I've always loved landscape photography.
It has the ability to move me in ways candids or studio portraits never have.
If I'm agitated, a beautiful sunset will calm me down.
If my head gets too big, a mountain-scape can put me back into perspective.
And sometimes, when I'm at my most hurt or depressed, seeing the sun dancing on the water can remind me that light can come from anywhere--even if it is only a reflection.
Recently, the devastating Mid-Western floods came to my backyard.
Literally.
I woke up last month to see flood-waters not 100 yards from my back door.
What had once been beautiful pastureland was now river-bottom.
The first thing I grabbed was my digital camera.
The first couple of pictures were, quite frankly, terrible.
I just wasn't capturing the destruction like I was seeing it; like I would always remember it.
Then I remembered a few tips I had learned about taking landscape photos.
By taking lighting into account and changing my angle and perspective, I captured the photograph I had wanted; the feeling of the moment.
Hours later, when the flood-waters had moved on, I took another photograph--one that captured the devastation of torn down fences, piles of deadwood, and washed-out pasture that it had left in its wake.
It's now weeks later, and I now have the third photograph in my series.
The wreckage is gone, and the pasture is back.
The only evidence of the flood that remains is the fences that still have to be mended.
This trial has reminded me that disasters come, but they will pass.
Devastation will be left in its wake, but that too will pass.
Life will out, I just have to remember that sometimes.
And now I will.
If you would like to learn some of the techniques that I learned, go to my blog http://aplusmore.
blogspot.
com/2008/06/landscape-photography-101.
html for more information.
It has the ability to move me in ways candids or studio portraits never have.
If I'm agitated, a beautiful sunset will calm me down.
If my head gets too big, a mountain-scape can put me back into perspective.
And sometimes, when I'm at my most hurt or depressed, seeing the sun dancing on the water can remind me that light can come from anywhere--even if it is only a reflection.
Recently, the devastating Mid-Western floods came to my backyard.
Literally.
I woke up last month to see flood-waters not 100 yards from my back door.
What had once been beautiful pastureland was now river-bottom.
The first thing I grabbed was my digital camera.
The first couple of pictures were, quite frankly, terrible.
I just wasn't capturing the destruction like I was seeing it; like I would always remember it.
Then I remembered a few tips I had learned about taking landscape photos.
By taking lighting into account and changing my angle and perspective, I captured the photograph I had wanted; the feeling of the moment.
Hours later, when the flood-waters had moved on, I took another photograph--one that captured the devastation of torn down fences, piles of deadwood, and washed-out pasture that it had left in its wake.
It's now weeks later, and I now have the third photograph in my series.
The wreckage is gone, and the pasture is back.
The only evidence of the flood that remains is the fences that still have to be mended.
This trial has reminded me that disasters come, but they will pass.
Devastation will be left in its wake, but that too will pass.
Life will out, I just have to remember that sometimes.
And now I will.
If you would like to learn some of the techniques that I learned, go to my blog http://aplusmore.
blogspot.
com/2008/06/landscape-photography-101.
html for more information.
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