Between workshops, I had the opportunity to head out to Colorado to visit one of my daughters for her birthday, hoping that the other one could join us. That didn’t work out as we hoped, but I still had a great visit. Even though I played Granny and spent a lot of time with young Hayden, my daughter also made sure I went out and just photographed for myself. No images for workshops, not that I don’t enjoy doing those, too, but sometimes it’s great to be able to putter about at my leisure and look for new photographic fodder.
With that in mind, she made reservations in Telluride, and the two ladies and one small person headed off, leaving her husband in peace for a couple of days at home to get a lot done on his doctorate.
We took our time, making several stops for breaks and lunch, even finding a great playground where Hayden could run off energy.
As we got closer to Telluride, I was struck by the odd color of the snow. It was not white, and I asked about it. My daughter explained that western Colorado had been very dry, and the winds had gathered up the red dirt and dusted it all over the snow, giving it a sepia cast. It was fascinating.
Hayden is a very sociable little person, so when it was his bedtime, his mother suggested that with all of us in one room, Granny was a distraction, and this would be an excellent time for her to leave and go out photographing for an hour or so.
And so I did. One of the lesser roads beckoned, and I turned left and drove on up the hill. This was the scene that greeted me, but before the light faded, I wanted to make sure there wasn’t something better a little further along.
There wasn’t, so I whipped a U-ee, and drove the mile back along the ridge. This scene begged to be a panorama. I loved the patterns of the red dust with the cold, late-winter light streaking across the mountains and hills. Quickly, I set up my tripod and did the series that became this photograph. And yes, this was a “one-shot” scene. Even if I had wanted another chance, the light was leaving the hills in shadow so quickly that there was no time for another series.
If it looks vaguely familiar to some of you, it was the header for this blog for a while last year.
There are advantages to being disciplined, to quickly assessing what you want out of a scene, to knowing the appropriate camera settings for your vision, to getting it right the first time. As with this photograph, there may not be a second chance!
A good exercise to do from time to time is to go out and make several photographs, but only one of each scene. Then practice speeding up the process. Sure, sometimes you have lots of time to compose a scene, to work it, as we encourage you to do, to experiment. But … there are occasions, as with the scene above, when you only get one shot.
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