Learning From Others

After embracing photography as a hobby, I purchased numerous books on photographic technique.  Reading those books put me in a much better position to be successful when taking my own photographs.

Where other people’s experiences have truly helped me is in identifying locations to visit that would be of interest to myself and my family. In the 1990’s into the 2000’s I purchased numerous coffee table books not only for their excellent photographs but to get ideas on where to visit.  Those books brought scenes and locations to my attention that I wanted to see as much as photograph, and positioned me to plan trips to accomplish this. 

The first of these trips in 1999 involved my wife and me driving to Utah to visit Arches, Canyonlands, Bryce, Zion and Capitol Reef National Parks.  It was a long drive from Illinois in our Jeep Wrangler, but we had a great time experiencing these sites in person.  Utah is truly a beautiful place.  It is hard to believe I wasn’t aware of this before reviewing the work of others.

Over time the Internet has become my source for information on trip locations and planning. There is an unbelievable store of information available to anyone wanting to plan a trip.  There are general use sites, travel sites, photography forums and photographer portfolios available for research and review. One of the reasons I created this site was to share my photographs for someone else to use in planning their trips.

Although many might admonish one for attempting to recreate a photograph of someone else, I have actually purposefully done this when visiting a location to try to get some insight into the thought process of the original photographer. Of course repeating the work of others can’t be helped when one sees locations where the National Park Service has basically chosen sites for pull offs where scenes by someone like Ansel Adams have been made famous.  The Yosemite, Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks are excellent examples of this.

Of course what makes one a better photographer is practice, and I have learned as much from mistakes as my successes.  While I like the idea of striking out on one’s own to find original locations and scenes and have done this myself, when planning a family vacation I find that using the information that others have provided is extremely valuable. Its a matter of maximizing the use of my time, and in situations where I don't have much time for photography I almost always plan my locations and shots as opposed to looking for something new no one has ever seen before, which is increasingly difficult to do even with considerable time.

All material @ copyright by Phil Goble. All rights reserved.