I sit here at the beginning of 2020 and the end of 2019 reflecting on a year of failures, successes, and discoveries. The last 12 months flew by in the blink of an eye, but as I look back I remember all the awesome and not so awesome things from the year. I was faced with a lot of good, bad, and scary situations, both photographically and personally, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Through the many experiences I had, I have slowly begun to learn to roll with the punches and take challenges head-on. I plan to take this mentality into 2020 to continue what I feel is an upward trend in my photography.

During the last year, I took a lot of good, bad, and ugly photos. I want to take some time to walk through a few photos I believe me or any one reading can learn from. Either that be from the mistakes I made or hammer home what elements make a great photograph truly great. I will start off with some photos I consider to be failures.

Failures

This last year was full of photographic challenges, leading to a lot of failed photos. The worst part is a lot of these failures had a ton of potential to be really nice photos. Due to small, costly mistakes I made in the field, I have deemed the following photos as “failures”. I selected the following photos because I feel they had the most potential to be great, but fell short due to the mistakes I made. I hope the below photos can be used as learning tools, so that the mistakes I made are not repeated.

We will start with this photo of a lighthouse on Lake Michigan. You may think to yourself, what’s the problem with this photo? There’s great light and the composition works well with the flow of the pier leading to the lighthouse. What you may not have noticed, if I hadn’t placed a red circle on it, is I cut off the small light at the end of the other pier. On location, I did not notice my mistake but as soon as I saw it back home on the computer, I knew it would be a deal-breaker for me. It just screams sloppy composition and shows I wasn’t paying enough attention to the small details in the scene.

Since taking this photo I have returned to the location to rectify my mistake. The second time around I remembered to place the other pier’s light in a position so it wasn’t being cut off by the main pier, but I did not get the beautiful sky I got on my first try. Maybe third times the charm right? Or maybe if I didn’t mess up the first time I wouldn’t need the third time. This particular photo has really hammered home for me the need to check every little detail and every corner of the frame before clicking the shutter.

This next photo was taken in early April, not long before the first photo was captured. I arrived at one of my favorite local locations to photograph sunrise and I was greeted with fantastic conditions. A slight chill in the air, calm wind, great light, and a misty lake. What more could I ask for? Before setting up this composition I scouted around the lake, walking from one end to the other looking for a potential photo. The light and conditions rapidly continued to improve and I became a little panicked to find a shot. I settled with a very slight vertical pano as shown above. In my rush to set up a composition I failed to due a very important thing, I failed to find a subject.

There is no real anchor or subject in this photo, your eye just wanders from the reeds into the nothingness of the lake. Yes, there is some mist and little bit of a reflection on the lake, but for me there just isn’t enough interest in the lake to really hold the photo together. Looking back on that morning, I remember how beautiful the conditions were and I wish I hadn’t rushed myself. There definitely was a better photo to be taken that morning.

For the final photo in this series, I choose to show this photo of two deer sharing a intimate moment at another one of my favorite local spots. This was a really nice moment I got to witness, but I ultimately failed to properly capture it. I was not in a good position when I took these shots, and I knew it at the time I clicked the shutter. Due to my poor positioning, I was faced with the challenge of trying to capture these two deer through a mess of tall grass. In my attempt to eliminate distracting elements at the bottom and middle of the frame, I composed the photo too high. Leaving too much space at the top of the frame, and not enough space at the bottom of the frame.

At the end of the day, I could have solved all of these problems by simply moving and getting in a better position. A position where I had clear sight of the deer and less distracting elements in the frame. If I wouldn’t have been distracted by the wonderful deer in front of me and just acted on my awareness of being in a bad position, I could’ve walked away with a great photo.



Successes

Now for the successes. I consider the next three photos successes because I expressed good skills in composition, exposure, and reaction to a changing scene, but more importantly they capture the feeling I had on location. I call these photos “successes” but what they really are to me are great memories. Memories of great times in beautiful places ranging from Northern Michigan all the way to Yellowstone.

This first photo was one of my favorites taken in 2019. This photo was from a long weekend trip up to the North East of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. I won’t dive too deep into this photo because I already wrote a blog post about what it took to capture this photo, but what I will say is this scene was very tricky to expose. I wanted texture in the main falls, detail in the fall foliage, and streaks in the flowing river. I was able to achieve all of that by blending three exposures. As for the composition, I love how the streaking river leads your eye up to the falls and to all of the amazing fall colors.

