Field Notes

Photographers are a community. Most of us enjoy meeting other photographers with similar interests…especially when at beautiful locations while waiting for the light to get perfect. Sometimes we wait…and wait…and wait.

While photographing in Colorado last month during one of these waiting periods I exchanged pleasantries with another photographer, Karl Turner from New Orleans. I actually thought I remembered him from the Blue Ridge Parkway one year earlier. It is a small world in the wilderness!

Now, I was impressed by Karl. Partly because he recognized it was windy and when the wind blows clouds around, you can get some neat effects with long exposures. But mostly I was impressed that he took a small notebook out of his back pocket and wrote down some things… including my name and the name of this newsletter. Of course, that always makes a hit with me. But the notebook. Why would he do that? Our cameras record data called EXIF data with every picture we take. That data shows all of our camera settings, the date and time, and in some cases our GPS location. Our phones do just about everything else we would want.

But Karl was recording things the camera and our phones don't record. Things that one might not remember a year later. Perhaps it was the exact best location to shoot, when he needs to arrive, potential composition reminders and a lot of other photography stuff.

But he may have also written some inspirational thought that came to him, or noted how I need to trim a nose hair, or just written something to make me think he cared. But the thing was, he did have a little Field Notes booklet and a writing implement. Many of us would think this is old school. After all, we have our EXIF data and our I-phones to take notes and record short video clips that we will never see again. But I think this is cool school. It doesn’t come out of the forgotten past, but it is the remembered current and future.

I remember how impressed I was that my father took notes on every dollar he spent during the Great Depression. This could be my equivalent that some unfortunate offspring inherits but briefly treasures.

If you want to do more than just think about how you might start taking field notes, here is a link to a very inexpensive option that includes a place for a few bucks, business cards and pen.