Exploring Indiana through photography

This weekend was one of the most memorable that I’ve had for quite some time. Friday evening Kristen and I went to see Richmond Civic Theatre’s production the Diary of Anne Frank, which was quite wonderful. The highlight of my weekend however took place most of the day on Saturday.
Kristen had been planning all week to take a trip to Muncie to do some clothes shopping with her birthday money. I myself however have long since become tired of trips to Muncie so I opted to stay here in Richmond while she and her mom went out to clothes shopping bliss. What was I going to do all day while she was gone? Take pictures. I called up Jamie (my brother-in-law) and we both went out into the country, cameras in tow. What ensued was a wonderful day of exploration and sight-seeing in some of the most beautiful country wilderness that I’ve ever seen.
Over the last year or so I’ve been trying to improve my photography skills. I’ve always enjoyed photography but I’ve never been that good at it despite several attempts. After Kristen and her parents got me a digital camera for Christmas last year I decided this was the time to get started learning. Since then I’ve been taking pictures like a mad man and looking through them and trying to figure out why I’m not achieving the results I was looking for when I took the photo. The result has been better photos straight from the camera vs. Photoshopping them to death to get the “look” I was going for in the first place. So, our trek around Indiana was the perfect oppourtunity for me to learn even more and flex my photographic muscle.
I got several photos that I was very happy with and many more that are okay but not really anything great. However, after doing some reading this appears to be common amongst even professional photographers. One of the biggest tips that I got from some photographers online was to take as many shots of a single subject as I could take and then, when I was sick of the target, take a few more. It makes sense now but before I had this green sense of pride that I needed to have the picture framed and setup correct on the first shot or else I was just hacking. This isn’t the case. Most photographers suggest for every 500 photos you take you might find 10 or 20 that you really like. The others are just filler. So that’s what I did. I took close to 700 pictures on Saturday and ended up with a handful that I am really proud of.
There were several things that happened while we were out that made the day special. We noticed a horse grazing in a pasture and decided to get out of the car and take some photos of it. Not long after, to our surprise, two more came right up to the fence. Needless to say we took more than enough photos of the two horses.
We were driving through the country down a winding road and at one point we came around a corner and saw one of the largest expanses of soybeans that I’ve ever seen and just on the other side of the field was a large forrest of brightly colored trees and a small white house nestled between the field and trees. We spend quite a bit of time photographing that scene. It’ll be hard to top it as far as scenery goes.
It was a glorious day. It’s very easy to get cought up in the stress of life and all of the things that you need to get done. Sometimes you need to take some time to notice and then enjoy the things that are around you.