Don’t Throw in the Flag

Since I have been shooting more nature than I would normally ever do or have time to do, I realized I probably don’t have the patience to do landscape and nature photography. I just don’t like waiting for the photo to develop in order to take the shot. I like things being hectic and full of action. That challenges me and gets my creative thoughts rolling. That being said I guess the last few months of shooting nature has given me some of that patience. I went out to the local motocross park to shoot a masters event and when I arrived I found that the whole place was a deep muddy mess. The rain over the last few days had devastated the course. I couldn’t even get to the position I normally would have set myself up at. So I sat for a bit waiting to see if they would even hold the event as bulldozers shoved piles of mud all around the course. I surveyed the situation and realized that if they did start the racing where I was sitting was not going to be a place to get any photos of value. So I went on a search for anything that might make for an interesting shot. Found the flags resting on a judges chair along the course. I took a long walk looking for a way to get someplace on the course where I wouldn’t be crossing the course to get a good position. Many places were not reachable due to the mud. I could have just bagged it and counted the day as a loss, but that patience I didn’t think I had much of set in. I finally found several places while not the best and not the easiest to get to were there for the taking. Normally I would go to my normal place and stay there for the entire time. This time I rotated between several positions that I may never had even given thought to shoot at. I felt invigorated by the challenge of new locations and the challenge to find ways to make something from nearly nothing. As I started editing my shots I felt really good about what I had and was glad that I took the time to keep looking. I still don’t think that nature photography is for me but I found that I had more patience than maybe I thought I had. This old dog may have learned a new trick.