quotes

Lessons Learned

Shadows on the Bridge

“Succesful people are succesful for one simple reason: they think about failure differently. Successful people learn from failure, but the lesson they learn is a different one, they don’t learn that they shouldn’t have tried in the first place, and they don’t learn that they are always right and the world is wrong and the don’t learn that they are losers. They learn that the tactics they used didn’t work or that the person they used them on didn’t respond. You become a winner because you’re good at losing. The hard part about losing is that you might permit it to give strength to the resistance, that you might believe that you don’t deserve to win, that you might, in some dark corner of your soul, give up.” from Linchpin by Seth Goodin

  • I’ve deleted a few images from my hard drive since I started working with digital photography. Those images were lessons learned.
  • Yesterday I approached a mother and her daughter in an attempt to get an image of the young girls face that was smeared with ice cream. I was told no. I thanked her and moved on. A lesson learned.
  • A few years ago I’ve arrived early for a morning sunrise photo session only to realize I’d forgot the L-bracket to mount my camera on my tripod. A lesson learned.
  • Turn Vibration Reduction off when camera is mounted on a tripod. A lesson learned.
  • Because I did not check the background I now have a couple of images with antlers protruding from my fathers head. Lesson learned. Funny looking though. 🙂

Anyone willing to share a lesson learned?

Retired. Having fun with photography. Journal daily. Meditate daily. Learning haiku/poetry. Have a love for fountain pens.

11 Comments

  • Earl

    – when setting up a tripod shot be sure and tighten “all” the legs on you tripod sufficiently. A lesson learned (I did catch it).
    – before beginning a shoot “always” check camera settings (ISO, Exposure Bias, etc.) before you begin. A lesson learned.
    – while it’s always polite to ask someone before you take their photo sometimes a wonderful shot demands you to shoot first and apologize later. A lesson learned.

    —and too many more to remember or list.

    Monte, good post! 🙂

    • Monte Stevens

      I once forgot to tighten down my camera on the tripod and when I picked it all up the camera fell to the ground. I had the Nikon 80-400mm VR lens on the camera which took almost the full impact. Buckled the lens but the camera was only scratched. 🙁

  • Don

    The wife and I went to a Monastery where the monks raise German Sherpards and have beutiful gardens and old structures…………………as I got ready to shoot, no card in the camera, camera bag home. Lesson learned.

  • Alan M. Collopy

    Monte,

    Awesome photo. I always love photos of wooden objects, especially bridges and docks. Well done.

    Alan

    P.S. Sent from my new iPad.

  • Alan M. Collopy

    Don’t jump around on slippery wet coastal rocks near the ocean while holding your expensive camera. Lesson learned, the camera broke, the lens was damaged, but I was able to save the SD card with all my images from that morning. On the downside, that morning cost me a fortune, not to mention an extremley sore back, and mulitple cuts and scrapes. I’ll be more careful from now on, make better decisions and be safe!

  • Alan Findley

    A GREAT outdoor shot for senior class pictures down by the old Big Thompson river in the pre-digital days with a milk carton in the background…lesson learned