A viewer of some of my Plum Island photos (
http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=102031.0) inquired whether I worried about repeating myself when revisiting a familiar location like Plum Island.
Specifically, Diego Pigozzo wrote:
I have a question (and I assure you, it's a sincere one): once you've found that a certain combination of subject/composition/light/postprocessing/etc.etc works, what does makes you keep shooting the same kind of photos?
I'm asking this because I often found myself saying "oh, this would be similar to the shot I took some time ago" and I don't take it.
But I realize that's probably me that I can't go beyond the "stilistic" part of the shots.
I thought it was a good question, deserving of a thoughtful reply, but I was about to leave on a two-week trip and didn't have a chance to collect my thoughts right away. So here is my delayed response. I invite comments from others if the topic interests you. I don't pretend to have the final word; the best I can do is present my own thoughts on both sides of the question. And Thank You Diego for asking.
I love to visit new places, looking for images that will mean something to me. But over the years I have found that many of the shots that I feel happiest about are taken at places with which I am very familiar.
Plum Island is an 11-mile long barrier beach off the coast of Newbury, MA. Much of the northern end has residences, full and part time, but most of the rest of the island is part of the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge, which "was established in 1941 to provide feeding, resting, and nesting habitat for migratory birds. Most commonly associated with Plum Island – a barrier beach island – the refuge is comprised of more than 4700 acres of diverse habitats including sandy beach and dune, cranberry bog, maritime forest and shrub land, and freshwater marsh. The most abundant habitat on the refuge is its 3,000+ acres of salt marsh, one of the most productive ecosystems in nature. Parker River provides pristine coastal habitat for over 300 species of resident and migratory birds, as well as a large variety of mammals, insects, fish, reptiles and amphibians. The refuge also provides critical habitat for the federally threatened piping plover." (quoting from the refuge website). A single road, paved for half the way, runs from the refuge entrance to the southern tip, with parking lots for seven sections of the beach, each with a boarwalk that leads through the scrubby woods, over the dunes, to the beach.
I visited Plum Island many times for many years before I ever got a picture that I felt captured any of the essence of the place. I kept returning because the unspoiled wildness of the terrain, and the constant pounding of the ocean on the beaches, gave me a sense of being very close to Nature. Eventually I was there with camera on a sunny afternoon when the tide was almost low, and the receding water had left wonderful patterns in the sand, illuminated by the low sun. I visited at least four of the beaches that day, finding different types of patterns at each. This first "successful" visit was in the winter, when there were few footprints to disturb the sand patterns.
I have made several more winter visits under similar conditions, and at the start of the day I have often worried that I would only be repeating images seen before. But, after warming my eye up a bit, I have almost always found something new and (to me) exciting. Do I repeat myself? Yes, often. But almost every time I go there I find something that feels new or different (to me, at least).
I like to compare doing photography to being a musician. A good musician in any genre must perform the same music over many, even hundreds of times. Even between concerts the musician will still practice the same piece that is so familiar. The mark of the top musician is the ability to find some new idea each time the piece is played, and to convey that idea as if the musician has just discovered the entire piece. I think repetition for a photographer can work the same way. If you really try to find something new in the familar every time, your seeing can grow and become stronger.
On the other hand, I have often tried to duplicate a good photo and only come up with a very poor imitation. But I think I learn a little even from my failures.
To summarize, here are some of the potential benefits, as I see them, of revisiting familiar places or subjects:
1. Your understanding of the essence of the place or subject may improve with practice, enabling you to discover new aspects of the place or subject.
2. Practice with the familiar can help you improve your seeing and compositional skills.
3. If you do find yourself taking the same picture as before, the new version just may be better than the original.
And here are some of the potential shortcomings of repeatedly photographing the same subjects or places:
1. You may end up shooting the same photo over and over again, which can lead to boredom.
2. An attempt at "improving" the original image is likely to fail if the inspiration for the original shot isn't there.
3. Taking the same photo over and over again can dull your seeing.
4. A repeat of an earlier photo is often worse than the original.
It's a trade off. I have photographed in some wonderfully photogranic locations that I'm probably never going to be able to get back to. For some of these, I'm quite sure I could get better results the second time around. The third time? Who knows.
I have visited Death Valley only once for about nine days, and the images that I am most happy with were taken at Stovepipe Wells Dunes, which was one place that I visited several times, both early in the morning and late in the afternoon.
How much repetition is good or useful? Please add your thoughts.