Tag Archives: Naivasha

Blown away

How long has it been since you were blown away by something: a view, a picture, an act of cheer genius by somebody, … It doesn’t happen too often, does it? When thinking of photography, these days everybody is a photographer with a platform to show his or her work. This means you come across a lot of shots, yet only every so often do you come across some work that literally blows you away, because it’s different, because somebody clearly had a vision and has put a lot of work into shaping that vision. In the recent past, to me that has been the work of Mate Bence, check it out here and decide for yourself.

More often than not, you have to prepare and do some effort in looking for things that can blow you away, such as the volcano which Sietske and myself climbed and which has gotten some air in the press last week (Burning love, man proposes to his girlfriend 11000 ft up an active volcano). Very often though you don’t have to go far to be blown away, yet you have to create the opportunity to make it happen, something that is highly unlikely to happen by getting stuck behind your computer. You have to go out there and be ready when the moment presents itself, either because you created it or out of simple luck (every so often it happens you are in the right place at the right time without having planned for it, yet even then, you went out, so you definitely had your part in allowing luck to get to you)! To bring this point home, please find this shot by my mother in law, she went out, always has her eyes open and always carries a camera and this shot is a result of that, I love the color and the pose.

Canon Powershot G7, 1/800, f/4
To end with, I also want to share these two shots, a sky that blew me away during a work visit, and boy, was I happy I carried my camera.
Canon 7D, Canon EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM
Canon 7D, Canon EF 24-105mm L IS USM @ 24 mm, 1/80, f/11, ISO 200
All this being said, I guess the point I wanted to make is the following: be ready to blown away, create the opportunity and when it presents itself, let it happen. By doing so, chances become much higher that you’ll move from a happy snap shooter who gets the occasional shot towards somebody who creates work that blows people of their feet.
All the best,
Guy