Third Time’s a Charm
This was originally published in my Prime Lenses Newsletter. You can sign-up for a weekly update to your inbox here.
I’ve spent the last three weekends on a local snow covered mountain. The boys are learning to ski and because it’s winter we’re basically there from sun up to sun down. This is a rare opportunity to see one of the most beautiful parts of Scotland at a time of year when the snow and low winter light can be absolutely stunning.
It’s one thing to hear a street photographer talk about their process of repetition and iteration, but it’s another to actually get the chance experience what that really means creatively. We all lead busy lives, it’s easy to just put something off even when you know it would help your craft. I’m a dad of two, in my mid forties with a job that includes a lot of travel. Ask my motorcycle how often I rode it last year let alone how often I can make time to go back to a place over and over for photos. Combining a passion with something we’re doing anyway is a rare alignment of the stars.
Week 1
From the start of week one is was clear that photography on a snow covered mountain in January was going to test me. As I wrote previously, we survived a full day of sub-zero temperatures in a location I didn’t know, using gear that I hadn’t tested in these conditions before. First snow of the year, first trip out with the camera in snow this year, first time shooting fast moving subjects with a manual lens … in the snow … ever.
That’s a lot of firsts and while I was pleased with some frames I made I didn’t feel like I’d cracked it. The 135mm and 28mm lenses were in the bag but they didn’t quite work for the location. The 135 in particular was great for capturing the kids as they came down from the slopes, I could get close enough that they would fill the frame in some cases, but I couldn’t quite frame the landscape how I wanted to. In the moment I could see in my head what I was going for, but it wasn’t coming through in the final image.
Week 2
The following week the weather had warmed significantly so with no risk of moisture damaging it, I brought along my insane Novoflex 400 and largely used that although I also had the 90 in the bag and captured some pleasing shots of the moon over the hills as the sun came up.
The snow had almost completely gone from everywhere but the slope so ironically, there I was with this huge lens that gives loads of reach when it was actually easier than the previous week to get in much closer to my subjects, at which point the 135 would have been better than the 90 I had with me. I got some solid images and it was good to get some reps in with the bigger heavier lens, but I didn’t come away feeling it had been a great success.
Week 3
Now I was starting to feel like I knew what I needed to do to get some stuff I liked. The snow was back too, blowing through in fits and starts bringing blizzard like conditions with bright spells in between. This time I was armed with the 90mm that had worked so well last week for landscapes from the mountain and also with the 135mm for the skiers. Lastly, I had my 50mm for snap shots. Incidentally, I’m always amazed that using an M system camera means this can all fit into a single 6 litre capacity Peak Design bag.
Week three was the week the setup really came together. Three useful focal lengths that I’d previously tested, brought back to refine and improve on what had come before, combined with tweaks to settings for the conditions. Set the camera to overexpose a little so the snow is white, your subjects in bright colours really pop against the snow so don’t worry about shooting at f11 and make sure your shutter speed is 500 or above to freeze them in the frame. I got some images of the landscape with light breaking through the snow that have blown me away and some action shots of the boys skiing that have convinced me I can make this setup work next time I’m at a MotoGP race as well, although I’ll need to go for a few days in a row to really dial it in for the significantly faster moving subjects. Well, apart from the Hondas…
The older lenses I’m using are infusing the pictures with a colour and rendering that I love. I assume that aging coatings are to blame for the pink and purple hues I’m seeing but it’s great to have effects appear naturally and lean into them.
This weekend will be the last trip up the mountain for a while but this has really taught me something I would never have learned without the forced consistency of going each week.
Excited by this epiphany I was talking to previous guest of the show and famous re-visitor of a specific location Dan Bakerabout what I’d learned. In the course of the conversation I was reminded of a quote by John Cleese in the book Show Your Work by Austin Kleon.
I feel like this mindset or approach can be usefully applied to all sorts of things. From photography to working out, house maintenance to my relationships, the more I think about it the more I think it’s all about working out what your way of operating is.
Take that with you this week if you need it, write it on a post-it. You’ve got a way of operating, you’re getting better all the time.