The last day of March has arrived, which means a quarter of 2024 is already behind us. The Spring equinox marking the astronomical start of Spring occurred nearly two weeks ago, March 19, but most of the mornings since then have felt more like Winter than Spring with temperatures sometimes dipping below freezing. But, signs of Spring have been showing themselves in a few places here and there, and I’ve tried to get out when I could and track them down. . .kind of like a fun little game of hide-and-seek.
WHERE I’VE BEEN
I was able to get out twice this month and try to do some photography. One trip went somewhat well. The other. . .not so much. But, that’s the way it goes with landscape and nature photography. Some days are great, others aren’t, but you keep going because tomorrow is a new day with another chance to be fantastic.
One of my trips was a quick little outing just a few miles down the highway from my house. It’s a location I drive by nearly every evening on my way home from work. One evening, I noticed one small little spot where a bunch of white-petaled wildflowers were growing around a tree. I thought the contrast between the white petals and the dark tree trunk would make for an interesting photograph, but, when I returned to the scene a few days later, the images I created weren’t as strong as I had imagined them in my mind.
My other trip, to Burns Park in North Little Rock, was a bit more productive. I drove by the Heilman Cabin, but I didn’t plan to stop there as my previous attempts to photograph that location weren’t very successful. However, this time, the greens of the fresh Spring grass, some budding shrubbery in the background, and a foreground tree that arched over the cabin caught my attention. I quickly backed up, parked my truck, grabbed my gear, and found a couple of nice compositions. One of the images from that day is below. You can see another of the photographs and read more about this excursion in my last blog post “Early Spring at Burns Park.”
2024 GOAL UPDATE
Back on January 1, I discussed my goals for 2024 and what I hoped to accomplish for the year. With the year already a fourth of the way through, I thought I would share how I’m doing so far in meeting those goals.
My first goal was to get out and photograph at least 25 days for the entire year and at least once per month. So far, in the first three months of the year, I am on track to meet this goal having been out six days already and two times each month.
My second goal was to create at least one-third of my images after 9:00 in the morning. Through these first three months, two of my photography trips have been taken in the evening with about half my images created on those two trips. So far, so good, but I am, without a doubt, an early morning photographer. I like to get up before the sun when the world is at its quietest and most peaceful, so I can already tell this goal is going to be a struggle for me.
My final goal was to create not just “pretty” pictures but artistic images that reflect more than the technical skill to operate the camera to capture the obvious composition. This is unquestionably the most difficult goal I have set for myself because it is so subjective. How many times I go out to photograph or how often I go out later in the day is easily quantified. But, how do I quantify whether or not an image is artistic? What are the criteria of an artistic image, and how many of those criteria do I need to check off to meet the goal? Am I just being too critical of my photographs? These are the questions that run through my mind when I’m trying to decide if I’ve created an artistic image.
But, with all that being said, there are two images image I made back in January that I think are more artistic than just technically competent. The first image was from a trip to the banks of the Arkansas River in Dardanelle where I found these rather ghostly-looking trees standing against the shaded side of a hill.
The second image was one I discovered in my back yard: a solitary leaf lying on the frozen surface of the water looking so. . .alone.
CATCHING MY ATTENTION
“If there is one rule to composition, it’s this. If it looks good to you, it probably is good.” – Jason Row
“Anything that excites me for any reason, I will photograph; not searching for unusual subject matter, but making the commonplace unusual.” – Edward Weston
That’s all for March. Thanks for reading, and I hope to see you back next month for what will hopefully be a much more exciting March recap.