by Jason Eldridge: Have you ever thought, ‘if I could just travel to exotic locations I could produce great images’?  Has that ever stopped you from getting off the couch to go shoot?  It is a way of thinking that will stagnate your growth as a photographer.  This haunted me for over two years.

 I moved from the majestic mountains of East Tennessee to the flat swampland of the Florida Everglades (specifically just south of Miami, FL) and at this time I considered myself a nature/landscape photographer.  My photography suffered as I spent a couple of years complaining about the lack of shooting locations and about how I lost the mountains.  The next trip back to Tennessee is all that would spark my photographic interest.  One day I was sitting on the couch next to my wife who looked at me and simply said “why don’t you just go photograph where we live?  After all we may not be here forever”.  I stuttered a bit trying to find a good counter but to no avail.  The following week I took a trip to Miami for some nighttime photos.

I started doing real research about photographic opportunities in my area.  I was shocked at all the viable locations in my own back yard.  I discovered the right times of year to go into the Everglades and what weather conditions worked for both city and nature photography.  I began expanding my focus (no pun intended). Portraiture and wedding photography became an interest.  Before I knew it I was fully engaged into photography again.