Making Fire

The Day’s Last Blush

I recently read an article in the Light and Landscape Magazine by Scott Reither. It’s well thought out and written….I don’t want to butcher it by trying to re-hash his ideas….so I will briefly paraphrase and fully encourage you to wander on over to their page to read it yourself. 🙂

In essence, Scott tells the people he teaches that when you survey a landscape, you’ll see things that stand out to you.  Most people will take a few snaps, settle for a few satisfactory compositions, and move on to the next angle/spot/perspective.  Scott’s article, though, challenges photographers to fully explore a scene.  Don’t just settle for a spark (a decent shot)…push each composition to it’s limits, nurturing the spark until you’ve made fire (an extraordinary shot).

After reading that, I thought of all of the failed outings I’ve had….heck…that every landscape photog has.   I wanted to do better.  There were so many places close to home where I had felt that spark, but didn’t do my very best to bring an image to life.

This river and pilings (pylons? parts of the pier for the ferry!) is just a few minutes away, and while I enjoyed my first visit, the original images were lackluster.  This attempt is not perfect…the wood-sticky-uppies could be sharper, I forgot to do an exposure or two for the moon itself, wish the wind hadn’t been so fierce as I was having a hard time staying warm and sheltering the wind……..   But thanks to Scott’s article, and subsequent inspiration, I’ve got another, better version of the site to add to my photo collection. 🙂