Younes Bounhar Photography

Read and React

Here is what I drove 1400km to shoot this past week-end:

Obviously, what I had in mind was a glorious sunset/sunrise and some delicious light to perfectly highlight this spectacular setting. That would have been the ideal scenario. But life is rarely about the ideal scenario. Life throws at you whatever it throws at you and all you can do is read and react. So, yeah, I get to this spot, and the winds are such that I can barely stand up, let alone my tripod and camera set-up. As we draw nearer to sunset a heavy cloud cover (not in the forecast) moves in. And to make things more fun, the hike back down would have been waaay to dangerous to do in the dark, as the trail was fairly steep and still pretty icy for the season.

So here I am, facing this decision: do I stick to the original plan and wait it out on top of the cliff, or do I just go back down and find something else…I did drive a heck of a lot…Common sense prevailed. I went back down. No glorious sunset, no delicious light, no spectacular setting. But if life throws a curve ball at you, it’s no reason to back down, so you answer with your own curve ball. Challenge and adversity are the very engine of creativity. So you look around you. You meant to capture a grand landscape? Nothing says you can’t go for the intimate composition, right? So that’s it I guess, a long diatribe to basically say, keep your options and mind open, know when to switch gears or cut your losses, try something else.

And if it fails?

You know what?

It’s not the end of the world. There will be other sunsets, other grand landscapes, other opportunities. Just enjoy your time and remember that photography is just the cherry on the sunday…