Backyard Creek
Utica Train Station
Delta Lake State Park

I still have a few images from my recent excursions to process but I thought it might be fun to look back on my journey.

Wait! Hear me out…

It won’t be as bad as you think. I’ll keep it short.

Well, as short as my rambling mind will allow… 🙂

I decided to select an image from ten, five and one year ago. At least as close to the end of March as I can manage. Ten years ago I had barely begun this journey and was learning my new DSLR camera. I had a Nikon D5100 and my trusty Sigma 17-70mm lens. We had a ton of good times and I believe (or at least will firmly state) that I learned quite a lot with that first camera.

The image I found to process was a scene from the creek behind my house. Surprising to me, considering the image is from March 31st, there was still a lot of snow. Over the years I explored every twist and turn of that creek. I learned the beauty of long exposures with flowing water and tuned my approach to a series of images I coined “Slow”. This one brings back great memories of my playing in the creek.

Five years ago I was a few weeks away from upgrading my Olympus E-M1 camera to the Mark II version. I had switched from Nikon to Olympus back in late 2015. For my type of photography I didn’t encounter any issues moving to the 4/3rds sensor and the reduction in weight was welcomed especially when I traveled.

I ended the month of March, five years ago, at the Utica train station searching for the sunrise. I find myself returning to the station periodically and generally I’m rewarded with a few keepers. On this morning I experimented with capturing a moving train but was unsuccessful in my attempts. Luckily, the sunrise light was worth the trip.

Last year it appears I did not venture out once in the month of March. I chose an image from my first outing in April, which of course, was to Delta Lake. By this time I was using the Mark III version of the Olympus E-M1 camera and had added a walk-around zoom with a little longer reach than my favorite 12-40mm lens. The 12-100mm lens is as good as its older sibling but only stops down to f/4, which for this landscape photography works for me 95% of the time.

The ice on the lake was mostly melted but a good wind out of the West had pushed piles onto the beach. I spent most of the evening photographing the chunks of ice with the sunset as a backdrop. As the sun reached the horizon the colors in the sky were being reflected in the calm waters of the lake. I ended my time running back and forth along the beach capturing as many reflections as possible.

When I look back at images I often cringe at the choices I made, either in what/how I captured the subject or how I chose to process it. I don’t think I’m making those same types of choices today but who knows, in ten years I might look back and cringe at what I’m doing today. I did notice that my experimenting and playing with the camera does not happen as much today as it did ten years ago. I want to believe it is because I know better today what I want to photograph but I think it is because my curiosity is less.

Hopefully my rekindled interest in picking up the camera is also an increase in my curiosity… time will tell…