Patience Learned

My “day job” puts me on the clock Saturday – Wednesday, leaving Thursday and Friday off to focus 98% of my attention on Dill-Fisch, as opposed to the 50% I can give it when working.  This means I schedule the big things for these days, and last week was no exception.  Thursday was a scouting trip for a possible, last minute family shoot in a small community off the sound, south of Tacoma. Friday, was a gig with one of our first customers, a couple’s shot in and around the Tacoma area as well. 

Thursday ends up being a bust, as the weather changed, and a hard fall killed my point and shoot (and covered me in mud).  Add to that the family’s (good) decision to postpone until the weather warms up.  It just was a frustrating day, to say the least.

Moving on to Friday, when we were meeting a couple up at Point Defiance Park in Tacoma, then heading on over to Titlow Beach Park, also in Tacoma.  It was a perfect day for outdoor portraits. The sky was gray and overcast, but still bright, the weather had warmed up, there was no rain, or wind! 

We arrived at our meeting place early, there was an event taking place at around 4pm, so we were anxious to get started and move on to the second location.  3pm came and went, but they had yet to show.  The park’s representative showed up and unlocked the doors for the event’s organizer, and they let us in to take pictures of the indoor architecture, which was really beautiful.  She also encouraged us to send her our business information, which they keep on file for bride’s to peruse.  The 3pm hour pushed into the 4pm hour, and it was clear our clients weren’t coming.  The venue was beginning to fill up, so we gave up our front row parking, and decided to go to our second location anyway.

I had hoped (after our scheduled session was over) to get some twilight pictures of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge…for those of you who don’t know about this bridge, I encourage you to follow the link.  We had two hours before sunset, and we meandered around the rocky beach.  I rely very heavily on my telephoto lens…I can’t help it, I love tight shots with selective focus, but today I forced myself to use my wide-angle zoom.  I really like the beach shots I got with it…putting into practice some direct advice from my NYIP instructor. 

The beach bends a few time, and passed the second bend, I decided to put up the tripod, and wait for sunset and twilight.  I took some test shots, and while it didn’t look bad in the viewfinder, the bridge just didn’t seem to jump out the way I wanted it too.  Once I got it home, it was stronger than I thought, but I’m still glad I followed my Dill-Fisch partner up the beach passed the third bend.

Sunset had finally come, but it was behind us, and being winter and an overcast day, it wasn’t the strongest light, but it did create a beautiful blue-hued sky and water combination.  The problem was, I just wasn’t getting the images I wanted.  They were okay, but it wasn’t the bright, twilight-ed, colorful evening shot that I hiked 3/4 down a rocky beach to get. 

A while back I wrote about how my greatest liability (I felt) in becoming the photographer I want to be is my lack of patience.  Tonight, I told myself that I was going to work my camera and be easy on myself until I got what I really wanted.  I moved through the following series of shots:

I was using a very small aperture, and about a 25 – 30 sec shutter speed, playing a bit with underexposing to bring out the color of the lights…as you can see, no joy.  However, with the third pic I started to like the mood, but I wanted more color on the bridge itself, I also switched to my faithful zoom, because I felt the bridge’s power was getting lost in the sea of blue.  My epiphanl change?  I opened up my aperture about 3 stops and adjusted the shutter speed so it was still “underexposing” just a bit.

Here’s the result:

 

Now this was the image we hiked down the rocky beach to get!  We took a few more shots with different angels, and compositions, but this one remains my favorite of the bunch. 

By the time we finished taking pictures it was time to walk back to the car.  By then the beach was dark, so we adjusted our route.  Other than some mild trespassing, a moment of being fenced in, and then a small hike through a wooded area with only the faint light off a camera LCD and my partner’s white-soled Converse, we made it back to the cement path that parallels the beach.  It was a good thing, too, because the tide had come in, and the beach was pretty much gone. 

So despite the fact that we’re disappointed that our couple hadn’t shown up (we still haven’t heard from them despite phone calls and emails). I count the day as a total success, and am grateful to patience, patience, patience.  It would have been my instinct to walk away after the first few frames didn’t work out.  I’m happy with myself that I stuck with it, and got the shot I really wanted.