In photography columns, forums, and other outlets one of the most common pieces of advice given to people who want to get better at creating compelling images is to travel. Not buy a better camera, a bigger lens, a newer tripod, or any other physical gear but instead visit somewhere new to see the world from a fresh perspective. I realize that’s not always possible, especially with things like work, school, and family obligations, but I have found that the more I travel outside my town or state (or even country, though that is a much rarer occurrence) the more this advice rings true. I remember when I first moved to Oklahoma how everything I came across, from the local botanic gardens to small ponds to animals like armadillos that scurry around like squirrels, felt unique and new and worthy of photographing. Now, having lived here for over 15 years, I don’t have that same sense of newness and there are times when it feels like everything around me has already been photographed–which isn’t true at all, and instead is yet another reason I like to bring my camera with me so I can see familiar things from a different perspective. But it also means that whenever I travel elsewhere, things that are normal and uninteresting to the locals are new and different to me and, as a result, certainly worth photographing.
Hence this week’s image–a fairly nondescript, rather pedestrian, scene of some small cacti by a footpath. Not the kind of thing a local who lives in an area like, say, the Colorado mountains would think twice about, but something a midwesterner like myself would think is fun and new and interesting. There’s something about the prickly needles, the round green shapes billowing from the ground, and the dry, rocky terrain that stood out to me and made me lower my Fuji X100F to the ground to see if I could get a shot. It was also hot, dry, and extraordinarily buggy with mosquitos attacking any square inch of exposed skin thanks to some recent rainfall, which meant that I didn’t linger for long while composing the shot.
I did think about the basics though: aperture, shutter, and ISO, and even though I was set back a few feet from the cactus I knew I wanted to get a depth of field that made the plant stand out from the background but not so much that the scene would show up as a blurry mess. I think I got it pretty good with an f/4 aperture, though the lack of a flip-out screen on my camera made composing the shot somewhat of a challenge. No matter though; I’m happy with the resulting image and it does make me think of our family’s time spent in Great Sand Dunes National Park, and the Airbnb at which we stayed and, of course, where I took this picture. And that’s good enough for me :)
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