Latourell Into the Ice (2013)
Latourell Falls. Oregon. December 10, 2013
Copyright © 2015 A. F. Litt , All Rights Reserved
Photo of the Day by A. F. Litt: November 27, 2015
I realized that a lot of folks might not know what these "photos of the day" posts are all about for me. Essentially, my rules, set by myself, for myself, are to post a previously unedited, unreleased photo as often as possible (every work day is a goal, though possibly one that is unobtainable at this point) and to try to write a line or two, at least, relating to the photo (usually), as well...
As for frequency, I want to keep this rolling, so I am not holding myself to posting each and every day, lest I get discouraged and decide that I am just too busy at this time to continue with this "project," and recently it seems like posts are the exception, not the rule, but I stumble along anyway... I've abandoned this project for long periods in the past for that very reason and I don't want to do that again right now.
This all really started back in 2011 as a way for me to force myself to work on photography every day. I was much better about posting most days back then, but as other ventures picked up, and as family life went through a busy and complicated few years, I set the project aside for a couple years.
It was feeling like a burden, and I felt like I'd accomplished most of the goals I'd set for myself with the project, which at the time involved working every day on digital photography (most of my serious work before was done with black and white film in these places called "darkrooms," not on computers), and to establish myself somewhat as a photographer.
The same rules applied back then, posting a previously unedited, unreleased photo, but without the writing component which is a new addition to the 2015 incarnation of this project...
Aside from feeling I'd met a lot of my goals back in 2012, and general busyness in other departments, another big reason why I abandoned the project for awhile was that I found myself rushing the work too much, and that I was not taking the time to select great photos (ones I love, at least) and that I was rushing the edit on them.
So, rather than flooding everyone with sub-par work, I thought it was best to pull the plug on the endeavour for a while.
Earlier this year, though, I realized that I was spending a tiny percentage of my time working on photography outside of the stills for the Recreating the HCRH project, which tend to be more survey oriented rather than artistic, by nature, and I felt that I needed to start forcing myself to spend some time working on my still photography again. Plus, I had several years of photos sitting on my hard drive collecting many layers of digital dust, and it seemed as though those shots might never make it out into the world without returning at least some of my focus back towards still photography.
Back in January, at the dawn of 2015, I tried to relaunch this project. I really only made it a few days, though, before the video work piled up and I found myself feeling like it just wasn't the right time to re-launch the POTD. But the photos were still piling up, and the work on photography still wasn't happening...
A couple months ago, though, I started feeling almost caught up, so I tried again, this time changing the expectations on myself away from rigidly posting every day to posting as much as possible, and that is where we are now. I post if I have time and I find a photo I like. I skip it if nothing is speaking to me or if I just do not have time. This should keep the quality somewhat decent (no guarantees... My taste, not yours! And sometimes I do post photos that have more sentimental value than artistic value, but then it will be explained in the written part of the post), and it lessens the risk of me abandoning the project all together due to feeling like I don't have the time to put the proper effort in.
Because of that, sometimes it will truly be the photo of the day, sometimes the photo of the week, sometimes the photo of the every once in awhile, but by giving myself the flexibility to post like that, hopefully I will posting more than a handful of shots every year. I am still calling it the "Photo of the Day," but it might not happen every day. It seems the right name for a project like this and I do hope to be consistently posting more than once a week, so...
For today's photo, I am revisiting the icy winter of 2012 / 2013... There was not much snow, really, but there was a lot of ice around the Gorge's falls, and they were spectacular. I've got a few of Multnomah that have never been posted from this trip that will emerge at some point, but I decided to post one up from Latourell. I've put a few of the shots from day at Latourell out before, but I was never happy with the edits. Who knows? I may hate this one too, on later review, but I wanted to take another swing at getting a photo that I liked out into the world from this set.
That is it for today. I'll be back tomorrow, or next week, or in a couple weeks... But, because of the new approach to this, I am, at a minimum, confident that I'll be posting again, sooner rather than later.
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