Hi. In this video, I have a vlog failure.
Hi. I’m Adam and welcome to First Man Photography the channel that will help you take your photography
to the next level.
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Okay, let's get into this.
In between Christmas and New Year, I was down in the South Wales area.
It is a beautiful part of the country and I ground out a little bit of time to shoot
a vlog to share with all of you.
So the story and the feeling around the vlog was going to be that landscape photography
doesn't have to be big deal.
You can go to beautiful places that are very accessible and capture a good image by getting
in and getting out again quickly.
So that’s what I was going for.
Let’s roll the video, I’ll show you what I did do and we’ll talk a little bit more
about it afterwards.
Let’s go.
Okay, I’ve arrived.
I’ve already had a couple of problems because of the parking.
Partly, it was my bad planning because I didn’t come with enough change for the car park:
ridiculous.
But the Forestry Commission also don't accept cards which is quite annoying in this day
and age.
But it’s looking like a nice morning, a bit later than sunrise but I think it could
still be a pretty decent shot.
So I’m at the location, I’m set up and have got this stunning, stunning cloud inversion
behind me.
It isn’t, actually, the easiest place to compose a shot because there is that meander
in the river that you might be able to see there and I really want to capture the whole
thing.
But I’m not far back enough to get it all in one shot.
From the position I’m at, if I do a panorama, it’s going to look a little bit distorted.
What would have been ideal is, if I’d have brought a tilt shift lens with me, to have
that shift function to capture the whole scene.
I wish I’d brought a tilt shift with me but I haven’t.
I’m going to try and capture something anyway.
I’m going to try a few different things, like I was saying the other day, experiment
with a bit of composition.
Try to capture a few things, as the sun is coming up behind me there, and, hopefully,
come away with a good shot.
You don't have to spend a whole day shooting.
I only have a few hours available to me this morning and I’ve come to capture one shot.
Like I said, I’m going to experiment around, play a bit.
I might come away with a few shots but I’ve only come for one shot.
That's how I’m going to make the most of this little session I’ve got.
A chunk of time out of my day, spending the day with the family, to do a little bit of
photography.
Right, this is, actually, quite an interesting shoot because I’ve now got this golden sunlight,
that you can see on my face, coming across but the fog is just a little bit too thick
for exactly what I want.
You, almost, can't see the river, that’s the Wye river down there in the Wye Valley,
this is the Forest of Dean, but it's just too thick.
I’m hoping, as as the morning passes a little bit, some of that fog will lift or clear a
little bit so I can see the river a little bit more than I can at the moment.
So, I’ve tried lots of different shots now.
I have done panoramas, I’ve done wide-angle shots, I’ve shot the sunrise a little bit
as well as it’s come up above the clouds to produce this golden light.
But it’s a mixture of excitement and frustration, all at the same time, and that’s what’s
so good about photography.
It’s always a challenge.It doesn’t matter how much experience you’ve got, how good
you are, there is always gonna be challenging moments in photography.
This morning I have one of them but, again, I’ve made an effort to get out there, or
get out here, and I’ve been rewarded with this incredible scene, I’ve got to say:
really incredible.
What I did was do a little bit of research online and I found this viewpoint.
I’ve done a little bit of research as well on PhotoPills and I realised the sun wasn't
going to be in exactly the right place because over here rather, than behind me.
So, it's not the exact composition I would have wanted one.
But, what I’ve done, anyway, is come out and been rewarded with a pretty decent scene.
It is a well photographed area, as well, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't do it.
I like to get out into those spots.
Try and capture it.
Do something better than everybody else or just for your own personal achievement, just
capture that scene.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with capturing places that have been well photographed before
even though some people will make you think they should always come up with something
original.
That is not the case because, in nature anyway, you’re always going to have different conditions
like this morning.
I’ve got this amazing cloud inversion behind me.
That doesn't happen every day.
So my shots may work out a bit better than anybody else’s.
So that’s the message today.
Just to make you see or help you understand that it doesn't have to be a massive thing
going out and shooting landscape photography, particularly.
Just get out quickly, an hour here, an hour there; capture a nice scene.
It just takes a little bit of research beforehand so when you are actually out and about it’s
quick and easy and you’re going to get the good shots.
As you can see, I feel that the fog is just too thick.
I’m not happy with the image.
Also, I took a panorama that just, for some reason, in Lightroom and in Photoshop, would
just not stitched together.
You could probably do it manually but I don't have the time for that.
So, for me, the whole shoot was a bit of a failure photography wise.
Now, this happens from time to time because landscape photography is hard.
Things change.
You’re not always going to go out and capture that perfect shot.
Conditions aren’t always in your favour.
For me, it just seemed to be errors all day long.
The video was a bit out of focus in places as well and things just weren't going right
for me throughout the morning.
I don't know why.
It doesn't often happen to me but, like I said, it happens to the best of us.
But I really wanted to share this because, as I said in the other videos, I want to be
as transparent as possible.
Yes I do capture a lot of good images, in my opinion, hopefully, in yours as well, but
it doesn't always go perfectly and I think it's important to share some of our failures
as well as the things go right.
The important thing is though is not to dwell on your mistakes too much.
Accept them, learn from them and then move on.
From my mistake that day and rolling it into this video so I can, hopefully, create some
content that you will appreciate.
Don’t dwell on your mistakes.
It doesn't do you any good.
Roll with the punches and turn it into something positive in the future.
I hope you can take that away because that’s, certainly, what I’m going to do and that
works really well for me and keeps me moving forward all the time.
You learn from it, your photography gets better and better as time goes on.
Please leave a comment down below because I’d love to hear what you think of the images,
anyway, and if you have some good experience stitching photos together please let me know
because I’ll quite happily send the raw images that I do have and you can try stitching
them together for me.
Please, if you haven't done so already, do subscribe to the channel for new videos every
Wednesday and every Sunday.
I’m definitely going to be stepping things up this year.
I’ll see you on another video very soon.
I’m Adam.
This is First Man Photography…out.