Finding tripod holes

Written in response to a query on http://www.photo.net/photo/ asking for good photo op locations in eastern CT:


I'm sorry, the following isn't really appropriate to the forum, and you just happened to be in the way when I finally broke down and wrote it. Phil, or any of the other forum maintainers, feel free to nuke this, I'm writing it for catharsis and I'll probably post a copy on my own web pages anyway. Apologies in advance.

I went to a local craft fair this weekend, one that had a lot of photographers. As I wandered from booth to booth I had trouble keeping the different photographers straight. Booth after booth of beautiful enlargements from 4x5 negatives, but, and I'm going to be a little self-contradictory here, how many freakin' pictures of half dome do we need?

It's not that I think that the subject is necessarily over shot, although if there's ever one that could be that's it, it's that all of these images were copies of other images which eventually ended up being something Ansel Adams shot in black and white. When your tripod settles easily into the holes in the rock worn by previous photographers, that's probably not your first clue that it's time to move the heck on! It's been done, already!

And the continued ignorance of the technical aspects in the people I talk to tell me that unless you're doing your own printing, it's going to be very difficult to bring anything new to the party if someone else is suggesting a shot.

Now I'm a beginning photographer. And it's been over a decade since I lived in Connecticut. And I lived in western Connecticut. And you didn't say anything about what you like to shoot or what your preferred format is. But if I remember right, you've got some beaches, you've got some river mouths, you've got harbors, some industrial activity, some old structures and drawbridges, old boats, new boats, probably some abandoned burned out hulls, you've got marshes with wildlife, you've got all of the variations that people add to those scenes...

A bit over a month ago I paid $ for a print of a tree in a forest. I used to live in that area of the country (I've gotten around), I've hiked by many trees like it. Somehow, in this picture, the photographer managed to find the perspective that let him show his vision of the tree, and I'm willing to pay him to have that unique vision of that tree on my wall.

May I humbly suggest that, rather than queueing up behind the other folks with cameras, and carefully aligning your tripod in the holes worn by the tripods of other photographers, you find the leaf floating in the puddle, or the rusted rivets on the drawbridge contrasted with the speeding commuter train, or even the empty beach, just something that catches your eye and shows us how you view the world, where you find beauty or horror.

Because there's beauty, and there's horror, all around us. It takes longer to come up with pictures that wow the friends and relatives with your own vision, because you'll be fumbling around to find it, but once you do you'll have brought something new to the art.

In this day of PhotoSecretstm books which provide you instruction on where to stand, where to point your camera, and at what time of day in order to duplicate the picture they've already taken, this personal vision of the subject is what is most lacking in photography.

Otherwise you're doomed to people walking by, saying to their traveling companions "Yeah, it's pretty, but I've already taken that picture once." As I do, far too often.


Tuesday, June 30th, 1998 danlyke@flutterby.com