Lessons from the Field: 2024 Photographic Review

The typical commercial airliner cruises along at an average of 500 miles per hour while leveled off at a steady speed somewhere around 35,000 feet above the surface of the Earth. I guess it is no wonder then that this year seemed to literally fly by when I was traveling for over 200 days! Between personal and work travel, I hit my personal record of days on the road/away from home coming in at 219 total.

With that much time in transit in cars, vans, trains, planes, boats, and boots as well as in the field, it only makes sense that the lessons I have learned this year have come from away from the computer.

2024 was also what I call a "King Tides" year; a year in which I had some really amazing highs but also some exceptionally low lows and a ton of dramatic, fast moving, change in-between. Not only was I in transit a ton, but I found myself dealing with lots of challenges from photographing an international marketing campaign to a cross-country move, while working with a variety of organizations and juggling a few health scares (because I guess I'm starting to hit that age too.)

Looking back over all this last year has thrown at me and the things I voluntarily took on, here are my top photographic lessons from the field.

"Early Morning Hussle" A male lesser prairie chicken rushes to challenge another male encroaching on his part of the lek. A lek being the performance grounds where males show off to hopefully catch the eye of a female. Taken in Kansas during the annual Audubon of Kansas Lek Trek Festival.

Lesson 1 - There is such a thing as "Too Much of a Good Thing"

Please do not get me wrong. I LOVE what I do. ... But... 219 days is a lot of travel. I think I found my upper limit for travel days while still trying to maintain an actual home base. It really felt like I either needed to be a full time nomad with everything with me at all times or I needed to be home more frequently to keep up with tasks that way.

As with anything there were pros and cons to so much travel. Pros were: I did accomplish a ton in the field. I have more images to edit than time to edit them right now. The people I met, guides and co-leaders I was able to work with, and clients I guided were amazing! Because of this year's travels I have added several locations to my tour and workshop lists and have been able to help even more photographers explore their world and expand their creative skills.

Co-leader David W. Shaw and some of our participants during a lunch break while in the Brooks Mountain Range (AK) for our Fall Photo Camp this year.

Downsides have been that my social media and other business-type work has gotten backlogged. This leads to long sessions in front of the computer whenever I do return from the field and equates to very few actual days "off." Such a travel-intense schedule has also made it hard to keep up with non-traveling friends and family beyond just the cursory Facebook chats or quick phone call.

So, for those who think this type of travel schedule is for you, I highly recommend a trial period rather than booking an entire year at a high pace all at once.

An annulated tree boa hangs as placed during a photo shoot in the Costa Rican rainforest. This was one in a series of images captured while I was working on assignment for Tamron to showcase what the new 90mm Macro for Sony e-mount bodies is capable of producing. During this assignment I photographed in four different ecosystems and locations in under 72 hours. Squished between a tour in Alaska and travel to the Azores, I had just a few days to get this done. It was extremely exciting and I cannot thank Birding Experiences and Papa's Place enough for their help!

Lesson 2 - Flexibility is Key

Whether it is weather related, the wildlife doesn't show up as expected, or the accommodations have changed management since your last visit, it is very rare to have a trip go absolutely perfectly without some sort of hitch. How you react to a stressful situation can make the difference between it being a blip that gets handled so you can go about the rest of your trip or such a sour note that it is the only thing talked about the rest of the tour. I cannot thank my participants enough for being so amazing and being flexible so that when things did occur they were just blips! In both my tours and personal trips, I try to build in safety nets in the timelines so that, when bumps in the road do slow us down, we can still keep on track.

In one recent personal trip, my husband and I ended up having to extend by almost a week to finish our business dealings after things slipped sideways for a few days. While not originally planned for in the least, I knew things like our airfare was booked with no-fee changeable tickets and that our dogs were in safe hands with family to stay the additional days. Additionally, if we had suffered further delays due to winter weather or canceled flights, we also had travel insurance. With the additional time, I was able to explore further and found new spots to photograph.

By keeping yourself flexible, you are able to more quickly pivot and positively respond to changes (both physically and mentally). I highly encourage you to make sure your travel and photography plans retain this feature as well.

Pre-dawn light illuminated the famous South Dakota Badland formations under stormy skies. To give you an idea of how dark this scene actually was, the exposure time for this was 360 seconds (6 minutes)!

Lesson 3 - Try Something New (Photographically)

This past spring I was invited to be a guest photography leader on a couple of Muench Workshops trips. While I had a blast working with the wonderful team at Muench, the two workshops I supported had elements that differed from my usual tours.

The first element is that Muench specializes in photography workshops over tours. This workshop designation means there are large blocks of time dedicated to classroom learning, editing, and image review. Tours typically focus on spending as much time as possible in the field and in a location, allowing the participants to edit and review after hours or after the tour is complete. I primarily lead tours, focusing on in-field learning and giving participants maximum time in the field. However, I usually have one workshop each year, co-led by Gary Randall, and that is our Colors of Caddo workshop since we do feel there is ample time for both field and computer work if participants want it.

The second element that was almost completely new to me, that I encountered while assisting on the Muench workshops, was astrophotography. As I consider myself solar powered, charged from just before sun up until sun down, this was certainly a challenge to keep pace and add in the 2am wake up for spring Milky Way. If this is something you want to learn though, there is no one better than Muench's own Wayne Suggs to teach you and I highly encourage anyone looking for an astrophotography workshop sign up with Wayne.

My take on an astro image. Wayne teaches a well researched and well tested post-processing method to retain ultimate sharpness throughout the image. That process does require utilizing Photoshop for layers. I opted to use only a single frame and Lightroom for this image however. Each artist has their own way of approaching subjects based on goals and desires. It can be highly educational to listen to multiple photographers you enjoy discuss or teach on a topic, such as editing. That way, you can then pick and choose what elements of their workflow works best for you personally.

