Working with a Theme

There are always a variety of challenges a photographer faces when out on a shoot. One challenge is, what to do when the conditions don't quite work out the way you wanted?

One early morning, I left my house and looked into the very early morning sky and saw stars with some patchy clouds. My first thoughts were that I was going to be blessed with morning color. As I drove to Sandy Hook, the conditions didn't look as if things were going to change. When I arrived at my location, the near full moon in the west was bright in the sky. However, to the east, things were a bit grayer. The first thing I noticed, having arrived 50 minutes before sunrise, was that there wasn't a stitch of morning color on the horizon. As the morning grew brighter, it was apparent that a haze and clouds were blanketing the eastern sky. No color was forming and my preconceived notions of a marvelous colorful morning was quickly dissipating.

The above shot was taken about 20 minutes before sunrise. I thought this would make an excellent spot for images as it has worked for me in the past. With no color or sky definition, I decided to keep the sky to a minimum and instead, concentrate on the subjects at hand and wave motions. I shot about 10 frames of this scene. This one I kept and the other 9 have been discarded.

It looked as if the morning was going to end this way. But I then noticed that several fisherman had pocketed different portions of the beach. I find their activity interesting as it is also an activity of solitude, much like photography can be.

As I approached where the gentleman below was fishing from, I decided to work this fishing theme. Being that the morning was turning out to be pale and monochromatic, I decided to work a theme. My theme of this fishing would be to show the activity of surf fishing in the way of shape and form. I would also keep a distance, so the viewer would have to watch as if from a window. A lot of photography is successful because of intimacy. I wanted to to see if I could capture that, but from afar, rather than up close.

This guy was setting up his poles and as I passed by I asked if he minded if I photographed him doing his thing. He said he didn't mind. I them walked around and behind him so I was probably between 20 to 40 feet to his rear. He didn't seem to notice me much as he rarely turned to see what I was doing.

As he went about his business, I snapped shots, trying to work out my theme in a quasi silhouette form. Then a remarkable thing happened. The sun broke through the cloud barrier and in the haze of the morning became a nice red ball. Though the sky wasn't that interesting, I tried to work with the shape that it was giving me in relation to the fishing.

After shooting for a bit with the wide angle lens, I decided to try a longer focal length. My 100mm becomes a 150mm on the digital body and I found myself moving back quite a bit in order to frame shots the way I wanted them.

This image took some time to expose for properly. I wanted to keep as much in focus as possible, so I stopped down to f/16 which gave me a shutter speed of 1/40th. I focused on the fishing pole and that allowed for the rest of the scene to come into focus pretty good.

Again, I fired off several frames that met my satisfaction and deleted the rest. The fact that you can make out the fishing line also adds to the appeal of this image for me.

I floated around the scene thinking I was on to something. The morning hadn't worked out as I had initially planned but adapting to the situation helped me work over this situation with a renewed enthusiasm. Keeping with my intended theme, I saw that the guy had caught something. I wanted to grab the action of the pole bending. It didn't take him long nor did he make a whole lot of "pulls" with the pole but I was able to grab a few and this one (below) was the best.

He caught what looked to be a nice sized Striper. Again, I was going for shape and form and so I didn't really care for grabbing fine details.

I was only able to grab this one shot before he put it on the ground and measured it. I asked him how long? He responded 27 inches. I said, not bad. To show you what I know, he told me it needed to be 28 inches in order to be a keeper.

In no time at all, he walked back towards the surf and let it go. I see guys down here all the time fishing. I don't always see them catch anything but they find a devotion for it that you have to admire.

The tide started to come in and form the big tide pool that it does in this part of Sandy Hook. I had pretty much shot what I wanted. I can usually tell when my mind and I are spent. As I walked back to my car, I turned and saw this scene. I had a few frames left on the card, so I composed and shot a few of these. Again, it stayed with the theme of the day and left feeling pretty good about what I was able to accomplish.

So in conclusion, I would encourage you to look for themes. Sometimes your theme may be a preconceived idea before you shoot and other times they present themselves to you, you just have to be open to the idea of them and seize them when you recognize them. Of course this is easier said than done but I present this to the readers as a reminder that often times, opportunities are in abundance around us. Sometimes we have to kick start our brains to see them and make use of them.