“Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.”

~ Albert Einstein

It’s day one of a workshop, first sunrise shoot of the week. Was up too late. The app said first light at 6.15. But the best colour was already over pre dawn. Tomorrow I will be out twenty minutes earlier.

The first days photographs always feel stifled, stiff and forced. I don’t relax. It’s all so new. Even the camera is a bit distant. Where is my old friend?

Practice… I think of day one as my practice day. My warm up exercises. A time to get reacquainted with old friends. To let go of the stresses of everyday life. To relax. To practice seeing again.

I rarely see the first time. It’s like one of those conversations where you think of what you could have said, or should have said, after it’s over.

So so I experimented, tried a few things. Did some tests. Let go of perfection and concentrate on my warm up exercises. The good photographs will come. Just not this morning. That’s why we are here a few days. About day two or three it really hits. And I just suddenly found the answer to a different question I have been pondering all week. (How long to make my ‘Short Lens Workshops’, mid week sojourns to beautiful places.)

Leura Forest. Photograph and text copyright © Len Metcalf 2019