and see a small waterfall. It was about noon time and the light told me that this subject was facing west. That was good information, so I figured I’d be back in around three hours and take another look.
Plan your work, then executing the plan is a common manta in the business world. Some of that thinking spills over into my photography. My car always holds a satchel of my clothing and wet weather gear, from boots to outer gore-tex and gloves. I had also recently updated the contents of the satchel from my warm weather gear. Why does this have any meaning for a serious photographer ?, The story continues…
As I noted before, once returning at 3, I changed into my cold gear and found an access trail to the stream bed, I always scout out an area from multiple perspectives, I knew the waterfall and light and movement were the subject, and the rocks were supporting players. I like the analogy that Moose Peterson has in scouting out where you want to shoot at a new location. He says, think like you are fly fishing. Where is the best location for you to capture your quarry. This advise at minimum makes you stop and think about your position, to get closer, lower, higher, look around your environment for twigs and branches, the flow of the water, ect…. Why does this have any meaning for the serious photographer ?…The Story continues….
So as I am in fly fisherman mode, I hear a hard tire skidding sound from the bridge, then out from a small red car comes a photographer with a DLSR, who proceeds to bound down the trail and comes to point about 30 feet downstream from me and yells, ‘Holy S**t, it’s cold down here….Hey we had the same idea !’, then it was clickity,click,clickity, ‘spray and pray’, then a splash…..seems like he had a technical problem with his footing, and landed in the stream….I called out if he needed any help, he said, “Nope, I’m good’…he scampered back up the trail to his car and I was left shaking my head as he speed away….
My mini adventure to capture this shot continued. I soon decided that their was a ground level, in the river shot to be had, but I have to walk thru the shallow stream bead to get to it. That’s when my gore-tex line trail boots and my Smartwool socks with liners that I had put on at the top of the story came in handy. After walking thru water, I needed to sit on a patch of earth about 3 feet wide that was 2 inches higher than the water line. That when the gore-tex shell liner that I put on came in real handy. So as I set up my tripod and made a lens selection, I then had to wait for the sun and watch the shadows. Sitting in cool running water sucks your body temperature, but again with a silk 1st layer and two wool outer layers and a tech windbreaker, I was not feeling any pain…You can read my point, it is best to be prepared to give yourself more opportunities for you Image making.
