It was a very hot summer day in Lisbon, Portugal and I was waiting for some friends on a square somewhere in the city centre. It was boring to wait and too hot to do something meaningful, so I sat on a bench and stared in the ground bored and sweaty.

Photo: Fujifilm X100S

It wasn’t long after that when I realised that the people walking around me were casting interesting shadows with the help of the setting sun. I decided to try and get an interesting photo with the shadows. The next 15 minutes I stared at the ground waiting for the photo. People walked fast and even thou I had some interesting photos nothing came close to be worthy of saving. It wasn’t going to be easy to get something nice. I started to look at the people and tried to visualise how the shadows will be when they get closer to me. This gave me a few moments to actually think about my composition before I had to press the shutter. I was getting more and more frustrated and suddenly it felt like I am losing a game 🙂 Long story short after almost an hour I had a few hundred photos from the exact same spot of the square with useless photos and just one that I was proud of.

Moral of the story: Challenging yourself to work towards specific image / goal will be of tremendous help with mastering your photography technique.