It Was An Epiphany

     I wrote a pivotal chapter in The Patchwork Knight today, and that makes it official that I am in the third and final act of this little foray into writing. It's exciting and sad at the same time. I said it before, but I'm not fully ready to see these character go away. They have been a part of my life for over a year now as I have been writing this, and even longer if you consider the whole thought process and idea portion of writing. It has been a fulfilling and magical experience to be a part of, and I can't wait for you to read the whole thing when it is done. There is still plenty of story to come, but as I said, this is officially the third and final act.

     I had my photoshoot on the train tracks on Friday, and it went even better than I would have hoped it would. I have a lot of quality picture still left to go through and process, but I went after my early favorites first. I'm having trouble picking my absolute favorite from the shoot, but I have it narrowed down to three as of right now, and no, I'm not going to share them here. I have to make this choice, and I have to make it by Wednesday, because that is the day I will be posting it to @CoutnerfeitSquirrelPhotos on Instagram. If you haven't followed me there yet, and I know you haven't, you have until Wednesday if you want to see the one I selected as the favorite. I am going to share the shot I shared today. It wasn't the best shot, but it was a dream shot. I have this minor love affair with trains, and I have always wanted to shoot one up close while it was passing by, and I got that chance, while Elie Wolf and I were out there shooting. I saw the train coming, so we cleared the tracks as it went by, and I already had my camera set for the lighting, but I was going to have to constantly change focus along the way. I like doing everything in manual, because it gives me full control over the image. If I make a mistake and the shot is poor, it is my fault. If it comes out great, the camera did its job, based on my settings. I began shooting as the train was about 50 yards away, and kept adjusting focus and tracking as it came along. I kept shooting until the engine had passed 20 yards beyond us, and waited for the camera to process the images since I was shooting frame after frame as it went by. I believe there were 8 shots in all, and although there are some freaky cool shots because of the movement involved, one of them came out perfect. This is that shot.

     I really didn't know what I had until SD Card could be done processing. I started scrolling through the pictures with Elie, and was shocked at what I saw when I came to that image. First impression was "cool", and that held until I pulled it up on the computer. That "cool", change to "WOW". It's one of those moments that you don't believe you were a part of. That's the type of shot you see in pictures hung on walls. That shot came down entirely to timing, and everything falling into place. My focus was good, the blur was more pronounced because of my aperture setting, and I was able to track it and catch it in a dreamlike state. Crazy thing is, that is not the best shot of the day. That shot has changed as I have gone through the pictures, but the first image that caught my attention is still in the running, and there is a 1 in 3 chance that it will still be the one.

     When I started going through that image, and making some adjustments to it, it began to become fully involved. and that day, I stopped after that picture. It was a moment when I thought,"I'm done, I can never take a better picture than that." I closed up Lightroom and took my attention away from it. I opened it up the next day, and found another picture that had the same impact, then there was another. I captured a lot of great images on Friday, and you will eventually see them on Instagram, but there are still a lot of photos to go through. I only took about 40 images on Friday, and I'm pretty sure I have 20 to 25 more to go through. A few I started and stopped, not feeling that they are up to par. I may take another look at them later, but for now I have 12 quality images to share, including that train up above.

     I always loved photography, and I was pretty decent when I was doing it a few years ago, but I read something recently about photography, and it changed my whole approach to it. I took some bad advice early on about zooming in on everything, so that is what I did. I tried to get as much detail and as close as I could for every photo, and that is great for things that are very far off, or macro (close up photography), but it shouldn't be your whole approach. I started looking through the lens differently and that is when I took this picture.

     My world with photography changed at that moment. A dream that I had was finally realized, and was able to take a good landscape photo. With that working so well for that photo, I started looking at how I was shooting everything. Angle, approach, exposure, and many other things. I have always had, "the photographer's eye". It is a real thing and something you must have to be decent at photography, but I wasn't looking at the whole picture. Yes, the pun is implied. This brings us all back to those three shots that are up for best shot. Two of them are from the same angle, and that angle changed from what I had in my head. Two of those shots are from the specific image that I had in my head for this shoot. In essence, those pictures were the entire reason for this shoot. They were the idea in my head. As Elie got in position for this "idea", I got in position for how I saw the shot being approached. When I looked through the view finder, I realized it was all wrong. The angle wasn't the shot I was seeing in my head. My approach needed to change, so it did. Instead of kneeling for the proper angle which was not at all the proper angle, I laid down on the tracks, looked through the viewfinder, and saw that image that I had seen in my head. It was right there. I couldn't believe it. 

     I was happy when I previewed the shots on the camera, but when I saw that shot for the first time on my screen in it's full size, I was blown away. Like I said earlier, I said "WOW", and it wasn't in my head, it was out loud. I couldn't believe that I took that shot. That I had the right settings for it to come out exactly as I had seen it in my head. In much fewer words,  I nailed it. Does that mean people are going to love that shot as much as I do? Absolutely not. Art is subjective and I understand that, but I also understand that this image was created because of my imagination, my "photographer's eye", and my love of the art itself, and because of all of that. I am so proud of what I have for you to see. 

     Then I had the joy of seeing other images come forward and equal or outdo that image. This whole shot taught me one very valuable lesson. I am on the right track, and I can't wait to see what I'm able to do, when I actually get good at this. Peace in and goodnight.