So one morning back in the summer of 2019 I rose before the crack of dawn as photographers sometimes do, so that I could go to a venue I had discovered in Portland to get (hopefully) some images of the sunrise.
The concept for the image, was that I had discovered the remains of a Market Garden full of commercial grade green houses, most of who's windows were broken. The insides were sadly overgrown and the whole scene was one of commercial destruction and abandonment.
True to form the sun rose after I had been there for close to an hour. It's funny how even in the summer, in the early morning predawn it can get extremely cold, and as usual I had thought enough about this to forget to get coffee on the way to the venue!
Anyway, the sun rose and the clouds settled in, and the sun was not where I wanted it to be. My concept had been for the sun to break through the back of the greenhouse casting golden rays across the devastation within the structure. This would have created a nice contrast between the beauty of the sunrise and the coldness of the dilapidated building.
Between the sun, the clouds, and the general layout of the building, things were not going well, and as I discovered very quickly, sunrise waits for no one, not even a photographer.
After about 15 minutes of shooting like crazy, I finally admitted defeat, and started to reluctantly pack away my gear. I was starting to dream about bacon and eggs, hot buttered toast and a big mug of steaming coffee, when out of the corner of my eye I saw some Blackberries.
Now Blackberries happen to be one of my favorite fruits and such a scrumptious feast was just too good to pass up.
Unfortunately, just as I was about to take my first berry something called photography suddenly got in the way, and I started to see possibilities for those Blackberries over and above just food.
So out came the camera and all the gear and I settled down to about an hour of taking photos, different angles, different exposures, changing depth of field, close ups, overview shots, and anything else I could think of at the time to try and create the image I had in mind for these poor unsuspecting Blackberries.
Finally I was done, so I carefully packed all my gear away and then I ate the Blackberries. Well, I couldn't just leave them there could I? All fat and juicy and just begging to be eaten. And very tasty they were too.
So that afternoon I spent several hours in Photoshop and finally came up with the image below. I printed one copy and put it into a copper colored frame I had, then took it to work the following day so I could puff out my chest and say "look what I did on Sunday". And then it happened, someone saw it, liked it, and bought it.
Wow, that doesn't happen to me very often but it just goes to show that opportunity is where you find it.
