What To Shoot....Where to Shoot

[BlueEyedEagle]

Hello Everyone,

I live in a small town in Wisconsin, where there is nothing much to look at but farms, small buildings and an occasional beautiful sunset. My wife and I like to travel and we go on weekend adventures almost every week. We always take the camera bag with us, just in case we see something of significance to shoot. But, what is starting to get me frustrated, is the lack of anything interesting to shoot. There just isn't anything that is interesting enough to shoot, except for an occasional shot of an old silo, an old windmill or a abandoned structure here and there.

So, my question is; Besides having to travel for hundreds of miles to find some neat geology to shoot. What would you suggest to shoot living in such an uninteresting landscape, here in the middle of the flatlands of the dairy state?

 

[SquarePeg]

Hello Everyone,

I live in a small town in Wisconsin, where there is nothing much to look at but farms, small buildings and an occasional beautiful sunset. My wife and I like to travel and we go on weekend adventures almost every week. We always take the camera bag with us, just in case we see something of significance to shoot. But, what is starting to get me frustrated, is the lack of anything interesting to shoot. There just isn't anything that is interesting enough to shoot, except for an occasional shot of an old silo, an old windmill or a abandoned structure here and there.

So, my question is; Besides having to travel for hundreds of miles to find some neat geology to shoot. What would you suggest to shoot living in such an uninteresting landscape, here in the middle of the flatlands of the dairy state?

I don’t know much about that part of the country, I’m sure others who do will chime in...meanwhile, Have you considered Astro photography? One of my challenges with that here in New England is getting to a spot with open skies and no light pollution. Sounds like your area may be perfect for that. Throw a silo or old barn in the foreground and tada!

 

[TheLandscaper]

When I get the same feeling I start looking up for new locations. Searching for geotagged photos in Instagram or on Flickr map might be a good option.
And by the way Squarepeg suggested a very good idea. Taking nightscape images with some abandoned objects in the foreground and starry nightsky in the back may give some productive results.
I am not sure if I can post links to some youtube channels but if so I can share a good channel where astrophotography is described in a very detailed way.

P.S. Try also to look differently on the locations you already know well. It might be good light and weather conditions that can also help to take stunning photos.

 

[Original katomi]

If standard images no longer work for you think of a title shoot. Play Crime scene detective photo the changes, a tile that’s the wrong colour, an alteration to the building, and so on

 

[mrca]

Ernst Haas said he didn't want to photo new things, he wanted to photo old things in a new way. When he taught in Yosemite, he would provide his students with a viewing card. Take a piece of cardboard and cut a 2x3 ratio opening, 2"x3" is easy to use, 24 mm x36 mm replicates a full frame sensor/35 mm film. It's FREE. Here's the drill, do it sitting in your chair. In different rooms, in your back yard, in your garage. Sit or stand in one place and looking through the viewing card, find 10 photos. Look around with it, zoom in and out. And with the 24mm opening the distance from your eye to the card, that's the lens length. You can mark the number of mm on the long side of the card so you can measure the distance it's from your eye. There is a wonderful professional seascape photographer in Pt Reyes that makes an effort to go out every day as he walks the beach to find new images. It gets your itchy trigger finger off the shutter button. It forces you to take time to look at what is in the frame, see if there are things that shouldn't be there or if there is perhaps a better angle. Do this for a couple of weeks and I guarantee you will have plenty of shots to edit just around your home.

 

[Soocom1]

My issue isn't a lack of things to shoot, but more the time to go shooting.

A suggestion:

If you start playing around with monochrome settings or go true B&W film, you could take many a moody shots with ND filters, red filters and green filters or even IR filters to those old barns, wood character, farm implements, etc.

Trust me when I say that such shots garnish attention from folks who live the life.

The same is true for urban settings.

 

[Derrel]

I heard that they almost closed the U.S. Patent Office back in 1878 because everything that was possible to invent had already been invented. I'm not sure if this is true or not.

 

[Derrel]

Small town Wisconsin? I would imagine that there are things in your immediate area that would be quite wondrous to people who live in say Tokyo, or Berlin, or Saigon.

I bet you have some pretty cool ice fishing photo opportunities within 50 miles of where you live. To people who live in warmer tropical climates, the idea of catching fish through holes drilled in the ice must be quite incredulous.

What about all those cheese head people we hear about who go to Green Bay Packers games?

 

[Derrel]

 

[mrca]

Derrel, exactly. When I took out photo groups on outings it was eye opening for some folks to see what others saw that they just walked by. Heck, I photo people because no one has EVER taken that photo of that person before. It is unique. Not the billionth shot from Tunnel View in Yosemite. The last time I shot there I wasn't in the line up of cameras on a tripod. No, I bought a speed light on a pole shooting through an umbrella and had a lady sit on the wall. Darkened the valley with shutter speed, took 50 lbs off her with dark shadows. Got one of my favorite comments, her ex husband was ticked it made her look so good. Ended up dating her. If folks try that viewing card just from their chair, I think they will be surprised.

 

[Derrel]

Oyster boat at anchor in Tillamook Bay.

600 foot tall Multnomah Falls, the state's most popular tourist attraction, with over 1 million visitors per year.

A hot air balloon being inflated for an early morning flight at the annual spring Wooden Shoe Tulip Festival, near Woodburn, Oregon.

Crepuscular rays, commonly called God's rays, at Seal Rock Wayside. 10 seconds off of Highway 101.

These were all taken within 2 hours drive, at the speed limit,of my home. I live in Oregon, which is kind of a boring state according to many people, but there are lots of things to photograph. Based upon those few web articles that I found earlier, I would expect that Wisconsin has some very nice scenery.

 

[Foques]

When I was just starting, I had the very same complaint.
One of the photographers whose work I followed published a set of exercises for beginners, and one of them said that there is no such thing as a location with nothing to shoot, and the task was exactly that - find something to shoot no matter where you were.
This helped to learn not only the camera settings and lens combinations, but taught to open the eyes and find something worth taking a picture of.

There is a book on amazon called Photographer's playbook - it has scores of such exercises.

 

[Mikhal]

There are 66 state parks in Wisconsin, there are several national parks.

There are lakes, marshes, forests, bluffs, waterfalls, hills over looking the Mississippi river, light houses on the great lakes, and yes farm land. Just the other day I saw a field in the perfect light that had to have had close to 500+ bales of hay just sitting there like a painting begging to be photographed.

If you are just looking for structures there are a lot of old barns and woodsheds, you can also hit some of the towns and cities for a good mix of modern buildings and turn of the century construction.

Sometimes it is our perspective that has to change, not the scenery. The old adage is true, sometimes you can't see the forest for the trees.

 

[zombiesniper]

There's always something to shoot. Even in an empty room.

The problem isn't the location. You just need to work a bit more on trying to see things that most would ignore.

If I'm out shooting wildlife and that day isn't producing any images, I immediatley start looking around me. In the trees, on the ground, at the plants, even the dirt or grass or whatever is there.
Bye the time I get home I'll still have a couple of hundred images even if none of them are wildife. The hardest thing for most people to work on is seeing "that" subject, whatever it is in a different/intersting way and being able to capture it.

Both of the images below were taken simply because I got bored waiting for nature to give me something.
Are they great? No. But it did give me an opportunity to shoot and learn.

Now get out there and challenge yourself to never come home with an empty card.