Expectations

We all have expectations of one sort or another and especially as photographers hoping that perhaps the next shot will be the 'one', for example as a staff photographer for the newspaper I work for( Kelowna Daily Courier ), my editor hands me an assignment and he has a reasonable expectation that I will come back with a decent image for publication, ( which I am capable of doing ! ) and I also have an expectation of what I think the image should look like , I want my editors to be happy with my work, so the image I make may not be what I would like so I use my photographic technique and artistic talents to take their ideas and mix it up with my own ideas and turn out a nice image that we can all be happy with.

As a young man starting out in life with a passion for the arts I had hopes and dreams of making my living as a photographer, which I have thankfully been able to accomplish. Once in the biz so to speak I felt compelled to find an artistic outlet for my personal endeavours in photography as I felt this was very important to keep my passion of creativity and interest in photography fresh and alive, over the years I have created what I feel is a fine body of mostly black and white work that I can claim to be my own, which is a surprisingly a hard thing to do. One of the difficulties that I have encountered in finding my own true path when making my personal photographs is not to get side tracked by what I think the photo should be like or what others might think the photo should be like. For example if I make a particular photograph that everyone loves, I try not to go out and copy my previously popular photograph. When I am out with my camera I like to see something different and new, easy to write those words but not easy to put into practice.

Ideally I try not to have any preconceived expectations but to just go out and make pictures of what ever I find interesting to satisfy my soul, that's what I find most rewarding.

The above image was taken at East Sooke regional Park in December of 1987, it was one of those lovely mild winter days maybe around 10C, very nice temperature for that part of Canada in the winter time. I liked the low level sun which helped silhouette the branch of a Arbutus tree, and no I didn't have any expectations that I would make that shot when I started my sea shore hike earlier in the day ( to the best of my recollection ). Image made with a 4 x 5 view camera ( made by Tachihara ) and a 120mm lens ( made by Schneider ).