Why Nature Photography!
Updated: Jun 11, 2021
Thoughts rush and intertwine, sometimes even draw your entire focus and completely disconnect you from the moment. A reoccurring storm of ideas and feelings, all mixed, as more tasks, goals, social conformity and a never ending pool of digital content seem to spin time and fast forward reality.
Why Nature Photography?
I suppose because of the connection it helps me create and maintain with moments in time. And the amazing feeling of looking forward for the next opportunity to develop a new memory with a strong personal connection.
There is a multitude of reasons to be drawn to it, such as:
The passion for a certain form of landscape,
Interest in life patterns of plants or animals,
Dedication to document natural events and the ever changing form of life,
Even the fascinating, sometimes geeky, habit to learn as much as possible about photography gear, composition, light and color, which tends to push you out the door eager to test your newly developed skills!
Finding Reasons to start
There are very few circumstances when a new experience finds itself easy to go for.
There is usually a discovered connection to a familiar pleasant memory that drives me try something new. Such was the case with my passion for landscape photography.
It started with a sound. The clicking sound of rolling film for the next exposure made by the first camera I ever used. I was a child than, lost on some alley shaded by old trees. Another memory comes to mind, the same clicking sound and the smell of salt water. Me sitting on a rock trying to take pictures of waves crashing into the shoreline. Those two memories came to mind many years after, in a time as strange and different than childhood as I could never imagine. A time where experiences seems to be streamlined, fast and ever so rapidly changing. I than started browsing through my social media library on so many pictures of events I took part of. None of them kindled any as strong emotional response as those two childhood memories.
Was it the melancholy of times long past? Could be!
Or maybe the rush to capture so many images they no longer felt unique, relatable or intimate? Very well possible!
A connection to nature photography can be found in fond memories of sight, sound and smell. And the passion to learn more about it follows right after the first time it will allow you to slow down and enjoy the moment.
Taking the First Steps
The first step I could remember sparked my interest for nature photography was to allow myself time for it.
Renewed interest followed almost instinctive, as time to explore and discover lead me to, what I now consider, the second step: reflection. It made me realize why I felt emotionally connected to certain landscapes, and what compositional elements shaped that connection.
Third step was to read, learn and develop, find out information complementary, contradictory or corrective to my own understanding of composition, exposure techniques, technical use of gear and post processing workflows. I than began experimenting with the newly developed concepts.
Going Forward
I hope this blog post offered you useful insight into why Nature Photography can become such an enjoyable mode of evading everyday routine and help create amazing memories for you to connect with and share.
It enables you to disconnect and connect, relax and focus, be creative and reflective of your own work or the work of others.
As a useful exercise, I encourage you to find a subject of interest you have the possibility to photograph:
Take multiple different pictures of the same subject,
Use different points of view, change the angle you capture those pictures with, include more or less of the "scene" in the photo,
Dare experiment with your camera exposure, if possible even with the colors,
Look at all your images. Write down what you like and dislike about each and every one and find similarities across your images in both likes and dislikes (ex.: framing, angle of view, arrangement of objects in the frame, colors and their contrast, areas of light and shade, etc.),
Look for additional information on the topics of your conclusions, learn and try again!
Thank you for reading and please do feel free to leave a comment or contact me for questions, feedback, ideas and requests: https://www.andreitanasephotography.com/contact
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