the importance of re-visiting a location

i’ve had the pleasure of re-visiting some of our wonderful national parks in the west over the course of the last few months: death valley national park and parts of olympic national park. on both occasions, i noticed something peculiar: i saw both locations completely differently the second time around. on my first trip to death valley, i noticed the size of the valley, areas almost completely devoid of color - or at least devoid of what most humans classify as interesting color. it felt and looked like a desert in some of the scenes in the star wars movies. (it was the setting for a number of desert scenes in the star wars movies) i visited rialto beach for the first time a couple of years ago and was amazed at the larger things - the bigger scene of it all: sea stacks, particularly the tallest one on the north end of the beach grabbed my attention and would not let go. yet, on these latest trips, i “saw” completely different landscapes. instead of noticing the lack of colors in death valley, i noticed how much color there was. instead of noticing the lack of any life, i noticed just how much and how diverse the life was. rialto beach was so completely full of textures, from the forest next to the beach to the rocks that comprise the beach to the driftwood littering the beach, and even including the sea stacks and the trees growing on them.

it’s amazing how the visual stimulation changes for me each time i re-visit a location. some may say it’s due, at least in part, to my maturation as a photographer and artist. others may rightfully counter it’s due in large part to the alarming regression of artistic maturity. no matter what your thoughts may be, i’m still amazed at the things i “see” upon re-visiting a location - things i never saw the first time i visited.

the thing is, as we get more familiar with a location, we get more intimately familiar with the location!

and this, my friend, is the key: show me a picture of what a location “says” to you. my friend paul recently told me of a trip to saguaro national park and how amazed he was at the saguaro cactuses. i asked him why the cactuses stood out to him so much. he explained why, and i said, “now take a picture of that!”

eagle’s head

people often ask, “how can i tell a story in a landscape photograph?” the answer? get to know the landscape. explore things that you find interesting and intriguing. tell me that story of the landscape and why and how it amazes you. tell me about your “saguaro”. if you want deeper, more meaningful images of a landscape or a subject, get to know the landscape or the subject deeper.

do you remember the pictures you had taken in school? school picture day: the worst day of the year! i had to wear a clip-on tie the entire day while making sure my hair didn’t mysteriously morph out of its freshly cut bowl shape into something even slightly resembling “coolness”. then some stranger sits you on a spinning stool, tells you to face a certain direction, smile, and voila! in mere seconds, you have one of the set of photos that will, for the rest of your life, be the talking (and laughing) point of your parents’ conversations with friends.

contrast that with your wedding photos. the photographer spent all day (or even multiple days) with you. they got to know you. they caught you in candid moments of interaction with friends and family. these pictures - these were good pictures! as someone who deplores having his picture taken, my wedding photos of me didn’t suck. and that’s as big of a compliment as a picture of me can receive.

why the difference?

at this point, you know the answer. a good portrait photographer gets to know the subject(s). a good portrait photographer gets the subject(s) to feel comfortable in front of the camera. a school picture day photographer? they come in, have two hundred kids to photograph and have to make sure the kids with a cold don’t have snot running out of their nose. they can’t move on to the next kid fast enough.

the natural world is no different. wham, bam, thank you ma’am images can make a visual impact on the viewer, but that impact is oftentimes short lived. there is no real connection between the photographer and the subject. connect, connect, connect as best you can. get to know your subject. visit it multiple times. what’s its name? why is that its name? what conditions does it prefer? in what areas does it exist? there are so many ways to connect with your subject, though it takes time and a bit of work on your part.

ode to pollock

in the end - the extra time is worth it. getting to know your subject is worth it. spending more than a fleeting moment in good light with the scene is worth it. your images will be deeper. they’ll tell the story of the place, or the subject.

next time you suggest a place to photograph to someone, and they say, “naaah, i’ve already been there.” reply with, “exactly!" and tell them to go anyway.

the sound of silence

as i wandered this location within death valley national park, i stopped - as i often do - closed my eyes, and listened. i heard the most beautiful sound ever.

silence.

nothing.

nada.

if you’ve followed me for a while, you’ve likely heard me talk about my experience while out in nature. i stop often to listen; smell; and look up, down and around. all of these experiences help to tell the story of that particular location - to tell the story of that spot. and i try to include that story in any images i may make there.

but there are also experiences that will be remembered for the duration of my life, or at least as long as my mind works well enough to remember. and this moment, this experience, was one of those.

people often talk about quiet and the ability to hear a pin drop. this moment, and the one a number of moments later when i again stopped, closed my eyes, and listened - those moments were so silent a pin dropping would have sounded like a cannon blast.

of all the times i’ve stopped to close my eyes and smell the air, followed by intently listening to the world around me, i’ve never experienced silence like this. there have been times where the birds didn’t cackle, there was no squirrel excitedly warning his or her friends about the intruder in their space, there was no water rushing past or lapping the shore. but there’s always been the slightest breeze blowing past my ear, or rustling the trees or grasses. this was the most pure absence of sound i can remember experiencing in my life, and my god was it gorgeous.

i was, ironically enough, at a photography workshop where one of my photographic heroes, and someone you’re likely sick of hearing me talk about, guy tal was teaching us about making more expressive photos. and he often mentioned the experience of the moment as being incredibly important.

