It takes effort to be good at anything – I know that.  After two months of hard effort I’ve started to get frustrated with how things have gone so far.  I’ve spent quite a bit of time reading about different techniques.  Watching different tutorials.  Learning about things I thought I knew about.  Filling in the gaps of knowledge.  And I realize I’ve got a long way to go.  The one thing I haven’t spent a lot of time doing , however, is shooting.  Don’t you love the irony here?

Practice, an enormous amount of practice, makes better.  There is no such thing as perfect – I know that.  But at least I can improve.  I know I can.  One of the biggest tips that any great photographer will hand out is – shoot every day.  That’s a no brainer.  If you don’t practice, you can’t get any better.  You just can’t.

So, what to shoot?  When to shoot?  Where to shoot?  Anything, whenever and anywhere.

Photo opportunities will rarely, if ever, come to me.  I have to make them happen.  Sometimes I have to go out of my way to discover new places, new things and new situations and just be ready wherever I am.  There are so many things about freelancing that are going to push me beyond where I’ve been before (this is my second go at freelancing by the way – my first was wedding videos).  I realize that to these opportunities come at a cost sometimes.  Late nights, early (sometimes extremely early) mornings and weather that I hate.

These opportunities are rarely, if ever, at my convenience.

The Silver Lake Mill in Dayton, VA. Took a detour to shoot this and was late for lunch with my mom and sister. Order a print of this image.