At the time of this shoot I was suffering from a complete and total mis-comprehension of the Nikon focus system AND hadn't quite gotten the relationship of noise floor and ISO. I've since switched to single point focus, rather than broad-area AF which repeatedly disappointed me by picking something other than the "obvious" (to me). Never give a machine a choice, particularly in low light. One takeaway from the first couple years was that while I made some egregious errors, things still print well. I TORTURE myself over the noise floor but the images still look good at 24" on paper. The clear takeaway is simply to quit zooming in on the damned computer. The blue of encroaching sunset filtering through the roof is gorgeous when printed. Also looks amazing when I toss it onto a big screen. As always, I find I learn and internalize more lessons than I did in the moment. Particularly back then. At the time, I was excited with a new location, seeing Lucy again and our first trip together, the wide-ranging conversation we were having, freezing our asses off as the temperature dropped but stoked about the delicate light....I don't know that I do any better today -- I'm just excited to catch what I can and figure it out later. A few minutes later we lost the last light and retreated to a warm farmhouse nearby. As always, I am so very grateful to Lucy for the ongoing education and her enthusiasm for the voyage.

A bit of a rabbit hole this week with @lucyartmodel.bsky.social. Across a double-handful of locations, what could I have done better? More in the alt-text. #learnnewtricks #olddog #muse #inspiration #education #perspiration #oregon #adventures #roadtrip #artmodel #pdxphotographer