 My name is David Patton When I start photography, I wanted to make art But with bills to pay and a family to feed I Decided it would be better to be a working photographer and a starving artist. So I took a job as a photojournalist 25 years and thousands of assignments later. It was time to go back to my first love Come along as I follow my passion trying to create art that shows the essence of nature in a photograph I'll be sharing my successes and my failures in hopes to inspire and educate This is my journey. This is riding the edge It's the week of November 20th 2022 My summer zine project is finally finished. It's finally complete and I just had the first one delivered to my front door It came just as I had wrapped up last week's video So I thought we talked a little bit about that today, but first let's talk a little bit about photography Today we've got the Nikon D810 with the nifty 50 The Nikon 50 millimeter 128 lens Very compact very light and very affordable Probably the best bang for a buck becomes the lenses. I'm not really sure what this week will bring It's a holiday week I'm not really sure how many photos. I'm gonna get in I Guess the beauty of this format is we just start the week and see what comes. What's about 25 degrees? Pretty chilly morning a little bit of frost It's a fairly dry air mass. So there's not a whole lot of frost but In the exposed areas, there's quite a bit of frost You'll have to forgive me if I revisit the frosty close-up theme a lot The last couple weeks You got to take what nature gives you and today. It's just cold and frosty. I'm gonna take advantage of that if I can Because later in the week it looks to be Rainy so this could be the last frosty morning we have for The foreseeable future there are times where I find myself walking past the shot because I've shot Frost covered leaf tons of times But I've decided that I'm gonna keep making those photographs because you never know which one is gonna be the one that Becomes your favorite kind of bumps to the top one out of contention of being the best So you just you keep making those photos Doesn't matter if you've done it 50 times The 50 first time might be the one that is the best I really like how this fern stands out against the background. It's quite a bit lighter than the background I'm always looking for contrast in tones and This dying fern this Well, it's not really dying. It's Going away for the season. This fern is It's definitely a good example of a lighter subject against the darker background. I often find foliage Sometimes more interesting at the end of their season than at the beginning It's just just the whole cycle the whole cycle of life. It looks like chaos But trying to find order in chaos is part of what nature photography is landscape photography Well, I don't know if I'm getting anything I'll let usable here this morning No, but it's fun trying. I thought we'd talk a little bit about this new zine Maybe a little recap for those for new the channel and those that may have missed The project the summer project this last summer. I did a zine project and A video project at the same time I I made a video series called making a zine to take you along with me on this zine project where I Photographed an area near my house this along this creek and the foothills of the Cascade Mountains Throughout the summer. I started on the first day of summer. I think it was June 21st And my last photograph was made on the last day of summer the last few hours the summer left That was a kind of a fun project something that was kind of unique to me From this project was I did the whole thing on 35 millimeter black and white film It's the first time I've actually ever used Black and white film entirely on a project and that made the project kind of special to me It's something I've been thinking about doing for a long time The film I used was I used the same brand I used Elford's Delta 100 and I did throw in a roll of Delta 400 on one of the days The reason I had done this project was I wanted to do something that would make me more productive this summer Summer is my least favorite time of year to do landscape photography And I was hoping this project would make me more productive Make me look at the season differently And I think it did accomplish that. This is probably the most productive summer I've had Maybe ever but definitely in a long time. I just don't I've never been that inspired by summer But this meant going really early in the morning I'd get there As the sun was coming up because I knew It was gonna be pretty bad light if I let the sun get too high Plus Getting there before the crowds was also a great way to do this project most of time I was the only one in the park It really felt like I Was alone in nature. It was actually quite a great experience The only reason I really bring up what the medium was for this project the film aspect of it is it I think people that are photographers that are wanting to try film Or wanting to see how a certain emotion performs I Think it's worse than mentioning otherwise to me. It's just photography It was just a way I wanted to work this summer I wanted to feel like I was Doing something that was that took some craft that some knowledge some skill to actually do I Developed the film myself. I used Arista premium developer That helped keep cost down as well But I think if you're gonna do black on photography at some point you're gonna need to develop film yourself Today we've got an 85 millimeter But with an extension tube added I don't know if this will work If this is too much magnification to handhold I thought let's give it a try lights kind of Not that great so Instead of going wider. We're gonna narrow our view a little bit You know if I can handhold the shot, maybe we'll find something. This is 36 millimeters of extension These are very cheap extension tubes plastic I Just keep them round Because I don't really have a macro lens longer than a 55 millimeter So these extension tubes sometimes work in a pinch We'll see how they work walking around kind of person that sets lofty goals and expectations on my photography I can be very critical of my work when I say I Think a photograph I've made is pretty good That's usually me saying well, I don't hate the image I Can be hyper critical of my work Now being critical it's not always a bad thing, but I Take it a little bit too far. I think I'm constantly picking apart the image looking for a reflaw and And often I'm not seeing the good parts of it And if I've lived with the photo for a while Then those good things do seem to come come out over time But my initial response my initial reaction is this is terrible When I got my zine back from the printer My first proof There was definitely some things that need to be changed some layout issues And so I fixed those and then I sent it back off to Reprint so when I got the second zine back from the printer And started looking through it. I found myself slipping back into a real negative way of thinking Being hyper critical and it wasn't Things that I could actually change it