Behind the viewfinder

"Seeing" the Lake Superior Shore

The photography workshop that had us scampering all over northern Wisconsin and the U.P. focused primarily on nature-waterfalls, rivers, bogs and lakes and associated critters found therein.  For myself when someone asks- "what kind of photography do you do?" I have a hard time answering.  For this week, it was nature, at another time it could be the underbelly of a city, or maybe the behind the scenes images of a hunt, a concert or a wedding.  So I guess I'm not nailed down to one "kind" of photography, which leaves me a lot of room to shoot what interests me at the moment.  For good or bad.

So during the workshop, there were a few times I turned the camera away from strictly nature to the photographers, and we had some very good ones here.  I do believe there is some truth in having a human in a landscape, if for nothing else to just wonder-"what are they doing in there?!"  Having a group of photographers shooting mostly the same exact thing, but sometimes very differently can be a great learning experience and then having the chance to critique so many images, can't but help improve our art.

Setting up on The bog Lake near Eagle River

Livin and Shootin on the Edge

Morning Silhouette-Doug

Black Spruce Close-up- Andrea

Making the Picture-Doug on bog lake

This last photograph here was perhaps my favorite, probably because I saw how long it took Doug (our instructor) to finally lean over and push the shutter.  Maybe the most valuable lesson I learned was to slow down.  The tripod forced that in many ways and maybe more so was the fact that we really wanted to make great images and we wanted to make the most out of every location we visited.  It almost felt like being a real photographer.......whatever that is. ;)