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Cody Conk
@codyconk
Best of the week 33 at #nomadict 2021
My professional career as a visual creator was largely impacted when I moved from Philadelphia to California. When shooting landscape and nature, there is no comparison between the east & west coast. Being surrounded by national parks and beautiful views from California, Oregon, Washington, Utah, Arizona, and more – It doesn’t get much better than that.
The second biggest impact was losing my job due to Covid at the beginning of 2021. This was definitely a shock; I moved across the country to Silicon Valley which is a very expensive area and to lose my job was a big smack in the face. I made good money and had full benefits, so I honestly wasn’t sure what I was going to do.
"This was devastating, but in the end, allowed me to be my own boss."
I always wanted to go full-time with photography but wanted to wait at least a year until I did so. After a couple of days of taking it in, I created a business plan to stick to and really start this new adventure. I’ve never been someone who had nice things or spent money recklessly, but with these changes of events, I really had to buckle down and be smart about my spending.
"Less going out to eat and carefully organizing photography trips were a must, and managing my savings to last is such a crucial part of being an entrepreneur."
After all, the most important thing is that now I have the time to do what I’m really passionate about. I love to travel and show people a different perspective on scenes that may be well known. I take a lot of pride in trying to find compositions that are unique and different from the same ones we see every day on social media.
"I had the same approach for the winning photo that I took in Yosemite."
We were actually visiting for the entire week to try and catch Firefall. We went 5 days straight with no luck. On the sixth day, we woke up early for sunrise and were blessed by the most amazing conditions of my life. We knew that the river was going to be still in the early morning. We really wanted to get that clean reflection on the water, so we ran over to Three Brothers and captured this beauty. I believe I had a little bit of a longer shutter speed to capture the beauty of the scene and mood, and to make sure that I could get that clean reflection. One of my favorite photos of all time.
That morning was simply incredible; I remember clicking the shutter and couldn’t believe what I saw on the back of my camera. For the rest of the day, I was in the best of moods and honestly wasn’t even worried about missing out on Firefall. But luckily that same day, we were also able to capture Firefall. In total, this was probably the best day of shooting in my life.
I’ve been to Yosemite at least 30 times. I’ve taken so many photos of this spot, but never had those moody conditions to add to the scene. I’m a huge fan of fog and moody scenes, so this fits perfectly with what I wanted to achieve. Because of the epic conditions, the RAW image made the editing process pretty simple to complete. I try my best to portray the scene as shown to the eye but add my own twist. I love contrast and trying to get my images to pop.
"A lot of times we'll say we got so lucky, but half the battle is just getting and being there. The best advice is to simply get out and shoot - only then you might achieve “luck”.
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