Alright, so I spoke last week about how going to the same spot over and over can get boring. This week, however, I wanted to talk a little bit more about why I do it anyway, by illustrating how a scene changes throughout the year.

With that in mind, I’ll point a couple things out. First, last week’s picture and this week’s picture were taken about a mile apart on the Foothills Parkway, but essentially the same view. I’m wider in this week’s shot, and the camera is twisted a little more South, but it’s the same mountains, etc. Last week’s photo was taken on February 23, and this week’s shot was taken on April 21, so basically two months apart. In that time, you’ll note that the sun has pulled more to the North (left in the photo, it was out of the frame last week, but would have been dead center in that photo if it were the same time of year as this one), and the trees are all nice and green this week, versus no leaves last week. You can get fog here in East Tennessee just about any time of year, but with last week’s picture you can see tons of moisture in the air, along with lots of wispy fog hanging in the valley. This week’s picture obviously has none. Last week’s sunrise wasn’t spectacular, but the light got REALLY nice after the sun popped up, while in this week’s the sunrise was amazing, but then quickly faded to nothing.

I could keep going, but you get the point. Different conditions can make for vastly different photos, and that’s ultimately the point, and what I have to remind myself of often. Just because I get a photo I’m proud of, doesn’t mean the location can’t yield another one that I’ll also be proud of! 🙂 So, to that end, I got up again this morning and walked up Foothills Parkway (which was closed due to last night’s storms) in a very light rain with an old friend that was in town, and photographed yet another sunrise, and I’ll probably do it a hundred more times in the future.

–Dan Thompson

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