Swans in Amsterdam Noord

365project: Day 4

Day 4.

Lesson of the day: never settle, sort of.

Yesterday had me quite concerned for how I would go about the explore, photo, edit, post, blog sequence on a normal working day. My plan of action was to quickly grab my bike over lunch to see what I can find, get a shot and be happy with it.

I stepped out the door straight into a super bright day with clear blue skies. See the day 3 blog to find out how much I like clouds. However, I immediately got an idea of what to do with such bright light. Check out Ken’s Instagram to see what I was envisioning. It seems to be a simple recipe, bright light combined with empty brightly coloured geometric industrial buildings. As luck would have it there is a pink abandoned petrol station about 2 minutes from our house.

I did not land the shot.

Not quite sure what to change to get it right, but it is definitely something I would like to practice since it can be such aesthetically pleasing content.

Knowing I did not quite get what I wanted, I took a different route home to try shoot some plants I often see that have an interesting pattern to them. For this I wanted to get an abstract type shot with nothing but the plants in the photo and the sunlight from behind adding some depth.

Back home I quickly downloaded the photos and tried editing them but I was not satisfied at all. I was conflicted. How much effort is it worth putting in for every day’s photo? 365 days are a lot and I am bound to have some bad days with below average photos.

I wouldn't have it.

A couple of hours later I decided to try again an go for a short walk. Just outside our house there is a little lake/river type thing which I have often photographed from our house but never from the other side.

Swans, and their babies! That’s what was awaiting me. If I settled for the previous attempts I would’ve been completely unaware of their presence.