"Are You Just Going To Walk Around The Park Again?"
We arrived at the park at about 4:35 yesterday afternoon. The sun would be setting in twenty minutes. The sunlight at this point was perfect. It was casting this warm feel over every surface in the park. As Victoria and I were getting Scarlett out of the car, she turned to me and said. "Are you going to just walk around the park again and take pictures? Why don't you try something different this time?" At first I was gutted. I had this whole idea in my head about how I wanted a golden hour photograph to look. I thought I could shrug the idea off but as I began walking around the park I felt uninspired. I began to realize that I could take the easy sunset photo or a photo of the pink and purple clouds above my head. I'm for the day, and all would be right in the world. Or so I thought.
Over the past few days I've started to realize that one of the goals of this 365 project is to challenge myself. Sure there are plenty of appealing photo opportunities around me on a day to day basis. I have a dog, a cool car, a pretty girlfriend. Instant like generators. However I don't want this project to be about taking pictures. I want it to be about making good photographs.
So back at the park I was sitting on a bench watching Scarlett run around and chase a ball. As an experiment I set a slow shutter speed and snapped a few pictures of her running. I ended up getting something that was different, and most important, something I was proud of. I still have some photographs of the park at sunset, I'm a sucker for that kind of light.
It's probably not the best idea to try panning photographs with a 35mm (50 equivalent) lens. Im happy with the result though. Scarlett did her best to try and mimic the Exxon tiger. Do they still use a tiger?
