Fresh Eyes in a Familiar Place

I think this may be the same rowboat I photographed on this beach when I was in college.

Lately I've been thinking about familiar places, and how to see them with fresh eyes. Have you ever tried taking your camera for a walk around places that maybe you see everyday, or roads you have been on all your life? It's a great exercise in forcing yourself to see the familiar with a renewed freshness, and find something interesting. It's not always easy, but it's definitely fun.

This funny dog almost seemed to be posing for my camera.

The other side of that scenario is warning against always photographing the same things, the same places. Going to a place just because it is familiar can often prevent you from growing creatively.

I took several frames of this fence, adjusting my focus in different areas.

I have this beach I love, have loved all my life. I've been going there since I was in diapers, would long for it whenever I was spending time outside of Maine, and I return to it now with my camera looking for new things and wanting to feel the sand between my toes. You'd think 38 years of going to this beach and I would feel like I have photographed it all I can, but I know I will never feel that way. There are things that have been there all my life, but still each time I go the light is different, the tides shifting, the land even taking on a different shape. I find something to photograph EVERY time I go. I never go with any agenda or expectation other than to find what strikes me. Sure enough, I am drawn to something different on each visit.

I loved the color of the grass against that sky.

I have fixated on fence posts, dune grass, my freshly polished toes, lobster boats, wet rocks, and the most recent visit I spent a lot of time photographing on orange buoy in the water. I go there when I get a new piece of equipment, want to experiment with a lens, or just want to see where the light is at certain times of the day & year.

All of these images were taken at my favorite beach in the whole wide world - Ferry Beach - all under different conditions with varying equipment. I am always looking for things like light, texture, and how different colors look next to each other.

Not every shot at the beach has to include sand or water :)

On an overcast day I spent my visit photographing the textures of the wood.

I was surprised to see this assortment of colors together at the beach. That red is from trees on the golf course behind the beach.

The favored rusty and worn fence around the dunes that I love to capture.

It's best to leave the shoes behind whenever possible.

It's interesting how a beach can have really bright colors one day, and look really flat the next. When the sun isn't shining, it almost looks as if all the colors were chosen from the same palette. What kinds of things do you notice when you look at a familiar place with fresh eyes?

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