One of my favorite things to do as a photographer is look back on earlier images and compare them to similar shots that I have taken years down the line. While sometimes embarrassing, particularly when I think about the portraits I used to take in days gone by, it’s also refreshingly illustrative, and even a bit instructive, and if nothing else it’s just fun to see how far I’ve come. (I recommend this to other photographers too: try going through your earlier shots and see what you have learned and how you have improved over the years. It’s really cool.) Such is absolutely the case here.
Back in 2016, not too long after I got a set of close-up filters for my 50mm lens, I took this shot of a dragonfly near the shore of Milford Lake, Kansas:
At the time I was kind of blown away, having never taken a picture quite like this before. I was astonished that an amateur photographer like myself could get an image of a dragonfly with such stunning clarity. And without a true macro lens, no less. I thought I had peaked, but years later I can clearly see just how wrong I was and how much room for growth still remained.
This week’s featured image of a blue dragonfly, which was taken about 200 yards away from where I shot its counter part in 2016, is improved in every possible way. The dragonfly is sharper, the lighting is better, the colors (and thus, the entire composition as a whole) are vastly improved, and overall it has a sense of life and vibrancy that was almost entirely absent in the earlier picture. I don’t say this to downplay the first shot, but to show how fascinating it is to see how much I have learned over the years. It’s something I don’t see too much on a daily basis, but when comparing compositions it becomes clear. And I think what excites me the most is thinking about, seven years from now, just how much I will have hopefully improved over what I can do now.
The journey really is the reward :)
Narendra says
Thank you Simon to show the comparison of images. You wrote that latest image was captured 600 feet away. It was apparently shot with a 105 mm lens. That distance seems awfully long to capture such a clear macro /closeup shot?
Simon says
Thank you for asking! I didn’t mean that I stood 600 feet away from the dragonfly, but that the location where the original shot was taken was 600 feet from where the the new one was taken. Hope that didn’t confuse you too much!
Rebecca says
A mature photographer realizes that shallow depth of filed is not always the best. We get all excited when we learn how to create it, but it isn’t always necessary.
Simon says
So true, Rebecca. I remember getting my 50mm lens and excitedly running around taking every picture at f/1.8 because it was so cool to get shallow DOF. Looking back, I think I actually ruined a lot of potentially great photos that way :D You live and learn though!