I look back on this morning as one of the most memorable trips out with my camera in all of 2019. It was incredibly peaceful, so peaceful time seemed to stop. I only planned on being at the falls for no more than an hour, but I lost track of time and I ended up being there for well over three hours. What I would give to be sent back in time to relive that morning over and over again.

For the second photo in this series, I choose to share my photo of the month for April. I considered this photo to be a turning point in my success and knowledge of photographing deer. I explain in my April Photo of the Month blog post how everything I had been learning about photographing deer up to the the point of taking this photo all came together on that morning.

Besides expressing the knowledge I had gained about photographing deer, I showed good reactions to the scene. I worked out a good composition as a I saw the two deer becoming more and more playful. I used a dark tree as a blocker on the right side of the frame, and the light in the center pulls your attention right over to the deer. This was such a special moment to witness, its not too often deer share great behaviors like this with humans out in the woods.

For the final photo I wanted to share this shot of a bison out in a beautiful field with amazing light. This was a few days into our trip to Yellowstone and I was on my way out to photograph any wildlife I could find in morning light. As I was pulling out of our campground, I spotted this bison far out in this field and the light was kicking off in the background. I quickly pulled the car over, pulled out my camera gear and worked out a composition. I knew I wouldn’t have long before the fog burnt off the mountain and the light became too harsh.

I’m proud of how I stayed calm and found a good composition in the quickly changing conditions. One of my weaknesses as a photographer is I have a hard time finding good compositions under quickly changing light. I’m usually too distracted by all the beauty to concentrate on creating a good shot. Although this photo was pretty simple to compose, I’m still proud I was able to capture such an amazing moment. I love how the photo leads your eye through the transition from dark in the foreground to the amazing light in the background. The light created great texture in the fog hanging over the mountains and perfectly illuminated the subject in the middle of the frame.

Discoveries

In 2019 I would say my biggest photographic discovery was how much I enjoyed ICM photography. I had known about this technique for awhile but was always too hesitant to give it a go. I was always too worried I would miss a better photo opportunity while I tested out this technique. Over the last year, I have become a lot more accepting of the fact that I will not walk away with a great photo every time I leave the house with the camera. In the past, I put too much unnecessary pressure on myself to always capture and amazing photo, even when I knew conditions weren’t right. Now that I understand I should not have such high expectations for every outing with the camera, it left me time to experiment with different techniques.

I really started to test out ICM in the middle of April. The first photo from the below group was taken during my first attempt at ICM and I really love it. You could say it was a little bit of beginners luck. As for the rest of the photos, they were taken over the course of the summer, leading straight into early autumn. I have ICM to thank for keeping me motivated to do photography during this last summer. Summer is a tough season for photography, I find it very uninspiring with all the green and over grown foliage. ICM gave me inspiration to challenge my self creatively, and I can’t wait to take more ICM photos in 2020.

In Conclusion

This past year was full of ups, downs, twists, and turns. I challenged myself, I let myself down, I surprised myself, and I made myself proud. I traveled a lot, experienced a lot, thought a lot, and photographed a lot. All of this resulted in 2019 being a real turning point for my photography, I learned so much through the last year of constant trial and error.

I learned what kind of photos I want to be taking, and learned what I need to do to take them. Now when I go out with the camera its no longer me just snapping aimlessly away, now its me creating a photo I have a vision for.

I also learned that its okay to go out with the camera and come back with nothing. I have gotten so much better at not putting pressure on myself to always come away with an amazing shot. This change in mentality has allowed me to become more creative, try new techniques, and most importantly enjoy those brief moments out in nature even more.

In 2019 I also thought a lot about my photography from a non-technical stand point. I’m constantly inspired by photographers who are out there not only creating amazing work, but making a lasting impact with it. This lead me to start thinking about the purpose of my photography. What it does for me, what it does for others, and how it can help better this world. I have gained a yearning to make an impact with my photography and it doesn’t have to be world changing. But, if I can inspire someone to get outside and enjoy nature, think more about their impact on our planet, or simply inspire them to create, I will see that as a success.

I know I still have a lot to learn and still have ton of room for improvement but I’m ready for the challenge. I hope to make 2020 the best year of photography for me yet. I want to learn more, shoot more, and experience more with the simple goal of taking better photos.