Words, like nature, half reveal and half conceal the soul within. —Alfred Lord Tennyson
Outdoor pictures can be wonderful, but nature isn’t always as obliging as it might appear
[Ed. note: charles is busy dealing with little people this morning so we thought it best to just rerun an entry from last year when it wasn’t so freakin’ cold out. We’ll hope the boss is back tomorrow.]
I was able to step outside this morning without needing any kind of a jacket. That simple act made me very happy because it means we’re getting to the time of year when we can return to outdoor and natural light photography, a genre I genuinely love. There is something thrilling about being up at the crack of dawn, catching those first rays of sunlight, and having the first shoot of the day in the can before most people have finished their first cup of coffee.
On the best of days, we are able to schedule about ten days out, as far in advance as most meteorologists are willing to forecast, the weather holds, and we get that perfect blend of morning light with enticing shadows. If necessary, I’ll even settle for a moderately filtered shot as long as I’m getting good sun rays in the background. We have to be extremely well prepared and able to work quickly as the sun rises in the sky, but the results are almost always worth the early wake-up and any other minor inconvenience.
As I was going back through and re-processing this shot (we re-process anything over two years old), I was reminded, however, that nature doesn’t always want to cooperate. Dealing with the moving sunlight is one thing; at least, that’s predictable and something for which we can easily plan. What’s not as predictable is how vicious elements such as insects, rodents, and plant life might be on any given day at any given time. In this case, it was mosquitoes the model didn’t even feel whose bites left a number of unsightly little bumps on her skin. Sure, she felt them later, but their silent attack was beyond any on-camera solution by the time their presence was noticed.
I can’t help but feel bad when a model tells me two or three days later that she’s developed a rash, or found some strange bites on an intimate body part, or apparently came into contact with some plant to which she’s allergic. Nature can be a very dangerous place to take pictures!
When we’re out scouting for possible outdoor locations, we try to anticipate whether any little vermin might interfere with our plans. After all, a lot of people have issues with setting on a piece of rotting wood teaming with creepy, crawling things with more legs than can be counted at a single glance, which is all the creature is going to get before it’s brushed away, if not smashed. Yet, just because a location looks good one morning doesn’t mean it will be in the same condition two weeks later.
Mosquitoes are probably the most bothersome culprits, especially as we get deeper into the summer and their numbers seem greater than the entire population of whatever state we’re in. Ants are another common culprit and there is often absolutely no sign that they’re going to be a problem until the very moment we’re ready to sit a model on a stump, look down, and find the place crawling with them as though they’d received an invitation.
Most the time, such encounters are merely a momentary frustration. We try dealing with insects and such in the most humane manner possible. After all, everything is part of something else’s food chain and poison we put into the environment anywhere eventually comes back to our own dinner plates. Yet, there have been times when the aggressiveness of nature simply forced us to leave. One of the worst was probably the evening we were shooting in a small, natural pool that forms in the bend of a creek. We had shot there before with no problem, but on this particular evening, crawdads came out and began nipping at the models toes. Despite all our attempts to dissuade them, they were unrelenting and we finally had no choice but to retreat.
So,please keep in mind that there are things hiding in that picture that can sometimes make paradise a living nightmare. Nature doesn’t always want us merging with it; sometimes it wants us for lunch!