Capturing the Moment

Earlier this month, I was traveling down I280 south os San Francisco, and I drove by a vista turnout. I considered stopping and seeing what the view was, but I was late and I just drove on.

It did set up a train of thought though, that started with wondering how many other photographers had stopped and taken photos and would I just be repeating the same scene ad nauseam. A common saying about photographing popular scenes is you need to place your tripod in the holes left behind by the photographers that have come before you.

While I partially subscribe to that thought, I believe it's a lot more complicated than that. Being a long time Flickr subscriber and a member of the Grand Rapids Flickr group, I see a lot of photos of the same reflections off of buildings downtown, the same bridge shots and the same nighttime photos. I admit, I've contributed the same, since the scenes and the photos were new to me. Later, I've retaken the same photo, but tried to do it a different way or to put a different look to it. Sometimes I'm successful, sometimes I'm not.

I really think that if one tries, that a person can find something new to photograph in what some people have come to consider a cliche photograph. It's one reason I continue to go back to the same locations.

Let me know if you agree or disagree, I would like other folks opinions.