 My name is David Patton. When I started photography, I wanted to make art. I wanted to be a landscape photographer But with a family to feed and bills to pay, I decided it would be better to be a working photographer than 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. It was time to follow my passion Come along on my journey to become the best black in my photographer Whether it be film or digital, I will be sharing what I learned through my successes and my failures and hopes to inspire and educate This is my journey This is Brighton Yage Cascades of Oregon for my annual visit to this little lake and for the last three or four years I've come here Around the same time The first time I came I got exactly what I was looking for And ever since I have not been able to replicate that experience Looks like I'm still a Week or two too early To get here what I wanted to photograph So right now I'm working on some reflection shots with these these trees across the Across this little lake The air is real calm right now. So I'm getting some nice kind of like painterly Reflections of these white dead trees across the way That's about the best I'm gonna get here today now if I get lucky We might get a little missed on this lake I Got up at three clock this morning It's about 65 mile drive from my house and I always come here for a specific shot And even though that shot isn't gonna happen today I'm gonna make do with what I with what I got And with the conditions I have this is a good example of mosquitoes This is a good example of going to the same location over and over again in every time you come It looks different because of the lighting or the weather now a real bonus would be since it's a pretty chilly morning right now is Getting some mist coming off of this lake that's kind of it's kind of what I'm hoping for Just to get a little bit of atmosphere Make the shot just a little bit better It does look like there's something forming a little bit out there Hopefully it's worth getting up at three in the morning for photography this time of year It's a challenge The Sun sets really late and it gets up really early. I think the main reason this shot really works Is the contrast of the white trees? And the really dark water I think there's gonna it's just kind of a natural contrast in the scene That mist pops in and pops out. It's not it's not It's not really developing like I'd like to see it But it still could happen. It's it's cold and the Sun hasn't What's the Sun hits the water it might it might give us a little bit of that But even if it doesn't the reflections I think are gonna be a nice kind of abstract painterly feel image If that's a thing I don't see a lot of other shots here I've been here many times and I've taken a lot of different photos here So this video is probably just gonna have one or two shots from From this scene It's really hard to predict Where the water levels are going to be on this lake from year to year And last year I came here And it was about like this I thought well, it's probably about two weeks from The shot I want so I came back two weeks later and it was too late The year I came here and got the shot I was looking for I came two weeks in a row and it was still Doing exactly what I wanted it to do Well, I guess I better take a picture. It looks like that misses trying to Trying to form anyway the So it just you just never know how fast the lake is gonna drop I could come next week and it could still be just like this if it gets some rain or something I could come back in two weeks and it could be Almost completely gone. It's just it's just bizarre how I've had so much trouble getting the timing right And I have a photograph and I've I've talked about it in videos before What I'd like to see if I can do something a little different Shoot it just in a different way. Maybe get a longer exposure Try to improve on the shot that I have It may never happen And the shot I have may just be the shot I have I'd like to shoot it with my with a film. I like to shoot it With a different lens And maybe try a longer exposure Maybe put an ND filter on so there's a lot of different types of shots. I want to make here If I can just get the timing right. I think I'm going to take this time real quick to Do a little update for my channel And explain why you haven't seen as much content Over the last month. It's just been a really chaotic Kind of rough month Basically, I've taken work outside of photography First time I've had to do that in 27 years Sometimes just it's what you got to do And to compound the difficulties We are trying to get our house prepared to sell And we've lived in this location for 20 years So You can imagine how much work we've got to do Getting getting everything ready to sell and then get everything boxed up ready to move so Over the next month or two I probably won't be able to produce as much content as I have in the past Just because I've There's no time What comes down to it I just I'm not going to be able to get out and take photographs like I normally do so hopefully You can hang with me for A couple months So we can get through this difficult time Get everything settled down once we get moved. I should be able to get back to Getting out and taking more photographs and Producing more content for the channel. I'm to the point now where I'm only working on personal projects And photography that I'm passionate about Since I'm working outside of photography right now, I just don't have the time to do a lot of Other photography other than The photography that I find that is important to me And that's what I put in this channel anyway So that that shouldn't interfere with the content that comes out So if you can hang with me for just a little bit till we get things settled down and mosquitoes So if you can hang with me just a little bit till we get things settled down We'll get back to making some Some content I think this scene is pretty much done But it was a nice morning. It was nice to come out and take some pictures I haven't been out with the camera for for a good Three or four weeks. So it's it's been nice to uh to get out So I'm gonna end today's video right here Until next time. Thanks for coming along for the ride