Quicksilver
When you have a sense of how a place works — how the light moves across the valley, how the water usually circles a rock, or how the retreating waves on this particular beach leave very specific abstract marks in the sand — you can spot unusual rhythms that make for very special photographs.
When you arrive at a place for the first time, everything about it can be overwhelming. It is exciting, to be sure, but also easy to forget foundational ideas, like the aesthetics of light. That’s why we make endless bad photos of Serengeti animals in horribly harsh light on our first-day safari. Or we press the shutter way too carelessly in front of a famous waterfall. Or at a new beach we ping-pong all over the place, chasing waves and light, out of control.
When you return to a place, you more easily spot the unusual standouts. Perhaps the creek is really low, and you immediately hone in on gently distorted reflections. Or at the ocean’s edge, at a beach you have been to many times, you notice a ledge of sand pushed unusually high, and as you sit watching, an occasional strong wave shoots up like a flame of mercury, onto the ledge, creating a mesmerizing silvery glow. Within seconds it gets sucked down into the sand, working its invisible way back to the ocean. The quicksilver flash is gone.
The desire to add more places to your list can push against the reality of where good photographs often come from.