I am fortunate – and a little frustrated. How come, you might ask? The component of being fortunate is the easier to explain, and luckily the more permanent. COVID-permitting, my work enables me to travel sometimes, to awesome places on other continents, to other cultures and into fancy climate zones. Lately that got my Nordic skin catch a lot of Arizona desert sun.
With good sunblock this is not the frustrating aspect though. Of course I took my lightweight travel camera and 2 lenses, and was determined to capture the Arizona look and feel. I still have a few more hours to experiment and retrospective editing is always an option, but at the moment I am pretty frustrated. Firstly, I am still learning how to operate my little CANON, as the big one is just too big for traveling light. Secondly, the light is challenging here. In the early morning shade, when the air is cool and pleasant, pictures tend to look a little on the blue side of the color spectrum. Once the sun is up, and as long as it is out, shadows are harsh, and exposure is a bit tricky. Sunny areas tend to show up as very bright, and spots in the shade overly dark. And finally around sunset, when the light is beautiful and temperatures bearable, the time window you have to cover every shot you want to cover is very narrow.
This is complaining on very high level, I know. And proof that I still have a lot of learning to do myself – and that basic editing of photos, like picture temperature and exposure, can be an absolute life saver! But as long as once in a while a lucky shot is among the ones captured, it hopefully keeps all of us motivated to keep going…
