Limekiln State Park | Russ Bishop Photography

World Water Day ~ Cascade on Hare Creek, Limekiln State Park, Big Sur, California — Cascade on Hare Creek, Limekiln State Park, Big Sur, California

March 22nd is World Water Day – a time to celebrate the spring season and our most precious natural resource. It’s easy to take for granted when we’ve had a wet winter and a bottle or tap is always within arms reach, but we share the planet with nearly 1 billion people who don’t have access to safe clean drinking water or sanitation. That’s a hard fact to swallow when you consider that most of the earth’s surface is water.

The United Nations first began the celebration back in 1993 and it’s grown significantly over the years as a platform for education and public support. Each year, one of the many UN agencies involved in water issues spearheads a campaign to promote and coordinate international activities. The theme of World Water Day 2024 is ‘Water for Peace’, and focuses on fostering harmony, generating prosperity and building resilience to shared challenges.

On the world front, there are many ways to help those less fortunate than ourselves, and at home simple conservation can have a profound effect. I’m proud to be involved with Photographers for Good and the Plus One Collection, which has use its resources to support The Samburu Project building wells in Kenya. I can think of no greater reward than inspiring others to enjoy the beauty of nature, while helping to provide life’s most basic necessity to those in need.

Here in the west this years winter storms have helped to offset years of drought, but whatever the conditions at home we should always remember that water is a precious commodity essential for life. So enjoy that drink and spread the word throughout the year (and don’t forget to turn off the tap).

Cascade on Hare Creek, Limekiln State Park, California | The Trouble with Bad Light — Cascade on Hare Creek, Limekiln State Park, Big Sur, California USA

How many times have you arrived at a scene, anxious and ready for the show to begin only to find that Mother Nature had other plans. The light is far from spectacular, and your perfect image just faded before your eyes (or sensor) ever had a chance to capture it. Typical? Yes, but there’s just one problem. There is no such thing as bad light!

The issue is more with perception than the reality before you. Sure it requires a change of plan, but photography in its simplest form is painting with light (any light) and in that context, it’s all good. Learning to work with a variety of light will expand your visual toolkit and result in more satisfying and dynamic landscape images.

Big puffy clouds will always add drama to a landscape. But what if the sky is a sea of blue with nothing to balance the frame except an intense sun in the wrong location? Use a small aperture with that wide-angle lens and create a dynamic sunstar. This is a great opportunity for visual storytelling. Include a silhouette of a person involved in an activity or a defining landform and you’ve just turned that bad light into a compelling image.

But now you say the sky is completely overcast with no direct light anywhere? This is the perfect time to point your lens to the finer details below the horizon or at your feet. In this case, the sky is simulating a giant studio softbox with broad even lighting and no shadows – perfect for macro shots and isolating elements of the scene with a telephoto. That drab looking light will actually enhance the colors of flowers and trees, and combined with a slow shutter speed it will turn water into silk.

So the next time you’re met with less than ideal conditions, think twice before packing it in. Taking a different approach to the weather and thinking outside the box could be the only difference between creating some powerful imagery or nothing at all.