A variation of these photos was my “backup” series submission for a final presentation in a photography course I just completed at the Harvey Milk Photo Center entitled Visual Storytelling Through Landscape. The assignment and goal of this course was to tell a story with the landscape using 10 photos taken in Golden Gate Park. I developed an idea for a story, and after shooting on four separate occasions, I edited down my photos to a sequence of 10 that told a story; at least I hoped it did.

However, while doing that, I posted the photos from my fourth shoot below here because I liked them more as a set, even though their narrative was not as tight or literal as the ones I arranged for my class using all of the shoots. Which says a lot about the difference between them.

At the final critique, after submitting my first set of 10, the reception was about as I expected, lukewarm at best. I then presented my backup set – most of the photos below – to a more positive reaction from my instructor and classmates. Which was a good feeling, and a kind of failure for the primary set (or so I thought at the time).

One takeaway from the experience was that when I shoot on a walk or hike, the expectations are zero and the feeling comes through in the flow of the images.

On the primary set, assembled from 4 shoots instead of one, things got really complicated. But it turned out not to be the failure I believed it was when I realized what that series was really about. I’ll post those next and try to explain why.