Some of you might be wondering why I start out with a less than interesting detail about the weather in my blog. When you learn a lesson that makes you money, you tend not to forget that important little bit of information. In fact, I have explained that lesson here on this very blog more than just once. In short, weather makes a big difference in what people are doing. When you are making calls to a state that is snowed in and with power outages, you start calling you customer base in Florida or California The key to making sales is, of course, delivering info to your customer base that is useful to them as well. Simply put, that's why I do it.The showed-in guys are not interested in buying any thing at the moment. They just want their power back on and resume life as normal.
Anyway---knowing that the day was going to be cloudy and lighting would be an issue, I set out for the lake after picking up my prescription at Walgreen's from a text that I had on my phone this morning. I entered the lake area from a different spot today---almost in reverse order to what I normally do. Almost immediately it was obvious that people count was down. And that left birds and many more than just a few construction workers that park on one end of the lake that is making a large addition to an assisted living community. Further down the east side of the lake three new homes are going up in the estate section. Still, to cover the lake, you have to make the round from what ever point of entry you make until you finish the loop and end up back where you entered originally.
Thankfully, being a photographer where the art .actually trains your eyes to pick up things that most people miss---some, not even knowing that anything was going on at all. It actually gives you a leg up in the creative process and you can react if not by instinct, by muscle train to move a camera here or there almost before others who might still have their cameras hanging around their neck. I carry my camera from the pistol grip on the right side of the camera just for that reason. It is a bit more risky, however.You see, there are some methods to all the madness floating around you out there.
Just as I was departing the lake, a helicopter ( I call them egg beaters) began to buzz the lake. Now, there is a heliport not many miles from the lake where the local news organizations either hanger their egg beaters or rent them from a service with pilots. They fly across the lake all the time and from Dreyfuss Club, standing in the right spot, you can see planes landing at Love Field and yes, even at DFW when they are using a north flow landing pattern. The ATC controls flips and when the ATC flips one like Love Filed, they flip DFW at the same time as the runway headings are near the same and are the same for a couple of the runways. And when any of the blimps are in town for the Cowboys games or the Mavs or the Stars, they hanger their blimp at Redbird in south Dallas along I-30 and they need to refuel, you can watch them heading toward the airport. If you are covering blimps, they you know you can take a short break, too! Others who don't know that, are standing and watching, then, they have to leave when the blimps come back because they didn't take their potty breaks or get something to eat. There again, you get the point. The right info in hand is a game changer.
Why am I telling you this? Well being observant is a key factor when you shoot editorial photos or that 'picture of the day' for the live news feeds for stills and because editors follow certain photographers for various reasons over other ones. Some recognize that shots sometime are still submitted because of the topic or nature rather than total technique. Still, you want the best shot that you can get but I never delete an image--good or bad---because I have used images even as much as a year or so later where an image was used by an attorney in a court case and even a year or two later would use an image of lesser quality to back up an original image. So, don't delete your images that you feel are bad. It's called,'' when making soup and you run out of milk, you can always use water.''
Tonight on the news, the report of a missing couple was the reason for the egg beaters over the lake today. But, that was directly related to and answered the question from my post yesterday about the blood hound and the police cars at the lake. By being observant yesterday and posting, I had actually scooped a story sooner than later had I been a reporter. All those little things add up with editors and they start going to one photographer over others because they know that this photographer is out there every day while the other one only shoots on weekends or holidays. You get the point. Editors are just like us---they are creatures of habit and go first where they know they can get what they need in images and move on to their next project.
There wasn't much going on today even with that said. Here are some different shots
Anyway---knowing that the day was going to be cloudy and lighting would be an issue, I set out for the lake after picking up my prescription at Walgreen's from a text that I had on my phone this morning. I entered the lake area from a different spot today---almost in reverse order to what I normally do. Almost immediately it was obvious that people count was down. And that left birds and many more than just a few construction workers that park on one end of the lake that is making a large addition to an assisted living community. Further down the east side of the lake three new homes are going up in the estate section. Still, to cover the lake, you have to make the round from what ever point of entry you make until you finish the loop and end up back where you entered originally.
Thankfully, being a photographer where the art .actually trains your eyes to pick up things that most people miss---some, not even knowing that anything was going on at all. It actually gives you a leg up in the creative process and you can react if not by instinct, by muscle train to move a camera here or there almost before others who might still have their cameras hanging around their neck. I carry my camera from the pistol grip on the right side of the camera just for that reason. It is a bit more risky, however.You see, there are some methods to all the madness floating around you out there.
Just as I was departing the lake, a helicopter ( I call them egg beaters) began to buzz the lake. Now, there is a heliport not many miles from the lake where the local news organizations either hanger their egg beaters or rent them from a service with pilots. They fly across the lake all the time and from Dreyfuss Club, standing in the right spot, you can see planes landing at Love Field and yes, even at DFW when they are using a north flow landing pattern. The ATC controls flips and when the ATC flips one like Love Filed, they flip DFW at the same time as the runway headings are near the same and are the same for a couple of the runways. And when any of the blimps are in town for the Cowboys games or the Mavs or the Stars, they hanger their blimp at Redbird in south Dallas along I-30 and they need to refuel, you can watch them heading toward the airport. If you are covering blimps, they you know you can take a short break, too! Others who don't know that, are standing and watching, then, they have to leave when the blimps come back because they didn't take their potty breaks or get something to eat. There again, you get the point. The right info in hand is a game changer.
Why am I telling you this? Well being observant is a key factor when you shoot editorial photos or that 'picture of the day' for the live news feeds for stills and because editors follow certain photographers for various reasons over other ones. Some recognize that shots sometime are still submitted because of the topic or nature rather than total technique. Still, you want the best shot that you can get but I never delete an image--good or bad---because I have used images even as much as a year or so later where an image was used by an attorney in a court case and even a year or two later would use an image of lesser quality to back up an original image. So, don't delete your images that you feel are bad. It's called,'' when making soup and you run out of milk, you can always use water.''
Tonight on the news, the report of a missing couple was the reason for the egg beaters over the lake today. But, that was directly related to and answered the question from my post yesterday about the blood hound and the police cars at the lake. By being observant yesterday and posting, I had actually scooped a story sooner than later had I been a reporter. All those little things add up with editors and they start going to one photographer over others because they know that this photographer is out there every day while the other one only shoots on weekends or holidays. You get the point. Editors are just like us---they are creatures of habit and go first where they know they can get what they need in images and move on to their next project.
There wasn't much going on today even with that said. Here are some different shots
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| Tall Prairie Grasses with the Downtown Dallas Skyline some 8-miles away. |
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| A fisherman with "man's best friend aboard" The cormorants get a bit nervous when boats get to close to their log and tree dry docks where they dry their wings after diving.Boat motors over 10.5 HP are not permitted on the lake. This guy has a little electric motor on the front of the boat that allows him to move legally on the water and its great for fishing around logs and shorelines. |
