Fresh Cones, Fresh Eyes

One of the best maxims I ever heard in regards to photography was, "You'll do your best work in your own back yard".  This is true.  It's the place you'll learn to see more deeply.  When you think you've shot everything worth shooting you'll have to find a new way to shoot it — to see deeper.  It makes you grow.  (Or give up.)

Once you've done that, you'll come to see new places with that newfound depth.  For instance, this picture.  I was stuck in a hotel — in a business park — and without access to a park.  I could have slept in.  I could have gone on my walk without lugging along all my camera equipment.  But I didn't.  I went out and made myself look harder.

That's when I noticed the new cones growing on this white spruce.  We don't have that tree where I come from.  And maybe to someone from the Upper Peninsula this looks like the most mundane of pictures.  But to me it's novel.  Maybe it's my fresh eyes that allow me to see the beauty of fresh cones on a white spruce. Or maybe it's because I've learned to look harder — deeper — after 40 years of photography. 

Nikon D7500 — Nikon 18-300mm F6.3 ED VR

210mm

F11@1/25th

ISO 400

Polarizer

DSB_7041.JPG

©Don Brown 2024