Devon OpdenDries' photostream  

The floor creakes in protest as I walk through the room in complete darkness. My heart pounds nervously as I feel the broken slats of the wall, trying to keep to the edge of the room, where the flooring is still somewhat sturdy. I get to where I am going, and temporarly blind myself with a burst of light. The room is instantly lit up for a split second so vividly that I can still see the details of the window when I blink. Back to the eery darkness. A pidegon rustles nervously from the raftors above my head as I cautiously feel my way out of the room and back down the rickety stairs.

My feet awkwardly struggle to find a safe place to step as I walk down the stairs covered in debris and pidgeon crap. With a sigh of relief, I make it to the bottom of the stairs and hop out of the main entrance to the abandoned house. I am just able to make out the silhouette of my camera and tripod as I walk towards it.

Reaching for the cable release, the camera stops recording and I am left staring into a super bright preview screen of the shot I just struggled 20 minutes to capture.
Crap. I forgot to light up the far left window. I press and lock the cable release and make my way back inside the house, for more moments of temporary blindness and uncertain footing.

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That's how I do photography. I shoot a single photo for sometimes hours until I get it exactly how I imagined it in my head. I am a perfectionist in many ways and I can be so focused on the perfect photo that I often find myself spending extra hours just re-doing one shot. I lose track of time frequently and end up scraping myself into bed at 4 am.

I hate flowers, I hate sunsets, I hate HDR and I don't have photoshop. I believe in getting the photo right while it's on the camera, not in fixing it up later.

Just like a fancy piano doesn't make you a pianist, a fancy camera doesn't make you a photographer.

Outside of photography, I fly airplanes and ride motorcycles. I'm not very out-going, but still crazy around people I know really well.