What's on your photography "bucket list?"

[IShootPeople]

Do you have a "bucket list" for your photography? As in places you really want to photograph, or a subject matter you want to one day capture? Or maybe a technique that you've been putting off trying out?

I used to have Infrared on my list, but I'm slowly beginning to take more photos with my IR filter, so that is being crossed off.

However, something that is very high on my bucket list is photographing foxes, in the wild specifically. I adore foxes, but I never seem to get a chance to take any photos of them.

Beyond that, I want to go back to Alaska, cage dive with great white sharks and get some go pro footage, and then do an African safari. As my parents say, I have champagne taste and a beer pocketbook!!

What are some of your photographic "bucket list" items?

[Shadowman]

Large format printing, studio work with a model, and taking a course in photography, all three recently completed, the studio work I need a bit more time.

[IzzieK]

I'd love to learn these from next year (2014):
High key and low key photography
Printing my shots to decorate my den with them...for my own pleasure only of course..
Go to Maine...I'd like to photograph lobster fishermen...not that I won't get the same from Geelong..but I haven't been to Maine
Oregon is another place I' like to go to...one day...

[NorthernFocus]

Facing the realization that my days in Alaska are numbered, my list right now is to cover as much of the state as I can, photographically speaking. So the bucket list of unfulfilled photo ops:

- trip to Nome for summer nesting season
- snowy owls hunting (though there are better places than AK for this)
- great grey owls hunting
- Dahl's sheep
- trip into Denali
- McNeil River bears (permit is by lottery drawing, very low probability)
- puffins (there are better places for this too)
- whales bubble feeding in SE Alaska

I didn't realize the list was so long. Now I'm depressed...

[Brownbear]

My bucket list is way too, long to fit on this forum or to do in one year but here are a few...

Photograph a wild bear, a beautiful image of an eagle, a whale shark, a snake, a tarantula, an elephant, an orca, a dolphin, a bee in flight, and a crocodile.

Dream photographic trips... an African Safari, a boat trip down the Amazon, and trekking exploring Madagascar, Papua New Guinea, the Galapagos.

More doable...

1. Keep improving my birds in flight and nature photos

2. Learn to take a decent landscape photo

3. Improve my post processing skills

[CP140]

Easter Island, Galapagos, Panama Canal, Amazon River, US Air Force Museum in Dayton, Hadrian's Wall, Great Wall of China, Wailing Wall/Jerusalem, Pyramids, Uluru/Ayers Rock (again) ... and I'd go back to Paris, London, Rome any time I could...

[chauncey]

Creating objects d'art with my photography???

[tbob]

Go to Strome Alberta and photograph one of the last red and gold Pioneer grain elevators in the evening against a thunderstorm. The combination of the bright red/yellow building against the dark sky is a strong memory stimulant for me and it saddens me to think if I wait too long the opportunity may never exist again. Most of them are gone now; the rest are facing a very precarious future.

[Black Pearl]

I suppose I should take a photograph of my feet before my belly gets so big I never see them again

Seriously though I would love to have the time to photograph Machu Picchu. By time I mean live there, or there abouts, for long enough to capture the feel and grace.

[FrankMi]

I'd love to learn these from next year (2014):
High key and low key photography
Printing my shots to decorate my den with them...for my own pleasure only of course..
Go to Maine...I'd like to photograph lobster fishermen...not that I won't get the same from Geelong..but I haven't been to Maine
Oregon is another place I' like to go to...one day...

We lived in Augusta, ME for about three years. Rockland, ME has a yearly Lobster Festival and Acadia National Park is a mountain island sitting just off the coast. Don't miss the Portland Head lighthouse, commissioned by George Washington. There are lots of photographic opportunities all along it's rocky coastline. Enjoy!

[IzzieK]

Thanks Frank...I love lobsters...when I was preggy with my youngest son, that was what I eat everyday. One night in bed I sat up and was about to ask DH for something, he suddenly said, "if it is not in the fridge, you are not going to get it!" Now this once young son who used to live inside me wouldn't touch shellfish even if it is a matter of life and death! I think I traumatized him for the rest of his life...

