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Same Old Shot — Different Day
How to Cross The Same Stream Twice
All photographers want to explore fresh new locations. We are challenged by a variety of experience and this leads (we believe) to increased creativity. While I generally share the feeling my experience has been that there is great satisfaction and even greater challenge in exploring the same locale more than once.
Below are two photographs taken from Clingmans Dome in Great Smoky National Park during September of 2000. These were taken at the same time of day, from the exact same spot, just two weeks apart.
Clingmans Dome Sunset #1. Great Smoky Mountains
NP. September, 2000
Photographed with a Hasselblad XPan and 90mm lens on
Provia 100F.
A number of things sets these photographs apart from each other. They were taken with different camera systems, with different focal length lenses and most definitely under quite different weather and atmospheric conditions.
Clingmans Dome Sun. Great Smoky
Mountains NP. September, 2000
Photographed with a Rollei 6008 and 300mm Schneider lens on
Provia 100F.
Fascinating, isn't it?
Brasstown Bald Sunrise #3, Union County, Georgia.
September 2000
Photographed with a Hasselblad XPan and 45mm lens on
Provia 100F.
Again, the same location (Brasstown Bald, Georgia) taken just a few weeks apart. Besides everything else I guess I'd changed as well.
Moon Over Brasstown, Union County, Georgia. October, 2000
Photographed with a Rollei 6008 Integral and 300mm APO
Tele-Tessar on
Provia 100F.
What can be learned from this? It seems to me that when faced with the opportunity to do photography from a location that has likely, or (as in this case) proven potential, one can often produce better work than when in a new and unproven locale.
Don't say, like so many photographers do, "Oh ya, I've been there, done that." Each day and each time of year is different. Go back. See it again. Shoot it again. Who you are may be different as well.
"Photographic seeing (means) an aptitude for discovering beauty in what everybody sees but neglects as too ordinary."
— Susan Sontag
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