Take The Photograph While You Can

There is something I have been thinking about recently, and it was not until I returned to a location I had photographed many years ago that it really started to bother me. We spend so much of our time as photographers looking for new locations, searching maps, saving places on Google Maps, watching videos, and scrolling through social media looking for somewhere we have never photographed before. We are always looking for the next location, the next composition, and the next photograph. But perhaps we should spend a little more time thinking about the places we have already photographed, because there is no guarantee that we will always be able to go back.

I was reminded of this recently when I returned to Ardtully House in Kerry. I had photographed the location around eight years ago, back when I was photographing a lot of old and abandoned buildings around Ireland. At that stage of my photography, I wanted to try as many different types of photography as possible. I photographed old houses, castles, ruins, and abandoned buildings, often spending a lot of time finding these locations, researching them, and trying to work out how I could photograph them.

A big influence on me at the time was the work of Tarquin Blake, whose books documenting abandoned houses and buildings around Ireland showed me that there was much more to this type of photography than simply finding an old building and taking a photograph. There was history attached to these places, and there was something interesting about trying to document what remained of them. I photographed quite a few locations on my own and also with my friend Dave, and although seascape photography eventually became the main focus of my work, I never completely lost that interest in old buildings.

So, when I found myself heading toward Kerry recently, I decided to return to Ardtully House. I wanted to see if that interest was still there and, perhaps more importantly, I wanted to see how I would approach the location now compared with how I approached it eight years ago. There was a certain amount of nostalgia involved as soon as I turned off the main road and headed toward the location. I remembered being there with my camera, looking for compositions and trying to work out how to make the building work within the landscape.

It was also interesting because every time I had visited previously, it seemed to rain. On this particular visit, there was no rain at all. Instead, I was dealing with harsh midday sunlight, which would not normally be my first choice for photographing an old building. But I was already there, so I was not going to let the conditions decide whether I made photographs or not. I started walking around, looking at the building from different distances, and trying to find compositions that worked with the light I had.

Eventually, I made my way across toward the bridge, which has always been one of the more interesting viewpoints of the building. I took a number of photographs from there and then decided to do something I had done on previous visits. I launched the drone to get an aerial perspective of the building and its position within the surrounding landscape.

That was when the day took a different direction.

Someone approached me and told me to bring the drone down because the property was private. I had seen a private property sign when I arrived, but it was positioned beside a sign relating to anglers, and I had interpreted the situation incorrectly. I had also seen other people walking around the area, which reinforced my assumption that I could do the same. Looking back, I should not have made that assumption. I brought the drone down immediately and continued with the photography.

The important point for me was not really the confrontation. It was what happened afterward and what it made me think about. I had photographed this location around eight years earlier, and I had simply assumed that I could return and photograph it again. This time, I discovered that access was not quite as straightforward as I remembered.

It made me start thinking about all the other locations I have photographed over the years. How many of them could I still visit today? How many have changed? How many are now private? How many have gates, restrictions, or different access arrangements? How many places that I once thought I could simply return to are no longer available to me?

I suspect that many of you have similar experiences.

We Assume We Can Always Come Back

I think we can be guilty of assuming that locations will always be there for us. We visit somewhere and make a photograph, but perhaps the conditions are not what we wanted. We see a composition that would work better at sunrise, or sunset, or during fall, or with a different tide. We tell ourselves that we will come back another time and get the photograph we really want.

Then we leave, save the location on our phones, and carry on looking for somewhere else.

Sometimes we do return, but sometimes years pass before we think about that place again. By the time we finally decide to go back, something has changed. The access road might be closed, the land may have become private, a gate might have appeared, or the owner may have changed the rules around access. In other cases, the location may still technically be there, but getting to it might no longer be possible in the way it was before.

There are also locations where access changes because we photographers and visitors ourselves have created problems. A place can become popular through social media, and increased footfall can put pressure on landowners, local communities, or the location itself. That can result in restrictions being introduced. We might not like those restrictions, but that does not mean they are unreasonable.

This is where I think the conversation needs to be more balanced. Photographers do not have an automatic right to access every location simply because somebody else has photographed it. If a location is private, it is private. If permission is required, then permission should be obtained. If access is restricted, that needs to be respected.

But the fact that we should respect access restrictions does not change the other part of the argument. Locations can become inaccessible, and when that happens, we cannot go back and make the photograph we kept telling ourselves we would make someday.

That is why I have started thinking differently about taking photographs when I have the opportunity.

Take the Photograph

I have always said that bad conditions do not exist in landscape photography. There are conditions that are better suited to certain photographs, but that does not mean there is nothing worth photographing when the conditions are not what we hoped for. Sometimes we have to work with what is in front of us rather than waiting for the conditions we imagined when we planned the trip.

