- So this time of year, most people are uploading
their top nine photographs to Instagram
or doing top 10 videos here on YouTube,
looking back at their landscape photography.
But this year I thought I'd do something
a little bit differently,
and have a look at the mistakes I made in 2021,
and how you can avoid them too.
So the first mistake or lesson relates to GAS.
So if you don't know what GAS is,
it's gear acquisition syndrome,
or that's the acronym anyway.
So I've been really influenced over the last few weeks,
thinking about the amount of gear that I actually have,
but the reason I wanted to bring this up
is I think it's something we do suffer from is, you know,
what gear do you actually need to get the job done?
You know, I think about the combination I had in,
you know, I've loved the 24-105, use the 7,200,
love that lens as well.
But on top of that, you know,
I purchased some really specialized fixed prime lenses,
one being the Sony 24 mil F1.4 G Mas,
which I'm filming on now.
And also the Sony 85 millimeter F1.4 G Master as well.
Now you would have seen, I've done a couple of videos
using the 85 mil throughout the year,
and it is actually a great lens for landscape
and traveling, gives you a unique perspective,
but I'm not sure that I can justify having it sitting
on my shelf for a couple outings a year.
So next lesson I want to share is around limited thinking,
and I've had the opportunity between lockdowns
to spend some time
in some of Australia's most beautiful rainforest woodlands
in the Alpine region.
And of course, across our beautiful Moyjil Peninsula
here as well.
The thing that I've been thinking about is my approach
to landscape photography or photography more generally,
and that, you know, have I been very limited in my approach?
What does photography mean to me in 2022?
And once the images are captured, and if you think back,
and if you're like me, you know,
you first probably were using your iPhone,
or you had a point and shoot, or even a film camera,
you got into photography for a certain reason,
and it's those reasons that propel your journey forward.
And I think as you progress
and you get more serious about it,
and whether you do competitions or you're on social media,
or you're running a business, I think as time progresses,
your thinking may change.
And that's something that I hadn't realized
until I sat down last week to think about this video.
And I was thinking through that more of a variety
of photography, I think is what I'm trying to say,
is you know I've been thinking through,
and if you're like me,
you know, I love woodland photography.
I love landscape photography.
But I think it's thinking through, you know,
with my camera is just the tool for me to create.
And I think I'm ready to embrace that going into 2022
and be more free.
The next lesson that I want to share is something
that probably, if you're like me and I look back
through my Lightroom catalog and I think to myself, yeah,
I've taken a lot of photographs of the same thing,
in the same composition, at the same focal length.
And I think this is symptomatic of, in some ways,
getting excited by the scene or the lights,
and then sitting for, and there's nothing wrong with that.
There really isn't anything wrong with that,
but I think it's disappointing.
When I look back at my catalog,
and I've been to an amazing location,
and I might walk away with one or two images,
and of those one or two images,
it might be a slight variation in those images.
And so this is something I've only been working on myself
over probably the last four to six weeks
where I've been thinking, I need to mix up my focal lengths,
really thinking through, you know,
what are the characteristics in the landscape?
What am I looking for?
What is the story I'm trying to tell?
And trying to get a variation.
And I talked in my waterfall video not long ago, around,
you know, looking at different ways
to compose that particular shot,
both in terms of the composition,
in terms of where the waterfall was
and the beautiful golden light that we had
on the side of the canyon there,
but also in terms of the focal length,
the aperture, really sort of mixing it up.
And I think that's the thing I need to do more of
going into 2022.
So the next lesson I want to share is something
that has been on my mind for quite a while, is slowing down.
It's really thinking about, you know,
creating images that are unique to me,
slowing down and finding things within the landscape
that are actually useful.
And I think for yourselves, if you're thinking about,
you know, what's the next step for you,
potentially having looked at the slow photography movement,
or some of the images on their website
or on their Instagram can be useful
in terms of their approach, and other photographers,
that are looking at smaller intimate scenes
in creating pieces of work that can be easily done,
I'm not saying in your backyard necessarily,
but can be done in your backyard or in your local area,
as opposed to international travel.
So yeah, I feel like I could explore more going into 2022.
Now the next tip I want to provide to you,
or the lesson that I'm thinking about on reflection
is probably the most important one, I feel.
Now I have a lot of nice gear, and I look in my catalog,
and I have a lot of photographs,
but I didn't take enough photographs of my family
and my kids throughout 2021 and remembering the moments
you had with them.
And so I need to make a more concerted effort myself
to bring my camera out for those moments.
Well I hope this has been useful for you.
And if it has, feel free to hit that like button
so we can spread the word to more people
who may be interested in learning or reflecting
on their own landscape photography in 2021,
but I'd also be keen to hear from you.
So if you have any thoughts around your own lessons
or mistakes you've made in 2021,
and things that you are gonna change going into next year,
feel free to drop a comment below.
I'd be keen to have a conversation with you as well.
What you should watch in preparation
for your next photography trip is a video I did
a few weeks ago, upper Mount Buffalo here
in the Australian Alps, looking at planning
your next landscape photography adventure.
I'll leave the link in the description below
and I'll see you in the next video.
Bye for now.