Losing my landscape mojo

A few posts ago I talked about my general lack of interest in taking photos over the past couple of years, and how this might be turning around with macro photography. Hoping that this macro passion might re-kindle my excitement in general, I decided to head out last evening to photograph the sunset at my local beach. In years gone by, an outing such as this would have got me very enthused and eager to be out with camera in hand. Every sunrise and sunset was a photo opportunity, and I could get rather grumpy if I missed capturing a beautiful sunset.

Wind-sprayed waves, Cobden beach. OM-D E-M1 with Lumix 45-150mm. f/5.6 @ 1/200th, ISO 400

The signs for a colourful sunset looked promising, although the wind was very strong on the exposed beach. Not great for setting up a tripod and trying to keep a camera still - but excellent for capturing some fairly impressive wave spray!

I put the 45-150mm Panasonic on my E-M1 and racked it all the way out to 150mm to get as close to the spray as I could. The setting sun was back-lighting the waves perfectly and supplying enough light that I could hand-hold the camera in the wind and still get sharp images. The image stabilisation in the E-M1 (and Olympus cameras in general) is the best in the world, and is truly impressive. But image stabilisation won't correct subject movement, so a decently fast shutter speed was also required.

Washed up. Olympus E-M1 with Lumix 12-35mm f2.8. f/5.6 @ 1/60th, ISO 200. + Polariser

I had headed down to my local beach for two reasons. One - it was close and I didn't have to travel far. And two - I knew the tide was going out and an old shipwreck that I'm fond of photographing would be revealed on the beach.

The wreck itself has broken into two sections. The image above is of the section that is higher up the beach and away from the water at low tide. I liked the deep red rust colour complementing the blue of the sky and the neutral grey of the beach pebbles, especially when using a polariser on the lens to intensify the blue of the sky. I'm attracted to old rusty machinery in the natural environment as a subject anyway (who isn't), so it was an obvious choice for a quick snap.

Cobden Beach Gold. E-M1 with 45-150mm. f/7.1 @ 1/160th, ISO 400

Then the sunset kicked-off. And boy, did it kick-off! The image above is NOT processed with extra colour vibrancy or saturation increase. That's really what it was like. Just the deepest, richest, golden-orange I've seen in the sky for quite a while. It was beautiful to witness, and yes, exciting to capture. I'm glad I was out, and glad that I got it on an SD card. Been there, done that...

Shipwreck at Sunset, Cobden beach. E-M1 with Lumix 12-35mm. f/5.6 @ 1/60th, ISO 200

What I was really there to photograph - the shipwreck exposed in the water - was a tougher challenge than I had expected it to be. The 'low' tide didn't really go out far enough to get some long-exposure sea interaction happening, and this meant I couldn't really get close enough for the compositions I was after.

I took dozens of images, varying my angle to try and get what I wanted. The above image is the best I could do. It's OK, but really doesn't 'do' it for me.

And really, that's the feeling that I get from all the images I took that evening. When I got home to process them, I looked at them all in Lightroom and thought 'meh'. I practically had to force myself to process any of them. And the sunset was stunning! 

Am I losing my photography mojo? Finally. After all these years?

I turned my computer off in disgust, and went and had a shower. Hands up who does some of their most productive thinking in the shower? (Yes, I see those hands...). I think I've come to the conclusion that I haven't lost my passion for photography (I'm very keen to get underway with some macro fungi images), but that, after 20+ years living in the same place, I've finally lost interest in my local landscape locations.

I've probably photographed down at my local beach, local lake, local waterfall, local rocks, local (you get the idea) literally hundreds of times - and I'm just not that interested anymore. Even in great light.

I think that when I returned from my amazing photography holiday two years ago, where everything was new and exciting, and found myself back among the all-too familiar, I just lost interest. Familiarity really does sometimes breed contempt.

Which sounds terrible. And it partly is terrible. I'm so lucky, as a photographer, to live in such a beautiful, and accessible, part of the world. I should be grateful. And I am. Honest. But I am also (if I'm still being honest) a bit bored with my local landscapes. As landscapes.

Does that mean I'll stop taking local landscape photos? For a while probably - yeah. In fact, I've already practically stopped as it is. Does that mean I'll never take another local landscape image? No - course not. It just may be a while....