It might not seem like much to some, but when you make a discovery that has been staring you in the face for years, it is mountain peak success. Being an old man like I am, it gets harder to get down on the ground and even harder to get up if you accomplish the original goal of getting down in the first place. So why would you want to get down if it is hard to get up again, you ask? Well, in photography it is all about changing the angle of view. If you shoot from a tripod all the time, your pictures have above level, level or that below level look which is not the same as being down seeing things from say, the eyes of a dog for better understanding of my point.
White Rock is not on level ground. It's on the edge of the chalk cliffs but still has a rock base underlying. The roadways rise and sink depending on what side of the lake you are on. Officially, the highest point is Winfrey Point, the barracks the government used to house German prisoners of war that had served in Rommel's little army c.1943 in Africa. The layout of the lake puts most of the higher elevations on the East side of the lake, although there are some hills on the West side along the Estate section especially.
Last year when the city rearranged some sections of the trail along the Big Thicket side, they ran the trail from the foot bridge up through the tall prairie grass section and into the Big Thicket. That elevation is much higher than the road and does present a more scenic view of the lake while walking the trail or bike riding alone the trail. At the same time, the city installed new drainage tiles under the new trail and constructed a concrete spillway down to the tile that goes under the roadway and into the lake.
Yesterday, I got an e-mail from one of my editors seeking images of persons walking down a trail through a grove-like stand of trees. Instantly I knew where to go to get those shots. As it turned out, it was 78-degrees and people were in shorts and short sleeved shirts--or no shirts at all. Quite a contrast to bare trees and brown vegetation for the most part and tons of leaves still falling from the trees.
I had been standing up on the trail above where the culverts go under the trail leaning on the railing on the uphill side of the trail. All the shots looked the same. "What can I do to change it?",I thought. So I started to look around to find some place where I could sit down on the trail, then I remembered that while the culverts and stone work was being done last spring, I had shot (as in photograph) the the two guys that were putting in the stone work and that I was down in the trenches---so to speak--- while I got the shots of them working their crafts. The only difference was that there was this nice concrete runway to stand on now that put me about 5 feet below the trail on the up side and about 4 feet below the roadway on the downhill side. Perfect! It's funny how you think sometimes. It had been slapping me in the face for years, and even after it was made better, it still took a year to figure out that those kind of shots would be great. So I spent the rest of the afternoon experimenting with the new-found angle and it turned out very well.
Sometimes, I get so excited when I discover something that I forget to check my settings like I should and I end up with some foiled images, but you learn from those mistakes and carry on for another day. As it turned out, while reviewing images today, I discovered one that while it is somewhat blurry and the stock approvers don't like blur at all, the image did something that I had been trying to figure out for years. So, while the approvers will reject the image and give a stock cookie-cutter answer why they don't want the image, and some go a bit further to try to put you down under the cover of technical problems, it is the type of image that could win an award. It's a strange business--this business of image creator vs. photography for stock business.
So, you are going to see one image in three different settings from one point on this planet of ours. All because I went down into a drainage ditch and liked it there!! Stay tuned as I will post more shots from that ditch later. Ditch. I said Ditch!! And who is in the gutter now?
White Rock is not on level ground. It's on the edge of the chalk cliffs but still has a rock base underlying. The roadways rise and sink depending on what side of the lake you are on. Officially, the highest point is Winfrey Point, the barracks the government used to house German prisoners of war that had served in Rommel's little army c.1943 in Africa. The layout of the lake puts most of the higher elevations on the East side of the lake, although there are some hills on the West side along the Estate section especially.
Last year when the city rearranged some sections of the trail along the Big Thicket side, they ran the trail from the foot bridge up through the tall prairie grass section and into the Big Thicket. That elevation is much higher than the road and does present a more scenic view of the lake while walking the trail or bike riding alone the trail. At the same time, the city installed new drainage tiles under the new trail and constructed a concrete spillway down to the tile that goes under the roadway and into the lake.
Yesterday, I got an e-mail from one of my editors seeking images of persons walking down a trail through a grove-like stand of trees. Instantly I knew where to go to get those shots. As it turned out, it was 78-degrees and people were in shorts and short sleeved shirts--or no shirts at all. Quite a contrast to bare trees and brown vegetation for the most part and tons of leaves still falling from the trees.
I had been standing up on the trail above where the culverts go under the trail leaning on the railing on the uphill side of the trail. All the shots looked the same. "What can I do to change it?",I thought. So I started to look around to find some place where I could sit down on the trail, then I remembered that while the culverts and stone work was being done last spring, I had shot (as in photograph) the the two guys that were putting in the stone work and that I was down in the trenches---so to speak--- while I got the shots of them working their crafts. The only difference was that there was this nice concrete runway to stand on now that put me about 5 feet below the trail on the up side and about 4 feet below the roadway on the downhill side. Perfect! It's funny how you think sometimes. It had been slapping me in the face for years, and even after it was made better, it still took a year to figure out that those kind of shots would be great. So I spent the rest of the afternoon experimenting with the new-found angle and it turned out very well.
Sometimes, I get so excited when I discover something that I forget to check my settings like I should and I end up with some foiled images, but you learn from those mistakes and carry on for another day. As it turned out, while reviewing images today, I discovered one that while it is somewhat blurry and the stock approvers don't like blur at all, the image did something that I had been trying to figure out for years. So, while the approvers will reject the image and give a stock cookie-cutter answer why they don't want the image, and some go a bit further to try to put you down under the cover of technical problems, it is the type of image that could win an award. It's a strange business--this business of image creator vs. photography for stock business.
So, you are going to see one image in three different settings from one point on this planet of ours. All because I went down into a drainage ditch and liked it there!! Stay tuned as I will post more shots from that ditch later. Ditch. I said Ditch!! And who is in the gutter now?
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| No hurry, just an enjoyable ride from here to there. |
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| Any other time I would have ask the guy to stop and play a tune on that stringed instrument he has riding on his back. |
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| No shirt, no leaves, brown grass. It must be drought time in Texas. |
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