Today’s Post by Joe Farace
“I feel a responsibility to my backyard. I want it to be taken care of and protected.”—Annie Leibovitz
A few years ago, I conducted a workshop at the FOTOfusion conference in Florida called “Right in Your Own Backyard.” The presentation and the images that I showed were based on the premise that you needn’t travel halfway around the world when great photo ops are seemingly closer to home.
The workshop’s presentation was illustrated with images that were made during a three-mile walk that I used to take each day when I lived in my former home. After I showed the audience the above image that was made almost literally in my backyard one of the attendees asked, “What was going though your mind when you made that picture.”
At the time, answering that question was was difficult for me because it addressed thought processes that were going on what-passes-for-my-mind while an image is being created. I stumbled through an answer to the person who asked it but I never got his question out of my head. The truth is that when making any image I don’t always have a specific goal in mind, other than “I’d like to make a nice photo,” but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to include some deeper meanings in your images.
These days, I try (key word) to take take a similar walk each day although I must admit that it’s not as easy for me as it was in the past. When I lived in a semi-rural area that was north of Denver I was better at meeting that goal but I was also a lot younger. On these walks, I always brought along a camera and walked past this farm that was literally across the street from the neighborhood where i lived. When I take similar walks these days, I take a camera with me as well and sometime call’em Photo Walks.
How I made this shot: This image was shot with a FinePix S3Pro with Fujinon 35-70mm f/2.8-5.6 (at 53mm) lens and an exposure of 1/180 sec at f/8.7 and ISO 100. Another reason that I tried capturing these images back then was that the local landscape was rapidly changing and that building, tree and entire area are now gone, replaced with a housing development.
Along with photographer Barry Staver, I’m co-author of Better Available Light Digital Photography that’s available from Amazon for $21.50 prices with used copies selling at the giveaway price of five bucks, as I write this.