Lesson Learned (Preconcieved Notions)

A few weekends ago I did a trip to the Methow Valley, a trip I had been planning for quite some time, to shoot wildflowers in rolling hills and panoramic valley shots from the nearby mountains. The weather was great for hiking, but not so great for photography as there was lots of overcast and haze.

Instead of realizing that the wide landscape shots that I wanted to shoot were not possible to capture that day I searched them out anyway shooting layers of dull rolling hills with little contrast against distant hazey peaks. When I returned home I found that I had not captured one decent image during the entire trip. Ten hours of driving and not one good image; kind of a bummer to say the least.

I was so hung up on my preconcieved notion of what I would be shooting I failed to look for the good shots that were probally right in front of me, the tight shots, the close ups, and the abstracts. Hopefully I learned something from this experience and perhaps someone else can as well.

Cheers

Robert:

Effective, but not happy, lesson.

On a cloudy day (if the wind isn't too strong), I see saturated flower closeups/macros, and take my tripod and macro lens.

On a sunny day, I use a diffuser for flower closeups - overcast days (with a bit of rain) are my favourite for flowers. The cloud cover acts a bit like a polarizer and removes reflections which destroy colour saturation.

Hope you can get out again.

Glenn

On outings like this, it's sometimes nice to be able to put the camera down and just enjoy the day for what it is. From experience, I don't really enjoy they day if I've got my eye stuck to the viewfinder all the time.

At least then if you go home without any keepers, at least you've had a pleasant trip. Decreasing your shooting rate also lets you relax and look at good compositional ideas.

Everyone has done that at one time or another. Now sit down & figure out how you could have had the wide landscape shots, even under those conditions, & you'll be ready next time.

The whole point of having photography as HOBBY is, that you can just put camera in bag and forget about it. Nature is still beautiful even if you are just enjoying it and not photographing it.
On the other hand, you got at least a bit of feeling how it looks like being pro shooter With us, editors don't care if it was cloudy or not. You have to bring something back. And that's the thing which makes difference between pro and hobby shooters. You just have to find decent photo.
But for having photography for fun, it's perfectly fine if you just lay down and enjoy nature without camera. If you do this, trip won't be for nothing

Trying to completely pre visualize a scene, has been an elusive pursuit for me. The one thing I have had success with is to know what I get if I leave the lens cap on. Like the others said, plan B is great option sometimes.

Glenn NK wrote in post #5565754
Robert:

Effective, but not happy, lesson.

On a cloudy day (if the wind isn't too strong), I see saturated flower closeups/macros, and take my tripod and macro lens.

On a sunny day, I use a diffuser for flower closeups - overcast days (with a bit of rain) are my favourite for flowers. The cloud cover acts a bit like a polarizer and removes reflections which destroy colour saturation.

Hope you can get out again.

Glenn

Glenn there is something magical about heavy overcast light and color, not just with flowers. If your not showing the sky it can be the perfect time to shoot.