Change in photography can feel unsettling, but it's an opportunity too. When your favorite landscapes shift unexpectedly, you get a fresh chance to tell new stories.
Coming to you from Adrian Vila of aows, this reflective video takes you into familiar spots undergoing unexpected transformation. Vila shares a poignant experience—trees he cherished and photographed for years were suddenly cut down, permanently altering his favorite composition. But rather than lingering on loss, he embraces what opens up, discovering previously hidden views that yield entirely new photographic possibilities. His thoughtful reflections underscore how quickly a scene can change and remind you that documenting your surroundings has an inherent urgency worth appreciating. Vila's stories encourage you to adapt, noticing the unique images possible only through change.
Vila then pushes the concept further by challenging you to regularly revisit local scenes. By consistently photographing the same subjects, you capture not just visible alterations—such as seasonal shifts—but subtler transformations in your perspective. He illustrates this vividly with a simple streetlight in Indiana that gained, then lost, an intrusive trash can, altering its photographic potential overnight. Similarly, he highlights how photographing a dead tree in Galicia revealed gradual environmental evolution, with new foreground flowers adding layers of interest to familiar compositions. His examples suggest that the richest photographs often emerge from patient observation of subtle changes over time.
Vila also offers a thoughtful reflection on another type of transformation: your own evolution as a photographer. Each time you revisit a location, you approach it with altered eyes shaped by experiences, new gear, and personal growth. This internal shift is perhaps the most meaningful form of change to capture, prompting you to reinterpret familiar scenes differently, creatively pushing your boundaries. Vila gently nudges you toward deeper self-awareness, suggesting that the progression in your work might matter as much as the physical transformations you photograph. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Vila.
I know this article is about landscape photography, but the premise holds true for wildlife photography as well.
A friend who is an extremely successful wildlife photographer told me that his first trip to a new place is basically working out the logistics and figuring out the animals and how to shoot them, and that it isn't usually realistic to get too many great photos on the first visit to a location. But that on the second trip, and all successive trips, is when the great images happen.
Imagine spending a week or two taking a big trip to Yellowstone or Glacier or somewhere like that, and realizing that you're not likely to get many great photos, and that the big trip is really just to figure things out for future trips? This is not the way most people think, but it is the truth.
Highly successful professionals realize that the good images come when you do something over and over and over and put in the years necessary to get the good results.