Thank God for Digital

There was a time when a photographer would shoot an entire story like this without the benefit of seeing what worked - and what didn't.  Now, however, digital gives instant feedback about the light, the composition and the action. 

 I have now spent most of 3 days trying to perfect the "over/under" shot until I am satisfied with it, trying different locations, working on technical challenges (described below) and generally trying to produce a single, self-sufficient, story-telling image.  

But feedback is not enough.  The greatest gift any photographer can have is TIME.  Time to work on an idea, time to re-think original assumptions, time for luck to kick in.  Three weeks is now starting to seem barely enough.  

Meanwhile, yesterday we discovered that dolphins genuinely like to play with anything they find floating in the river.  So late in the afternoon we threw everything we could find into the river as inducement : seeds, clumps of floating grass, gnarly sticks : anything.  Did we succeed?  Not entirely.... the dolphins investigating EVERYTHING but only once or twice did they pick them up and toss them, which is what I was after.  And when they did it, it was inevitably on the other side of the river.  So here again, it's that TIME thing...  Try it again tomorrow!

Love to all,

Kevin