That said, David Rosenthal of Muench Workshops also showcased a new-to-me style of photography I had not considered in many years: infrared (IR). While we were camping during the Wild Utah workshop, David had his mirrorless infrared camera out and was capturing some magnificent images with it that made several of us, including Wayne and I, a bit envious.

An IR image created on an overcast morning in Big Cypress Bayou near Caddo Lake, TX. I had no idea that infrared would work so well even on overcast days as I had heard it more referred to as a way to take advantage of brighter light/midday situations.

With the updates in technology so that a mirrorless camera converted to IR still retains its ability to photograph the color spectrum with the use of a filter, I couldn't help but invest in a converted Sony A7RIV body from Kalari Visions. My grand plans to play with it in the desert over the summer fell short, but I finally started playing with it towards the end of the year when I took it to Caddo Lake and then onto the Azores. All I'm going to say is that I'm kind of addicted now! It is a different way of seeing and goes beyond just a traditional black and white. I'm looking forward to many more years with this as a supplemental form of photography beyond traditional color spectrum work.

Even in winter, the Azores are full of lush greenery; grasses tall and swaying with the wind as the evergreen trees stand witness to shifting light. Yet, by using infrared, greens illuminate brightly allowing me to almost see these fields as snowy white rather than vibrant green.

Lesson 4 - Same Old Isn't Always the Same Old

I had someone ask me if I get tired of going to the same locations each year (talking about places like Japan and Texas). My response was, "Do you get tired of going home?" To me, while I may add new locations and take away locations from my tour schedule, there are those - like Japanese Winter Wildlife, Caddo Lake and whooping cranes in Texas, the Faroe Islands, Costa Rica, and this year's most recent addition, the Azores - that will always be on my list because they resonate like home to me. I am a tumbleweed at heart with no real foundational roots that call me back to some long tended homestead or geographical area. Thus, through my travels and camera I have found locations that meld nature, culture, and adventure into an inviting mix that is both warm and welcoming.

"Home Test" - Ask yourself and be fully truthful, if you had to just sit and do average daily tasks (cook, clean, go grocery shopping, fill the car with fuel) would you still be good with the area? Or are you only there because the photography is worth the effort of being there?

Even for places that while I love visiting year after year, but I would not want to live full time (looking at you Nome, Alaska). Going back time and again, allows me a familiarity with the landscape, with the wildlife, and with the people, that those who only come for just a season or two don't necessarily tap into.

Additionally, Nature is rarely ever the same. I can visit the same section of river on the same week each year for four years in a row and never see the same conditions or same herds of wild horses interacting together.

Foal steals river grass from his dam to avoid having to snorkel for it himself. Very few foals are born in this wild herd due to the application of hormonal darts by a management group that allows the Salt River wild horses to roam free without incurring government round-ups that other wild herds suffer. We were very luck this year to see this young one and a yearling from last year while on my Wild Horses of Arizona tour.

Or, as I was able to observe in Hokkaido, Japan this past February, a very rare occurrence of a white-naped crane overwintering with the non-migratory red-crowned cranes that are local to the area. This was only the third time in recorded history a white-naped crane had been observed in this part of the country.

The rare winter visitor, a white-naped crane, in flight. Such a beautiful bird, I kind of wish more of them would winter in Hokkaido.

Lesson 5 - Allow Yourself Grace

As a professional in this career field, I often feel the pressure to create. That if I'm out and not creating 5-star images I'm somehow a failure. One of the biggest lessons I have learned this year is that we, myself included, can all give ourselves a bit more grace. Creativity for some may flow better when under pressure, like toothpaste from a tube; however, for me, I have learned that is not how I work. It also does not seem to be how many of my clients work best based on what I have seen in the field.

So, give yourself that breathing room. Yes, when we are traveling and out on tour we want to make the most of it, but not at the expense of everything else. If you are tired, rest. Cold? Go warm up. Want to try a wide angle lens when everyone else is using a long lens? Go for it! Experiment. Let your creativity explore. Even if it doesn't work out, you still tried and now you have one more experience in your mental tool box than those around you might otherwise have.

Early on in the year, I was struggling mentally due to my husband's career moving us back to a city I loathe. This impacted my work both in the field and out of it, and I had to learn to give myself the mental acceptance to not be okay and take things slower in order to get through. In doing so, I found myself looking at places I had visited before in different ways and it has led to an on-going personal photography project based in the Faroe Islands. The project explores ideas of modern and traditional life, and the coexistence of these within the culture and landscape of the Faroes utilizing a unique photographic style to showcase the idea. Here is one such image from the growing body of work.

"Transitions"

For those who join me in the Faroes this coming July, you will have the opportunity to learn how these images are taken and potentially contribute to the project.

While I have been working on my mental health, I also noticed my photography and editing style started shifting a bit darker than in past years. When I look at my top images from this year, many of them are not only darker toned but also taken during darker periods of time, be that macros at night, landscapes under stormy overcast skies, or wildlife that is backlit - heavy on shadows with a flare of rim lighting. So while previously I would have said that my portfolio could be described with the adjectives of "bright, light, and clean;" I don't know if those fully fit anymore and that is okay as well. Styles evolve as artist grow and change and I will allow myself the space for that rather than try to force a lightness I may or may not feel at a given time.

My Lightroom Catalog grid for 2024...or should I say a portion of it at least.

Finale

Five lessons to carry into 2025. I hope they are good reminders to you or have given you something to think on if the concepts are new. For me, I am looking forward to another year of meeting wonderful people in beautiful locations to create images that tell stories about both the subject and the artist. Will you be one of them?

Huge THANK YOU to all the amazing people in my life! May 2025 be even brighter!