Since I have not had the opportunity to capture any new images over the last few months, I have been going through some of my old images and organizing my folders. During this process, I discovered that I had captured the same location with almost the exactly same composition in two different photos. One was taken during the winter and one was taken during the summer. The images, although the same subject, have a dramatically different feel due to the color variations of the grass and sky as a result of the different times of year in which the photos were taken.
The Winter photo is full of browns, reds and yellows and the sunset that night was not very vibrant. Whereas the Summer photo is full of dark greens and the sunset produced very vibrant pinks and purples across the sky which was reflected in the water. I like both images and have the summer version hanging in my dining room only because the colors better match the decor that my wife had chosen.
These photos illustrate how dramatically the same subject matter, scene or landscape can change depending on the shooting conditions. A different season, sky color, cloud shape or water levels can result in a completely different captured image. In this case, both images came out good. However, I have shot other locations where one photo was unusable and very bland but after going back to the same location with different conditions the captured image became one of the favorites in my collection.
The moral of this post is to encourage everyone to shoot every location or subject multiple times to see what time of year, day or atmospheric conditions or light produces the best photo.
The photos below are of an air boat ramp off of State Road 41 in South Florida. They were both taken after sunset during the civil twilight using long shutter speeds to smooth out the water and saturate the colors. Both were also taken from an elevated position with the vantage point of the winter photo being higher than the summer photo.
