Are you a patient person, able to delay gratification for the sake of something bigger and better down the road? Do you think you could wait two years to get the exact photo you wanted? This awesome video follows a photographer on the quest to make an image that took two years of careful planning and waiting for just the right moment.
Coming to you from Nigel Danson, this interesting video follows him as he discusses an image that took him two years to create. I really appreciated two things about this video. First, in a culture that is very much about fast turnarounds and instant gratification, to see someone devote so much time, energy, and patience to a single image is both admirable and highly refreshing. Second, it really highlights the importance of previsualizing images and understanding how to plan to get them. Instead of waiting and hoping for a good shot, Danson knew in his head the exact photo he wanted to take, and he used every tool at his disposal to carefully figure out how the conditions needed to come together and to then monitor them until they did. And I think his work and patience were well worth the effort. Check out the video above to see how it was done.
I stalked a cemetery for 4 years trying to get shots when the ground phlox was in bloom, but they mow it way too often for my liking and I kept missing it. I finally got there this year before they mowed it down, it was glorious.
Im a huge fan of the PlanItPro app on android, it shows the location of the sun, moon, meteor showers, and a tons of other useful stuff like the Bortle scale.
Didn't require any hiking, but did take two years, since cotton typically isn't planted in a particular field every year, and the time window between being ready for picking and the actual harvest can be quite brief, plus the usual, in the form of appropriate weather. The white freight cars were an unplanned bonus: https://www.flickr.com/photos/georgehamlin/38417576665/