Roughly two years ago I took the above two photos on two separate trips. The first photo was taken in a rushed shoot during a peak autumn afternoon very far north in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The second photo was taken up on the northwest coast of Michigan during a very cold and windy morning on the dunes. I love how I composed both of the photos I took on these separate occasions, but as time has passed I started to ask myself these questions. How can I make the photos better? What time of year would better suit these scenes? What type of light would work best? What can I do to make the photos print-worthy?

I feel I have learned a lot and improved many of my photography skills since taking these photos. I learned how to better compose a shot, how to expose a photo with post-processing in mind, how to pre-visualize the light interacting with a scene, and how to slow down. Besides learning skills and techniques I also learned a lot about myself as a photographer. I learned what my favorite type of light is, what my favorite time of the year to shoot is, and what emotions and feelings I want to convey in my photos. All of these factors combined to help me take the following two photos.

Almost identical in composition to the original, this photo in my eyes corrected a lot of the mistakes I made two years ago. What I missed the mark on with the original was how underexposed and generally poor looking the quality was. I’m happy with how the original photo was composed, I love the way the twisting foam of the river draws your eye into the main falls. I wanted to keep this main feature of the composition intact in the new photo, while also fixing the mistakes I made. Two years ago when I originally took this photo I was very pressed for time due to the quickly fading light. So, naturally this caused me to rush and be less careful when taking the photo. I wanted to change this time around, I made sure to give myself plenty of time to slow down, triple-check my composition, and ensure I was properly exposing the scene. I even scouted the composition the night before to make sure I remembered how I needed to compose the shot. Overall, I feel I did a great job of improving on my mistakes in my second attempt at this photo. The composition is slightly better by including less of the sky, the raw files are more properly exposed, and the overall image quality is print-worthy (at-least in my eyes). Would I go back and shoot the same photo again? Absolutely! To simply just experience this location during autumn again would be good enough for me. The only thing I feel the photo is really lacking is a bit of directional light. On both my attempts at this photo it was very overcast and gloomy. But who am I to complain, I should consider myself lucky to have been at this location twice during peak autumn color.

When I asked my self the question of what would make the photo “New Horizons” better? I instantly knew I had to take it during autumn. What better than a splash of color in the layers of trees to really improve what I feel is an already strong photo. Although I think the original is a good photo, I do wish I would’ve composed the image slightly better. I wish I would’ve went in tighter and placed the house and the barn a little closer to the middle of the frame. I feel the placement of the barn in the original makes the photo seem just a bit off balance. Going into the weekend this photo was taken I was regularly checking the forecast for the cloud coverage. I knew I wanted to shoot this photo at sunrise because the sun would be rising just out of the frame to the right. In my head I wanted it to be partly cloudy sky’s with enough gaps to let the first rays of the sun hit the barn and the field. What the forecast called for was completely clear sky’s, which left me slightly optimistic because at least I would get some golden light. When I arrived at the location and hiked up the sand dunes to get to my vantage point, a large bank of cloud began to roll in and settled mostly in the east. This greatly diminished my chances for any kind of light that morning. Luckily, the bank of cloud off to the right of the frame did not diffuse any of the bright orange color in the sky, giving the empty sky a bit of interest. The clouds on the horizon only let through enough directional light to add a tiny bit of contrast in the field and barn. I was able to enhance this contrast with some dodging and burning in post processing. Overall, I think this is a very strong photo and I will continue to tweak it in the coming weeks before deciding if it is worth printing or putting in my gallery. I think I will make an attempt at this photo again this year or early next year once snow begins to accumulate at this location. I do like the added dimension from the fall color present in the photo, but I just can’t resist shooting this composition in the dead of winter.

I’m very glad I decided to retake both of these photos, it reaffirmed that I’m indeed improving as a photographer. Two years ago I wouldn’t have been so critical of my own work. I would take photos, think they were good, then post them. Today, I see the benefit of being self critical and now have the knowledge to question how I can improve every photo I take. I think this experience has been a big step in the right direction for me as a photographer. I saw the mistakes I previously made, I created a plan to fix them, and I went out in the field and executed the plan. I know this is just the beginning and I still have a lot of room for growth and improvement, but I’m ready for the challenge. I’m excited to see what kind of photos I take over the next two years, but I’m certain if I continue to be self critical and strive to improve I will take photos better than I ever thought I would.