was Well, I should have shot it this way or should have done this or should have done that things that you can't go back and change you the whole point of this zine with with the deadline with a specific a Time frame was I'm gonna get the best images I can get in this amount of time You can always go back and think well, I could have done it better here or there But that's not a healthy So let me tell you a story a cautionary tale the fog keeps coming and going so I'm going to Continue to work this little section of forests right now It's not that foggy in here. I was hoping for more fog when I started out this morning But there's enough here. I think to add a little bit atmosphere I'm shooting with the 20 millimeter runs right here. I Kind of like the way this tree leans off and everything else is kind of straight. It just has nice depth These are some of my favorite types of forest shots that just kind of Take your eye on a little journey when you look at the image. Oh, yes a cautionary tale Well, I used to be a runner where I used to run And I think I've mentioned that on this channel before it's been a long time a few years at least I ran for the challenge of it For the personal physical challenge. I Really never considered myself a runner. I had run a couple 13 mile half marathons And one day I thought You know what? I'm gonna run 50 miles I'm gonna do a 50 mile run So I found a 50 mile race in my state and I start training and At the age of 50. I did my first 50 mile race It wasn't pretty but I completed it and I was Quite happy with my results in total. I ran Probably about five years doing ultramarathon distance running And it was just for the the challenge of it. It was I could set a goal and I could try to complete it Lofty goals, you know and one day I decided I'm gonna do a hundred miler And so I started training for it well this time I decided well Why pay the money to run an organized race? I'll just do it myself So I came up with the course for my front door It was out and back. It was a 12 to 14 mile out and back And I used my front porch or my my front yard as an aid station I think I had to do it like eight times to get a hundred miles. Well, this is kind of a nice backlit scene There's more fog in here though So the day of the run I decided I needed a safety protocol. I didn't have anybody there following me It was I was gonna be out there all by myself It was a road run But I didn't trust my my judgment Later on in the run So I decided I would make my wife and charge the safety and if at some point She canceled the runner said it was over Pulled pulled the plug She has the last word it was just basically to protect myself against Faulty judgment when I got tired or something went went wrong and I just I couldn't see it And for the first half I was moving pretty good pretty steady Going along pretty well But I started developing hot spots in the bottom of my feet And I didn't address them. You know, over time those hot spots became A problem the skin on the bottom of my feet started coming off It was very painful It was hard to run at any kind of pace that would keep me Warm but keep my my body Creating heat and energy So in the wee hours of the morning on the following day While out on the course I texted my wife and said I was getting kind of cold I'm moving really slow my feet. I couldn't hardly run because of my feet were so messed up And so I should be back At the aid station within 30 minutes or so and it took about an hour to get back And just before I got back I started noticing my line was getting a little bit wavy when I got there She started helping me get my stuff together and get me some warm soup and stuff She was asking me a lot of questions And then she looked at me and said you're done. We're we're pulling the plug My speech at that point had slurred quite a bit And also could have been that I was starting to shake uncontrollably The cold had had got to me I couldn't move fast enough to keep my body warmth up So she pulled the plug. I mean that was what she was meant to do and it was the right call I knew that it would be dangerous if I continued on Going out there again by myself It was disappointing but it was the right call. So my run ended at 23 hours and 76 miles I was very disappointed I had failed to meet my goal I had failed to meet my expectations So for me that was a failure I know that's pretty messed up Instead of celebrating my pr my personal best Instead of celebrating the achievement of running 76 miles I was viewing it as a failure. I let that failure rob me of a celebration Celebrating quite an achievement But I didn't see it that way and some years later I finally came to the realization that That wasn't a failure. That was an achievement I had done something that I trained for for a long time I had Gave him my best effort and I had run further than I'd ever run before it wasn't a failure It was an accomplishment. I just couldn't see What I accomplished in that achievement. So to bring that back to this zine I don't want this zine to be something to look back on as a failure I like a lot of these images in this scene I gave it my best shot throughout the summer And produced something that I'm proud of what I need to focus on is what I have in front of me And what I can share with other people. I know that's a long winded way To get back to this zine You know a little bit of a journey If you are like me and are hypocritical of your photography Give yourself a break Recognize the good stuff you do and not just be critical I'm trying to focus on these old stumps out here on this mud flat and the fog is kind of Rolling over it and at times they they become more visible This is definitely going to be more of a Atmospheric type of shot with the stumps. It's kind of like ghosts A little bit of structure Could be kind of an interesting shot. This is one I'm kind of curious about I'm using a longer lens to kind of compress the scene a little bit Also kind of compresses the fog, which I don't know if that's a good thing or not But it it gets thick and then gets like this where you can see your thing. So I'm trying different shots This is probably going to be my last shot of the day. It's a good one to end on though Well for those of you who are in the u.s I hope you've had a good Thanksgiving And a nice holiday weekend. It's been an interesting week I thought I kind of like some of these photos that I've taken I mean, you know what that means. It's been quite a little journey this week Now if you want to help this channel Consider subscribing and hitting the like button that really helps small channels like this And if you want to contribute monetarily you can join my patreon page Or you can pick up a zine. I have a bunch of other zines as well But honestly, if you want to just preview the zines you can preview them all for free And that is also great And if you'd like to see this zine and want to preview it, I'll leave a link in the description As well, there'll be links to my zines on writenessphotography.com So until next time Thanks for coming along for the ride