so, how does one impart that experience of the moment into an image? the first thing that must occur is the person has to experience the moment! how often is it that photographers and non-photographers stop just long enough to raise their camera, (or cell phone) point it at something, maybe adjust the lens slightly, snap an exposure and move onto the “next spot”. that, my friends, is not experiencing the moment. that is “wham bam, thank you ma’am” photography - it’s getting a quickie with nature. and here’s the thing - you may get a good image, or even a beautiful image.

but you’ll be missing out on the potential for some of the best memories you may have in your life, because you’re in a rush to “get to the next spot” or perhaps for that wonderful acronym, FOMO.

my dad absolutely adored wolves. on my last trip to yellowstone national park, i went to the hayden valley before sunrise, hoping for some magical light even though it had rained the previous night and looked overcast. i setup on a small hill overlooking the yellowstone river, looking south and made an image. it is for all intents and purposes, a pedestrian, average image, at best. and it’s one of my favorite images that i’ve ever taken. because as i setup and waited for the light to hopefully appear, i heard a pack of wolves excitedly howl a mile away at what i can only guess was a meal. and that moment brought me closer to my father and best friend, who’d passed away about five years prior. it’s the experience that made that moment another that i’ll never forget. my hard drive can crash and any prints i make may burn, but i’ll always have the experience of that moment.

an image for my father

if you crave more meaningful, deeper, more interesting images, chase experiences rather than pictures. put all you have into the composition of those images and the processing and printing of those images to express what that experience felt like. it may be that the light never appears, as it didn’t in yellowstone that morning, but the experience will be far more fulfilling than hundreds of the quickie photos one can make, combined.

how does this make you feel?

well, it’s been a while. the suck is strong in this one. i’ve been busy and a bit burned out, so the blog has taken a back seat. but it’s time to get her going again, so here we go.

i mentioned i’ve been a bit burned out, and truthfully i’ve been a bit mentally fried from the election in the US and its fallout. i used to escape to nature in order to recharge and escape the mental crazy, but even the few trips into the mountains that i’d taken had resulted only in my viewing of the fires of this past summer - resulting in further mental degradation. and so i got away from photography altogether for a bit, and made a return to making of music. i have numerous musical projects halfway done or at least with a bit of a musical idea, so i escaped into a musical idea - one that was happy, a spirit lifter. after a few years of rarely touching anything musical other than the piano on occasion, i found a much more deft touch on mixing down a song and the use of effects. in the past as i’ve made music, (quite immature in that regard might i add) i would do my best to add as many “cool” sounds as possible - even at the expense of busying the song or at the expense of the feeling the song provided. i found myself this time using much more restraint, and i credit this to photography and my growth in that art form.

scorched earth

burned ground at the edge of the fire area of the east troublesome fire - the second largest in colorado history

i have a wonderfully horrible habit of starting a book, reading a few chapters and forgetting the book exists. sometimes i remember the book exists for another chapter or two only to again be hit with my anti-elephant-ness. other times, i have the horrible habit of reading through some lessons all the way through, perhaps outlining what i feel are key points - never to be read again. my last exploration into Guy Tal’s The Landscape Photographer’s Guide to Photoshop ended with him stating that before beginning an edit of an image to recall as best we can the feelings we felt when photographing the scene. if that’s not possible, we should instead concentrate on what the image makes us feel now, as we look at it on the computer. as we edit, take steps in the edit to further enhance those feelings. as was the case in music, oftentimes i would attempt to make the image look as “cool as possible” in my earlier days. i haven’t read any more of that book for one reason: i realized the importance of his statement, and i knew if i progressed in the book i would forget this point. so i made it a point to stop there and practice it with each image as i process them.

moustache

there’s one facebook group i visit with regularity - it’s a private photography group created by a photography book writer and class developer. i’ve taken some of his classes, gotten and received some great advice there. someone recently asked in that group, “is my image too X” where X can really be anything. i asked him if the fact it was so X helped evoke the feelings he was trying to evoke, but he wasn’t sure what feelings he was trying to evoke. so i told him to look up an emotions list on google and see if he felt any of those things when looking at his image, and if so did the X in his image help him or detract from his feelings of those emotions. if you’re struggling with expressing yourself in your photography - or your music, or any other art form, look at the emotions you’d like to evoke from the person experiencing your art and as you progress with your piece, ensure those emotions are being enhanced. but having a starting point or vision will help immensely.

i used to adjust a slider in lightroom or photoshop and ask myself, “does this make the image look better?” i may go back and forth with undo and redo, and finally i’d conclude one way or the other. but better is very subjective, and i’ve gotten away from that. i now ask myself, “how does this change make me feel? does it make me feel more happy or less happy? (if happy is one of the emotions i’m trying to express) if more happy, the modification was a success. if it made me feel less happy, i need to undo and go a different route.

if you’re looking to be more expressive in your art, then “cool” is not the route to take. to be successful in this regard, it helps to have a starting point or vision of what you want the viewer (or listener, etc) to feel. then as your art comes to fruition, make sure that the modifications you make are more fully causing that emotion to be felt by you.

devastating sunrise

first light hits the peaks behind a number of trees burned this fall in rocky mountain national park