Keeping Your Passion for Photography Alive, Part II

In May of 2022, I wrote a blog post entitled "Keeping Your Passion for Photography Alive". The topic was about overcoming the doldrums that set in causing you to lose your passion and creative edge. To recap, I listed 4 things you can do:

1, Carry a camera with you everywhere

2, Shoot images in a completely different genre

3, Search new photography trends and try your hand

4. Experiment, we are happiest when learning

Today, I would like to continue with Part 2 and add some additional ideas.

Join a camera club. Camera clubs go on monthly field trips which will provide many photographic opportunities. I admit some trips didn't sound interesting, but stepping outside your comfort zone is a great way to beat the doldrums and increase your skills.

Find a local race track and head to the races, try panning with the subject to learn how to blur the background keeping the subject tack-sharp. It doesn't matter whether it's horses, cars, or motorcycles, learning this trick will come in handy in most photography genres.

How about a local lake to photograph jet skies or wakeboarders, or a friend on the rock climbing wall at REI? Opportunities are everywhere.

I am primarily an African Wildlife photographer but live in Phoenix. Sometimes I visit the zoo just to see the animals or test new lenses. Try shooting to eliminate all fencing and man-made structures, it's not as easy as one would think. It's all about perspective and depth of field. In addition, there are many other animal sanctuaries, for example, The World Wildlife Zoo, Bearizona, Gilbert Water Ranch, Boyce Thompson, Out of Africa, just to name a few. Maybe there are sanctuaries in your areas that will provide learning opportunities.

For the image above, my camera club arranged to go to the Commemorative Air Force Museum where I was able to stand on the tarmac and watch two WWII planes, (a B17 and B25) land and then photograph them at sunset outside of their hangars. I had never shot any type of aviation photography so I thought it would be a good idea to step outside of my comfort zone. I showed up with a bag of lenses and a tripod and in the end, I had a great night and learned a few things as well.

For this shot, I took 3 bracketed images, The 1st image was 2 stops overexposed to increase the details in the shadows, the 2nd image was 2 stops underexposed for the sky, and the 3rd image was shot at the normal exposure. I opened up the shadows in Lightroom and made a few adjustments like darkening the foreground, etc., then opened as 3 layers in Photoshop. I used Luminosity masking to mask-in the sky and details in the shadows. Then I created a stamped visible layer, opened the image back up in Camera Raw, and added quite a bit of clarity to the entire photo. Then I pushed the image back to Photoshop and put a black mask on the clarity layer. I then painted the clarity where I wanted it by using a white brush. The Clarity adds shine to silver tones and I wanted the plane to have a certain amount of pop. From there it was just a matter of a little dodging and burning and I had my 1st aviation image.

However you decide to proceed, good luck and good light to you.

About David Williams: I specialize in African Wildlife, Landscape, and Indigenous People Cultural Photography. See my work at https://www.davidwilliamsphotography.com 

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