I think the same principle applies to access.

If you have legitimate access to a location and there is a photograph worth making, perhaps you should make it rather than assuming you can return whenever you want. You might not get another opportunity.

This is particularly relevant when photographing old and abandoned buildings. These places are already changing. Buildings deteriorate, roofs collapse, trees grow around them, and surrounding landscapes change. Sometimes the buildings are restored, demolished, or simply become too dangerous to enter. Even when the building itself remains, access to it can change.

The photograph you take today can therefore become a record of what that place looked like at a particular point in time.

That does not mean every photograph needs to be treated as an important historical document. Most of mine certainly are not. But I have started to appreciate that a photograph can have a different value when you realize that you may not be able to make the same photograph again.

My Old Photographs Mean More to Me Now

One of the things I found most interesting about returning to Ardtully was looking back at the photographs I made there years ago. They reminded me of where I was with my photography at that time, and it was obvious that my approach has changed considerably since then.

The compositions are different, my understanding of light is different, and the way I look at a location has changed. That is one of the great things about returning to somewhere you have photographed before. You can see the location through the experience you have gained since your last visit.

But there was another thing that stood out to me.

I had those photographs.

They were a record of the fact that I had been there at a time when I could access the location and photograph it. If I had never made those photographs because I was waiting for a better opportunity, I would not have them now.

That made me start thinking about all the other locations I photographed eight or ten years ago. There are places I could probably still visit, but there are also places where I actually do not know what the access situation would be today.

And that makes those old photographs more important to me than they were when I first took them.

We Are Always Looking for Somewhere New

There is something slightly strange about modern photography culture. We are constantly being encouraged to find new locations. Social media is full of photographs from places that many of us have never visited, and there is always another location being described as somewhere you need to photograph.

I am just as guilty of this as anyone else.

I love discovering new places, and there is nothing wrong with that. But I think we can become so focused on finding somewhere new that we forget about the places we already know.

Perhaps that old location you photographed five years ago deserves another visit.

Perhaps the photograph you made there was not particularly good, but you have learned a lot since then.

Perhaps the conditions were wrong the first time.

Perhaps you now have better equipment.

Or perhaps you simply want to see whether the place is still accessible.

Because one day it might not be.

This is not an argument for ignoring restrictions or trying to find ways around them. In fact, my experience at Ardtully reminded me of the opposite. If there is a sign telling you that something is private, do not decide that it probably does not apply to you. Check. Ask. Get permission where it is required. If you cannot establish that you have permission, do not enter.

But when you do have legitimate access, do not take that access for granted.

Take the photograph.

How Many Locations Have You Lost?

This is the part of this subject that I would really like to hear from other photographers about.

Have you ever returned to a location you photographed years ago and discovered that you could no longer access it? Maybe a gate had appeared, perhaps the land had become private, or maybe the owner had simply changed the access arrangements.

Perhaps you had a location that you always intended to return to, only to discover later that you had missed your opportunity.

I would really like to know how many photographers have experienced this.

I also wonder how many of us have photographs sitting on hard drives from locations that we can no longer reach. At the time, they might not have seemed particularly important. They might not even have been our best photographs. But years later, they can become a record of a place that we once had access to.

That is something I had not really considered when I was starting out.

When I photographed Ardtully eight years ago, I was simply trying to make a good photograph. I was not thinking about whether I would still be able to stand in that same position years later.

Returning this time made me think differently.

Photography is partly about the photograph itself, but it is also about the opportunity to make that photograph. Once that opportunity disappears, the photograph becomes the only record you have.

So perhaps we need to stop assuming that we can always come back.

The next time you are standing somewhere with your camera and the conditions are not perfect, perhaps take the photograph anyway. If you have legitimate access, use it. If the light is not what you wanted, work with it. If the composition is not perfect, find another one.

Because you can always return if the opportunity is still there.

But you cannot return if the opportunity disappears.

I would much rather have a photograph that I made in imperfect conditions than have no photograph at all because I kept telling myself I would come back another day.

And this is where I would like to hear your experiences. What locations have you photographed that you can no longer access? Have you ever gone back to somewhere you loved photographing only to find that the access had changed? Do you have photographs from places that are now private or unavailable?

Leave a comment and tell me about them, and perhaps we can get a meaningful conversation going together as a community.

Because I think there is a bigger story here than just one photographer returning to one old building in Kerry. There are photographs being made every day that may eventually become records of places that we can no longer visit.

So take the photograph while you can.

You might not get another chance.