Getting Your Photo Groove On After a Road Trip

It has been 28 days since I got back to Grand Marais after my road trip to South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, and North Dakota. I still feel like it was just yesterday, but it has been a month. If you drop out the photo workshop that I taught, I’ve shot just 8 days out of 28. That feels like I’ve lost my Photo Groove.

Back when I used to spend over 100 days a year on the road photographing the country, I never felt stagnant when getting home. I’d go out and shoot a couple of mornings or evenings and then I’d be right back on the road. It felt like I was always shooting because I was.

Since I made it home, I’ve gotten a few shots that I’ve wanted to get. For example, I got the shot below. This is normally a trickle of water in the spring and in the summer it dries up. I’ve never gotten a good shot of it, but we had a big rain event. So, I grabbed my camera gear and went to get the photo. It’s the best shot of this waterfall that I’ve gotten. It was 30 feet from where I parked my car on Highway 61.

Then I bushwhacked (I can’t say it was canoeable) down a river into a river canyon to a waterfall that I’ve been at once before — I had forgotten how dangerous it was to get into it until I got into it and remembered how dangerous it was to get into, and that I hadn’t told my wife where I was going, and it was out of cell service range, and I didn’t bring my InReach. But, hey, I got this shot, and it was a thrilling adventure!

And I got this shot of a kid doing a wheelie on Artist’s Point. Right afterwards he blew his tire landing wrong. I felt bad and gave him a $20. Then my wife saw him the next week and asked him if he was able to buy a new tire. He told her that he already had a spare at his house. I wonder what he used the $20 for. Hopefully, he put it into a helmet fund.

I also go this shot of the Hjordis on its first sunset sail of the season.

Maybe, just maybe, the number of days shooting isn’t a good measurement of a photo groove.

But…

There has to be a point at which there’s a balance between the number of days shooting photos and the number of good photos that you’re taking. At some point, you may not be shooting enough to keep your skills sharp enough to get good photos.

I’m not sure where that point is for me, but I can imagine that there is a point. I also know that unless I force myself to go outside with a camera that I will lose my photo groove. This is true even though I love photography! In times of unwillingness, compelling oneself to do is the only way to do.

I also know that unless you’re out there, you won’t get a photo of the Hjordis’ first sunset sail of the year or the dozen other great photos that I got that night as the conditions quickly changed. This next photo is from that same night. It was crazy how different the condition changed in 30 minutes.

From the photos I’ve included here and the ones that I’ve taken since I got back, it seems like I’ve been getting shots. So what is a Photo Groove anyway? Is it a clickbait title for this newsletter to get you to read this far or is it a real thing? If it is the former why does it feel like the latter?

Maybe it’s just the swarms of mosquitos that are out at sunrise and sunset right now?

Maybe I’m just not feeling it.

Maybe I’ll feel like it next week.

Maybe I have so much to do that I can’t get outside.

Maybe it is one excuse or another.

Well…

Maybe you just have to force yourself to go shoot. Maybe doing is the lone recourse.

For those of us who love photography and shooting photos, I don’t think we have a choice. We don’t have the luxury of being in a Photo Groove every single time we shoot. We need to go shoot.

Maybe you’ll be in the groove. Maybe you won’t.

Regardless, you’ll be creating photos and that’s groovy.

Until next time

Have you lost your photo groove? If so, what did you do to get it back? Let me know, and I’ll see you again in two weeks.

The parting photo is an infrared photo I took on a bike ride last week. I was trying the Nikon Z 28mm f/2.8 to see if it would work for IR. It has a bad hot spot, so it doesn’t. But I did get this photo that I like of a building on the bike path.