LESSONS FROM FAILURE - GOLDEN GATE
Last time I talked about my five favorite pics from a BBQ at Baker Beach. Now it's time to talk about the failures.
[Question to Self: What's a self-evaluation from a brand spanking new amateur worth? I don't know. But this will be something to look back on to compare my thoughts then and now. ]
#0 - Failure of Time
The first failure before ever taking the first pic is waking up later than planned and getting lost on the way.
I've been constantly consuming podcasts, YouTube channels, books, and websites. It's going to take going over the same information as I move through various stages of understanding for all of it to sink in. One thing I have leaned is that the consensus best time to take pics during the day is just before sunset and just after sunrise.
With that in mind, my first trip to Baker Beach seemed like a good opportunity to see that for myself. Trouble is, Google decided to merge their Google Nav app into Google Maps, and I couldn't figure out how to get the turn-by-turn directions to talk to me and I ended up being lost for over an hour, on top of getting up later than I had planned.
How big of a failure is this when it comes to photography? I'm not quite sure. Looking at this first pic, the shadows don't look that bad to me, but I have no experience during the Golden Hour to compare that with. I wonder if the Golden Hour can actually last several hours much like Rush Hour traffic does.
#1 - Failure of Composition
Taking another look at the pic there is a more fundamental failure to the pic. The composition isn't quite right.
I was trying to capture the moment of laying eyes on the Golden Gate Bridge as I crested the first hill from the parking lot. This is the best shot of seven attempts at different points on the hill and still it feels pretty mediocre. I like the fallen over fence post, but there's something not quite right with the positioning and ration of the Bridge to the hill.
Is it a Rule of Thirds thing? Decent but not great Golden Hour light? Or perhaps it's the fact that I'm just standing on a trail taking a pic and I didn't take my time to take the pic. I'd like to go back and try this again. Actually, whenever I do go back, I'll be attempts all of these shots again.
#2 - Failure of Perspective
Baker Beach itself was slightly disappointing. Besides the beach and the Golden Gate, there really wasn't much to photograph. Not many flowers or color anywhere. But what it did have are these interestingly shaped concrete structures with what looked like a couple of old canons covered in tarps.
I wanted to capture it while having the Golden Gate in the background. And while I like the general composition here, I feel like if I at least crouched down and kept the camera lower to the ground it could have been better. Maybe it feels like a cliche angle because I'm noticing it landscape pictures everywhere now that I can see what I'm looking at, but it's probably used so often for good reason.
And again, I didn't really take my time. I was late, and planned to be at the picnic area in fifteen to twenty minutes, and I just passing through trying to get as close to the Golden Gate as possible. When I go back there and have more time, I'm going to go there to take more shots of this pre-beach area and let it be the focus.
#3 - Failure of Focus
And here I go with my first attempt at that very angle.
I liked the little wooden stump and felt I was getting decently close to the bridge, and so I wanted to take some time with this one... if taking ten shots and trying out both my kit and 40mm f/2.8 lens counts as taking my time.
I'm going to laugh at my lack of understanding when I look back on this, but I wonder how much of an impact zooming out from 35mm to 18mm on my kit lens it behind why the Golden Gate looks so distant in the second image compared to the first, as compared to the impact of using a different angle.
Then we come to the third pic, which gets it almost right, but I was having trouble getting everything in focus. I know it's possible, but I don't know if it's possible with my 40mm lens, or if it's simply because I placed the stump within the minimum focal length of the lens. (Something I forgot exists until I was browsing the Canon site for refurbs and noticed all the extra info it displays compared to Amazon.
#4 - Failure of Contrast
A little bit further down I stepped off the trail and climbed up on to the hill to try for another reveal shot of the bridge, like I was going for with the first pic.
[No idea if reveal shot is an actual term anywhere, and if I'm using it right if it is. Sounds right though.]
There was lot more to work with here. I liked the fallen tree, and the bonsai shape to the leaves of the living one. My intention was to do some post processing to pull out the detail in the foreground as well as the background, but I was having some trouble taking any pics of the former. Several of them came out close to pitch black if I was able to fire at all.
I still don't quite get why the camera won't fire sometimes when I hit the shutter button. I suspect it has something to do with the metering mode I was using, or just metering in general, but I only know it exists and know next to nothing what that means. I just know that when it's dark, the camera doesn't always listen.
And in general, I'd like to get more vibrance and clarity from the bridge. I hope I'm not getting it because of a lack of technical understanding and/or skill rather than it just being due to the atmosphere. The first I can work on, the second would just be sad.
#5 - Final Failure
This here may be my favorite of the failures.
I love the fence and shadows and the perfectly placed little doggie.
Some post processing to the pic would help bring out the detail, but at this very moment my 14-day free trial of Lightroom has run out. While I know I am going to get Lightroom, I'm finding that I enjoying photography so much that it may very well be worth it to qualify for signing up for Adobe's Photoshop + Lightroom photography bundle.
Post processing aside, as I understand it, I might want to pick up a polarizing filter which should get more blue out of the sky with no post processing needed. And perhaps getting here within the Golden Hour would naturally get some detail in the sand.
Note to self and others: This part of the beach is clothing optional.
Bonus: Trip Favorite
One thing I need to get over is being self-conscious. While I was pressed for time, some of the reason why I didn't take more pics is because I felt weird as people approached and saw me crouched down taking pics of flowers, these interesting bolts coming from the concrete, or anything else.
While I'm sure Lightroom could improve this, I already like this image on its own. I don't know if this is something that people generally like or if its just one of my things, but I'm noticing that I love seeing lines in my photographs, and this is full or great horizontals, verticals, and curves. I love the placement of the bolts, every shadow, the nice blur (aka bokeh), and how the final curve at the top perfectly frames the pic with no need to crop.
A miniscule move to the left so the font bolt wasn't as close to overlapping the rear bolt's left edge would make this image pretty perfect.