Your photo of the lighthouse is exquisite to say the least! Love it...!!! I better google the Lobster Festival...

We lived in Augusta, ME for about three years. Rockland, ME has a yearly Lobster Festival and Acadia National Park is a mountain island sitting just off the coast. Don't miss the Portland Head lighthouse, commissioned by George Washington. There are lots of photographic opportunities all along it's rocky coastline. Enjoy!

[rpcrowe]

I checked off Venice and Istanbul last summer... I'd like to shoot Yosemite in the winter.

Locally, I want to return to the Scottish Highland Games here in June and shoot another Civil War Reenactment. Plus I want to do a lot more night photography.

Then, of course, it is always our rescue dogs who are in front of the camera...

Pie in the sky: I'd like to visit India and return for an extensive trip to China. I would also like to visit Scotland and Ireland from where many of my ancestors originated...

I do have one piece of advice: Try to fulfill your bucket list before you get too old to accomplish what you want. I have always wanted to see Machu Picchu but, if my experience climbing the City Walls of Dubrovnik Croatia is any indication of my residual physical capabilities, I guess should wait for my next reincarnation to visit there...

Here is an event that should be on every photographer's bucket list: The Albuquerque International Hot Air Baloon Fiesta... That event is absolutely fantastic and is almost visual overload..

More images and information on the Fiesta can be found at my smugmug gallery:
http://rpcrowe.smugmug.com/Travel/AL...ESTA/i-SxwNJTw

Now that I think of it, I will add a return trip to the Fiesta to my bucket list!

[mknittle]

I'd love to learn these from next year (2014):
High key and low key photography
Printing my shots to decorate my den with them...for my own pleasure only of course..
Go to Maine...I'd like to photograph lobster fishermen...not that I won't get the same from Geelong..but I haven't been to Maine
Oregon is another place I' like to go to...one day...

If you make it to Oregon The west is the best for photographing. Especially The coast. the inland Valley is mostly farm land and the east is high desert. the farther north you go the greener. Western Washington has huge ferns in the forest that you expect to see gnomes or leprechauns

[Glenn NK]

I'd love to learn these from next year (2014):
Oregon is another place I' like to go to...one day...

Oregon is well worth the trip. I was there two years ago, and want to go back.

Many great campgrounds/RV parks that are reasonable and close to the water.

When the tide is out at sunset it's almost overwhelming.

Take a bicycle - one can ride on the beaches for miles when the tide is out.

Glenn

[IzzieK]

Dear Glenn and Mark...We are definitely going to Oregon this coming July...The Swift (is an airplane and a bird) wing of DH's airplane club hold their annual get together and fly-in at Oregon every two years. This year is Oregon's year. I haven't been there and a lot of friends said it is a beautiful place, wet, undulating waterways inland and lots of greens...I certainly will make it this year...Thank you for the encouragements...I haven't seen gnomes and leprachuns either so I hope they will introduce themselves to me...

Oregon is well worth the trip. I was there two years ago, and want to go back.

Many great campgrounds/RV parks that are reasonable and close to the water.

When the tide is out at sunset it's almost overwhelming.

Take a bicycle - one can ride on the beaches for miles when the tide is out.

Glenn

[CP140]

Go to Strome Alberta and photograph one of the last red and gold Pioneer grain elevators in the evening against a thunderstorm. The combination of the bright red/yellow building against the dark sky is a strong memory stimulant for me and it saddens me to think if I wait too long the opportunity may never exist again. Most of them are gone now; the rest are facing a very precarious future.

I guess the days of young pilots out of Moose Jaw, when realizing their navigation was off, dropping down to read the place name off the side of elevator are gone huh?

[Glenn NK]

I guess the days of young pilots out of Moose Jaw, when realizing their navigation was off, dropping down to read the place name off the side of elevator are gone huh?

