The First Shot

California Sun, 2010

The first shot of the day can be easy. It can be hard. Whatever the case, it’s the one you have to take, to get through, before you can get on to serious business.

For me, the first shot of the day is usually ceremonial, a shot just to start up the muscle memory, the signal to my body that I’m ready to start taking pictures. Once I take it, the other pictures start flowing.

The other day in LA, my first shots were taken in my hotel room. I started by looking out the window, an admittedly dubious thing when the thing that takes up most of the view is a solid wall. I’d had a good laugh over this view when I checked in the day before. Here I was in the California, where the light and colors are straight out of a Hockney painting, and my room faced a wall!

Anyway, here was the first shot, the muscle memory trigger.

Strata, 2010

That first one sure wasn’t anything to write home about. But by getting a little closer to the window I discovered a slightly more interesting shot, California Sun, above.

Our Flickr friend Christine’s pictures of hotel rooms are so interesting, so fill of story potential, that whenever I see a scene of sheets tussled, of the morning after, they’re what I think of. My third shot of the day was this homage to Christine.

The Morning After, 2010