I still have the slide I made in 1999. I'd never been to Mono Lake, I'd arrived in the night, but knew I wanted to get up for sunrise the next morning, so I picked a place based on pretty much no information at all, more or less the grounds of the Forest Service Visitor Center. The slide wasn't all that, but it was the start of what was to be a month of solid photographing in the Eastern Sierra, a month that saw me FedEx'ing slides between my hotels and the lab that was processing my slides, a month that leveled up (I feel) my photographic technique, and a month that set the stage for me going full time only a couple of years later.
This year, faced with the open question of where I'd start scouting for last week's Eastern Sierra workshop, I returned to the original scene of the crime. I picked a spot a few hundred yards away, the focus is better, and I've elected for a panoramic crop. The essential idea of the image is still as strong as my original vision, I've just realized it a little better, and today, I'm finding that satisfying.