Long gone. I was back in SK July 2012 - couldn't find a single one and traveled the Yellowhead and Trans-Canada Hwys plus three other major highways from north to south.

Now they're called terminals (rail); large cast-in-place concrete silos to which the grain is trucked with double trailer trucks (super B's). From mear the town I grew up in that once had 1,000,000 bushel storage, there are farms that are 130 miles (209 km) from the nearest terminal.

And the terminals are not terribly photogenic.

Glenn

[FlyingSquirrel]

The list is longer than I can type out right now, but a few main points that come to mind, many of which seem lofty are:

- Photograph wild bobcat
- Photograph wild mountain lion
- Photograph belted kingfisher up close
- Photograph snowy owl & other owls
- Photograph a swallow in flight with good detail
- Become a great naturalist and learn many species
- Improve nature and wildlife photog to point of getting consistently excellent photos
- Start nature photo business
- Turn nature photog into a career
- Sell my own books, prints
- Get published in magazines and write articles
- Conduct workshops and tours, help others learn nature photog and enjoy it
- Have my own gallery / exhibits
- Win awards and contribute to conservation

[drjuice]

First, rpcrowe, I LOVED the bird's house balloon and the grumpy, burgher-looking dude with the mustache! Thank you.


Back in the 1970s, my grad school roommate and I left her sister's house in Santa Fe early one morning just because we wanted to hit ABQ before their rush hour. We had no clue about the balloon festival but, as we approached ABQ, we came on the launch site. Back then, they were thrilled if they had 45-50 balloons there for the launchings. It seems like today's total must be up there in the 100s!


As for my own bucket list, I'm 42 units (read "locations") away from visiting all 401 US National Park System parks. And, I want to finish knocking off the few I still have to see in the 48 states by the end of next year (2015). Then I'm planning on a massive Alaskan trip followed by a Pacific Ocean trip (Guam, American Samoa, and Hawaii) in 2016. In 2017, I'm intending to finish the Caribbean Island ones (a few of which I sailed around with a friend in the middle 1960s) which are US Virgin Islands plus one in San Juan, Puerto Rico.


For any given park unit, I take from 5 to 70 pictures depending on the size and spectacularity of the site. I was totally impressed with Lincoln's Home in Springfield, Illinois, which had a three-holer in the back yard, one large (for Papa Bear), one medium (for Momma Bear), and one small (for the Baby Bears). Most people don't get to see that and I only got to see it because I had to get into the house by the handicapped route since the main entrance has a significant number of stairs.


After I get finished with those, I'll be 75 years old and will start working on other non-Park related photography bucket items. At the moment, those are Uluru, the Great Wall, both aurora borealis and aurora australis, Hadrian's Wall (again), Kew Gardens in the spring for rhododendrons, Paris at night (again), the Black Swans in the Jardin André Chénier at Carcassonne, France, the Cannes waterfront in winter, the Uffizi, the Quai d'Orsay (thanks to Professor Gadjusek for insisting that we visit the National Gallery of Art in DC), Tivoli (again), midsummer at the Arctic Circle (probably in Norway or Sweden), and the Statsoper in Vienna.


I'm jes' sayin'....


virginia

[RustBeltRaw]

• Become an assignment photographer for a serious local publication (Detroit Free Press, Motor City Muckraker, 101.9 WDET, etc.).
• Return to Istanbul with a working understanding of Turkish and four weeks to burn.
• Earn enough to justify some of the cooler toys. L glass (200mm f2.0L IS USM, specifically), Einstein strobes, full-frame bodies, etc.
• Become a go-to portrait photographer for the local entertainment sector. Musicians, DJs, athletes, authors, and the like.
• Shoot national-league baseball or football for an agency.
• Cover a revolution.
• Shoot medium format regularly.

Obviously, this list is probably too broad to be practical. But if I hit three or four of these without going bankrupt or mad, I'll be quite pleased.