It's funny how time can change the way we see. I took this image in the winter of 2020 in a very nondescript park near my house. As I always do, when I got back from this short outing, I went through the images to see if I captured anything worth anything. You never really know until you open them on the computer, because almost everything looks good on that lying little screen on the back of the camera.
Most of the time I'm pretty disappointed with the results and this time was no exception. Which by the way, is something I find fascinating about photography - How is it, that in the moment, I saw something worth walking to, setting up the tripod, setting exposure and all that goes with it, only to see absolutely nothing in the image a few hours later on the computer? I don't know, but I saw nothing in it and quickly moved on.
Fast-forward about six months into June - not my favorite time of the year for photography. Maybe it's the heat, or the bugs, or the fact that the trees have leaves on them. Whatever it is, I spend more time inside and one day decided to go through some old images. As soon as I opened this image, I saw it - the mood, the composition, the tonal range, everything was there. Yes, it's simple and quiet, not the kind of image that social media cares about. But to me it conveys exactly what I saw and felt the moment I decided to compose the picture.
Why It took so much time for me to recognize what I saw in a moment six months earlier is a mystery to me. It happens a lot so maybe it's a failure of vision on my part, maybe we see differently hour to hour - I have no idea, it's a mystery and one of the things that I love about photography.
Thanks for reading!