Pathways

1/4" at f8. ISO 100
December 29th, 2007

This is one of the last photos I took in 2007. Cristina and I got up at 6am and left for a cold, foggy hike at the Consumnes River Preserve to try our hand at some early morning landscapes. Granted, with the fog we got none of the sunrise we'd been hoping for, but none the less found an excellent atmosphere waiting for us.

With our cameras wrapped in plastic grocery bags and our boots squelching in the deep mud we both agreed that we felt like real photographers. That is to say, enduring miserable conditions while hungry and tired in hopes of getting that elusive perfect picture.

I love ethereal quality of this photo, like you're just down the way from Narnia or a fairy ring. Its actually one of the first of a new collection of photos I'm taking. Several of the books I've read suggest that a great way to push yourself creatively is to choose a project. It could be anything from tree bark to groups of three, whatever strikes your interest creatively. Make it your mission to seek out and photograph these things.

Personally I love photographs with pathways. I like the impression that you could just walk right into them. So I've decided to try that on for size. I'm going to actively seek out interesting pathways of all kinds, real or metaphor, whatever catches my eye. Six months or a year from now, we'll see what I have.