Mixing Things Up — Donna Hopkins

I’m thoroughly enjoying the posts by Martin Kaninsky on Photography, Reconsidered. In today’s post, How to Stop Taking the Same Photographs Over and Over Again, this question hit home for me:

So how do you know when you have found your way of photographing, and when you are just making photographs you already know how to make?

I think about this a lot. I’ve been taking pictures of the same places and the same kinds of things for decades. I wonder if my way of seeing is getting stale. And then I remember that I am naturally hard on myself. I take a deep breath and look for the evidence. I already know how to take a picture like this one. But I would normally walk past this scene because of that mixture of light. The dappled light presents a challenge. So does that wide open patch of skylight and the tree line across the shore. There is a part of me that is confounded by so many variables. What to leave in and what to leave out. The goal isn’t to make every photograph different. It is to leave room for the situation to change your mind.