Anyone been somewhere where there is nothing to take pictures of?

It is now! Someone call that Oxford place with the big word book...

Hmmm, a google for the word "photographable" lists 4380 hits. My favorite word-which-I-thought-I-invented is "unpickupable" which yields only 206 hits. Obviously I need to invent better words...

No place is boring, if you've had a good night's sleep and have a pocket full of unexposed film. ~Robert Adams, Darkroom & Creative Camera Techniques, May 1995

"Betterwordpickable?"

belmondo wrote:
"Betterwordpickable?"

hah! Dispickable.

did I spell that right?

Let me add that no place is boring if you've had a bad night's sleep and a pocket full of exposed film.

Tom W wrote:
Let me add that no place is boring if you've had a bad night's sleep and a pocket full of exposed film.

That's a quote from Ansel Adams, right?

No. I have found that if I am at a place that seems this way, just wait until it gets dark or early morning and you are bound to find something interesting to photograph.

About ten years ago I used to try and fill my photographic desires between motor racing seasons by winter walking in the Yorkshire Dales. One day I decided to ascend the highest hill in the Dales (in Yorkshire actually). There was a couple of feet of snow, freezing cold, a howling wind, but bright sunshine. I never saw another soul until I got to the top of this hill and there, complete with tripod, was a professional photographer taking pictures for an outdoor magazine. We discussed photographer's block and how, in the winter if the light is poor and sky merges into land how boring the landscape was and very little to shoot even in this wonderful part of England.

Next thing was "I'll take your picture against that sunlit hill over there" and after a taking a few shots of each other we parted ways. The next month, guess who was on the front cover of the magazine - your's truly. One of the very few pictures of me to get into print. You just never know what you will come across, especially if you get out of the car and start walking.

Get out of the Car?

I'm not sure I follow?

hahahaha!

Seriously though, adding to this thread, I was out this weekend and felt in a 'what is there to photograph' mood.

I went looking for birds. nada, not a well presented feather freind in sight. I went looking for birds because the day was grey, overcast, slightly misty and threatening rain.

For fime minutes there was a break in the clouds a few miles away. No sun shone through, just a break - but I got the shot I posted in THIS THREAD.

And it was possibly the fastest paced shot I ever made. I had to sprint to a better viewpoint (the break in the clouds was tiny), virtually lay down in the mud to avoid some telegraph wires entering the shot, very quickly make a few different compositions and rely on instinct for metering an exposure comp.

But a very rewarding two minutes. Had I not been paying attention to all that was around me without looking for a shot I would have missed it.

My point? Don't look too hard for a shot, and scenes than you can make into images will often present themselves.

I did 25 years in the Navy, almost totaly sea duty, and have seen more nothing than you can shake a stick at. My most memorable shots are the Christmas day shots of the water every Christmas I was away from home.

Sometimes I don't shoot anything, but I've never been anywhere that there wasn't anything to shoot.
I agree with Neil, "...And then seen someone elses pictures from that very same place and thought WOW !"

Danny Boy, if you had access to a car, you missed some wonderful opportunities. Not many miles west of you there is an ongoing dinosaur dig in and around the Walhalla Gorge country there. Only 60 or so miles north of you is the major Canadian city of Winnipeg, over half a million people. Not far east of you in northern Minnesota there is lots of large wildlife (elk, moose, bear, cougar) that you can only dream of seeing in Illinois. Also at that latitude, you have a good chance of seeing aurora borealis on a clear night. I could go on, but you get the idea.... It's worth checking what's going on near a place before saying it has nothing! Only a few years ago I had some wonderful bird sightings only a few miles east of the location you mention - and there are interesting birds that can be seen there year round, if you can handle the cold weather, which admittedly can get down to -40. Incidentally, this part of the country is part of a very major bird migration route and in spring and fall, many varieties can be seen here when other places have little to offer. And don't forget the famous Leaning Silo of Cavalier County.

On that subject, has anyone used those little mounts that allow you to mount your camera on you car window a bit like a tripod? are they any good?

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I think theres a certian moose kisser here who could use one of those