PHOTOGRAPHER’S JOURNEY.com

In college I had a very good friend named Matt Marton. Aside from being able to consistently beat the pants off me shooting pool — he was known for one thing: photography. Matt had wanted to be a professional photographer since he was in high school, as I recall.

I had several friends who at that age had no idea what they wanted to do for a living and were pretty much just enjoying the college experience, if you know what I mean. Others, like me, had some aim and direction (I pretty well knew I was headed toward journalism.) But Matt was uber-focused on being a professional photographer. He had a passion and a drive for it like none I had ever seen.

What made Matt stand out, aside from his large and jovial personality was his choice of fashion accessories. Simply put, he never went anywhere without his camera — a large, heavy, and very expensive Nikon. This was long before digital cameras came along. The thing had to weigh five pounds. But you’d never see the guy anywhere without it that camera strapped around his neck.

Even though Matt had obvious skill as a photographer — his images were sometimes breathtaking — I remember thinking it was a bit silly to lug that thing everywhere he went. But today I look back and realize that Matt had discovered the best trick for getting the best photos of all: Never go anywhere without your camera.

“Oh come on,” I can hear you saying. “I read this far only to learn the obvious?” Yep. I’m afraid so. But see, it isn’t actually that obvious. Can you honestly say you follow that rule? Do you follow it as well as Matt? Until you can say you do, then you are no doubt missing out on some of your best photo opportunities.

All the photography skills in the world don’t help when you come across an image you just have to capture and you don’t have a camera. If you’re like me, you know what I’m talking about. And there is nothing more frustrating to a photographer.

I have to admit, I am probably no better at following this rule than anyone. Maybe worse. But if I were to take my own advice more often I would no doubt be much better off. And in that spirit, I recently attended by niece’s baptism — a roughly two-hour drive out of town through some beatiful country. I brought my camera solely for the purpose of the baptism, since I knew the drive down would be raining and there would be no chance at shooting any of the scenic stops along the drive.

But I hadn’t considered the drive home, by which time the rain had stopped. Had I not brought my camera for the baptism, I would have seen this barn and completely missed the opportunity to photograph it.

I caught a glimpse of the barn while munching a quarter pounder with cheese with a bag of french fries wedged between my thighs at 60 miles an hour. Something about it stood out in the landscape. The barrenness. The isolation. Immediately I recognized it as a great photograph… if only I had brought my camera. And then I remembered I did! Wow… I felt so incredibly prepared. So incredibly like… Matt.

I made about a dozen images and selected this one as the best. The framing was right (rule of thirds and no distracting elements) and even though the barn sat farther away in the distance than in my other images, I thought it somehow captured a loneliness that fit the mood of the cloudy day. In essence, what you see in this photograph is pretty much what I saw. Although I did some tweaking in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom to mute the colors and pump the contrast just a bit.

The bottom line is, if I didn’t have a camera with me that day, I would have missed making this image altogether. In a world with so many beautiful scenes and powerful moments for us photographers, that would be a terrible shame.

And on that note… thank you, Matt.

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