am i blue?

i recently read an article that offered advice to young photographers. (i took it all to heart--and took "young" to mean "new.") of all the encouraging notes, one stood out: from chris steele-perkins, "take a lot of photos....be depressed by them."

and then i did it.

i've been working on a project for a colleague--doing it for the cause (he needs photos for a custom pub for a cancer fundraiser) and the experience (shooting landscapes). the only two mandates from the creative director were location (the saugatuck river/long island sound) and mood ("moody"). he trusted my eye and skill for the rest. i spent the better part of two saturdays making my way up to connecticut. i took hundreds of shots, from land and sea, and had a pretty fun time doing it.

here's the depressing part: i'm not sure if i have 10 to give him.

but i haven't had the heart to go through them all closely, either.

of course the weather didn't really cooperate (saturday 1 was perfectly sunny; saturday 2 was thunderstormy--but there were barely any clouds. the sky gave color in mostly single shades of blue or grey). if there were a budget for me to be a cloud chaser, which i would love, then i could probably have given something more.

but the basic and more troubling issue at this point seems to be landscape photography itself. i shouldn't have expected that my first real attempt should have come so naturally and easily. (but between you and me, i was kind of hoping it would.) how do i transform a landscape into a compelling photo? photography is about problem solving, and i'm not sure how to figure the fix for this yet. but i know that i have to take the rest of mr. steele-perkins' advice: take more...

when i have the nerve to go through the rest, and if there are some, i'll post them here.