This felt impossible to do. I had a hard time reacting quickly enough to get photos of people, and by the time I had the hang of it there was nobody out. I think this is easily my weakest selection of photos all semester and I wish I was able to do this again.
I now know how easily I get distracted, because there were some shots that I missed simply because I was doing something else. When I’m taking photos, I’m going to be a lot more focused on keeping my hands on the camera and not doing other things or fiddling with settings. I think that another thing I have to work on is anticipating motion and reacting accordingly. I noticed I had a hard time doing that today.
Another thing I learned using the large (300mm) lens is that I had to stand very far away to get anything usable, and I often cut off legs in my framing because even standing over 20 feet away I was still too close to get the entire person in frame. Anybody who walked even remotely close to me ended up with a very intimate close-up portrait.
In the moment I felt demoralized by my struggles with the workshop, but after taking the day to reflect on it, I realized that there is a lot I can take from this and learn to become a better photographer. Everyone stumbles a bit before they can walk, and I think I just have a hard time accepting that I struggle with things. I am going to be more forgiving of myself in the future and learn from this experience.