Photography (General) Jairo Martinez Photography (General) Jairo Martinez

Chasing the shot...

I am struggling. I am struggling to capture that moment / that shot. I guess it is because I am coming from the gear phase and not I am actually using my camera for its purpose. The purpose of taking pictures.About 3 weeks ago I went up to Fort St. Pieter to make an attempt to photograph the Milky Way. It was around 1 am when I got up there. My wife was a bit worried since it might not be safe to go up there in the middle of the night. But I went anyway!When I walked to the top of St. Pieter it was pretty dark. I heard some people talking, and when I looked in the direction from which the talk was coming from I saw a group of students sitting around a camp fire. The were drinking, laughing, and their was music playing.I went on to look for a spot to take my picture. I have seen all the tutorials on YouTube about photographing the Milk Way and so I thought that I was ready to do this. I took out my tripod, setup the camera, and started to take the pictures. Soon enough I realised that this was not going to be a success. This is due to light pollution that was coming from the cit of Maastricht. But, something in me was telling me not to give up. I stayed up there for about an hour. That is also the window I had to photograph the Milky Way according to Photopills, the app that I am using to track the sun, moon, stars, and Milky Way.When I was walking back to my car knowing that I have failed to make that picture, I got a happy feeling. Happiness because I was doing something that I wanted to do and liked doing. Did I fail on this attempt, yes! Was this the end of my photography journey? No!In the mean time I went on with watching more tutorials on YouTube and talking to photographers I know and ask their opinions about my pictures. One of them is Michaelangelo77. Great photographer!Yesterday was the birthday of our son. I took some pictures but since I was also running around trying to get the BBQ going, I was not rely focused to take pictures. Lighting was horrible and I kept fighting with the camera. I took over 30 picture. I missed focus in a lot of them.What all this is telling me is that I am not there yet and there is a long way to go. I have to learn to use my camera.In the mean time I will keep taking pictures and chasing that shot. Whatever it may be...

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