“I was studying for a degree in environmental conservation at the University of Colorado in Boulder, taking classes in mountain ecology...My summers were spent backpacking in National Parks. My mother gave me a camera when I went away to school, and it seemed like a natural thing to take along. I wanted to document what I was seeing and what was exciting to me. Photography didn’t start out as my ultimate goal. After a couple of summers backpacking and photographing nature, the activity of photography grew to be more important than backpacking.”
William Neill, from an interview with Grace Schaub
The desire to incorporate the power and beauty of the natural world around us into our being is one of the prime motivations for making landscape and nature photographs. These photographs can then be shared with others to show where we’ve been and what we’ve appreciated. A landscape may depict clouds rushing over mountains in the wilds of the Rockies, or a barn or rustic farmhouse in mannered fields. Not all of nature is bucolic and sunny. Powerful landscapes can also show the power and, at times, fury of nature, even the devastating effects of man upon the natural world.
One of the keys to successful landscape photography is using visual and technical applications to capture a true “sense of place.” The aim is to record both the external visual record of the place as well as the internalized power and presence of the experienced moment in which it is recorded. The most powerful images are both visual and emotional records.
Landscape images may at times be a gift from a coincidence of sky, light, time of day, or the viewpoint offered by the road or trail. However, evoking a true sense of place usually demands patience, applied technique and a willingness to “feel out” an area prior to photographing. It also requires active seeing and contemplation on what framing, exposure and time of day will best communicate the power and beauty of a location.
One way to approach landscape studies is to leave your camera in your bag before you begin to shoot. Move through an area and make mental notes on framing, the direction of the light and the best point of view. While spontaneous moments of inspiration should not be denied (especially on days when the light is undergoing constant change), consideration of a number of photographic options prior to making pictures may be the best course. It also allows time for enjoying and appreciating the place.
Landscapes tend to be broader views of an area that encompass sky and ground or a lake with surrounding forest. Though the distinction may be slight, and the photographs may be made in the same locales, nature photography is generally on a more intimate scale. It may be photographs of wildlife or a clump of fall leaves caught in the glistening waters of a rushing stream. Nature photography often relies on chance, or serendipity, and pictures are found while enjoying a hike in the woods or a stroll down the beach. Nature can also be an excellent source of abstract forms; images made in that frame of mind become metaphors for a grander design, or touch emotions not usually engendered by the subject’s face value.
Landscape and nature studies have always been an important part of photography The earliest book of photographs by one of the pioneers of photography, Fox-Talbot, was entitled “The Pencil of Nature.” Nature as metaphor was a major theme of photographers such as Minor White, Walter Chappell and Edward Weston. The linkage of nature photography with conservation became the life’s work of Ansel Adams. Many activist-photographers carry on this work today.
Image and text copyright George Schaub 2009. All rights reserved.
