Traveling you often see things that require a double take. On my last trip through South Dakota, at the Crazy Horse Memorial to be exact, I witnessed this classic moment…
A man walking his dog while he rode his ATV.
South Dakota Dog Walk
As a dog owner I walk my dogs at least two times a day and if it were up to my wife I’d be out with my dogs 3-4 times a day… so seeing this was really foreign. I witnessed this last year, but only a couple of months ago a British citizen was disciplined (no driving for 6 months) for doing the same thing from his car.
What makes this photo for me other than the absurdity of the situation is the inclusion of the “no walking” sign in the background. How apropos.
Some landscapes are so sweeping its an incredible challenge to portray them properly in a tightly constrained photo, no matter what the format or lens used. The South Dakota Badlands fall into that category. Standing at any one of numerous scenic lookouts one’s field of view is completely filled with this amazingly surreal landscape.
South Dakota Badlands Spring Panoramic – Badland National Park, South Dakota Click to Enlarge
On this particular day the weather was turning for the worst, but the cloud cover provided nice even lighting to bring out the color in the eroded hillsides. Sporadic rain rejuvenated grass and flowers sprinkled through out the scene giving this otherwise desolate landscape vibrancy of color and life. Impossible to capture in entirety I opted to capture this scene in a panoramic format with a hint of  life revealing itself amidst an endless maze of canyons.
Photo Details:
Canon 1Ds Mark III, 90mm tilt-shift, 3-image horizontal panoramic
One of the most attractive things about venturing out and exploring nature is witnessing its raw beauty. Nature’s raw beauty is often put on a pedestal by nature photographers. Nature unadulterated or minimally edited is the intention of many photographers and by all means a noble goal. Yet this documentary style of nature photography is a narrow view.
Photographers have the ability to bring their own perspective and voice to the subjects they photograph. For some this manifests itself as a style or a focused project/portfolio. In either case it is one’s creative eye and vision that separates photographers as artists. To paraphrase an Elliott Erwitt quote, It’s not what you see, but how you see it.
So with that in mind do you photograph “nature as art” or make “art from nature”?
White Sands Minimalism - White Sands National Monument, New Mexico
This past week was the first week I abstained from blogging while not on the road. The reason…
I had to regroup with my wife after receiving yet more bad news. As many of you know my dog Curly passed away 4 weeks ago this Monday. The following Monday a minor fender bender rendered my car a “total loss”, hardly a concern given the news we received a week later. This past Monday (the third Monday in a row with bad news) we had to rush our youngest dog Zoe (6 years old) into emergency surgery. Zoe had been in otherwise great health, but had to have her ruptured spleen removed along with 6 pounds of bloody fluid drained from her abdomen. She came out of the surgery like a trooper, but the next day when I picked her up I got devastating news that Zoe’s condition was the result of a very aggressive form of cancer.
Zoe 4 days after surgery (Note her shaved tummy)
While Zoe is quickly rebounding to her normal self we’re faced with a short window to continue to enjoy her company (without chemotherapy the prognosis is 2 weeks to 3 months and with chemotherapy 5-6 months). All of this came out of  left field, so it’s been a rough road to adapting to our world being turned upside down. I only hope we avoid more bad news as we ramp up to welcome our new son into the world in the coming month.
Earlier this week I was forwarded a link to a blog post highlighting “X number of most breathtaking landscape photos” and every single image seemed to be post-processed in an over powering manner. The question arose in my mind, “Is digital post-production killing photography?” I then dissected the question I posed to myself… What assumptions was I making about nature and landscape photography? What sense of “normal” was I comparing these images to? What roll does digital post-processing play versus traditional film post-processing?
My initial thought to myself was a gut reaction to my personal dislike for the creative choices made in many of the images contained in the post I was pointed to. I’m all for individual interpretation in nature and landscape photography, after all it is the individual interpretation we bring to the scene that differentiates our creative vision from others. I then remembered many comments I’ve seen by commenters on this blog and other forums reflecting the common myth that our cameras some how capture a pure version of a nature or landscape subject. Most commonly Ansel Adams is invoked as the paragon of nature and landscape purism in such debates. I’ve always found this amusing knowing Ansel in his own right so heavily manipulated his images in the dark room. Yet somehow this is unknown or memory of this information has been lost by many photographers. Since his passing, the work of Ansel Adams has been placed on a very high pedestal.
Then yesterday I stumbled across a BBC program from 1983 titled “Master Photographers” on YouTube and there is a great 4 part interview with Ansel Adams where he so eloquently and clearly states how important pre-visualization and “intentional manipulation” is to his work. Pay special attention to Part II of this series containing the following quotes:
At 50 sec:
“None of my images are realistic in terms of values… Â it’s intentional manipulation”
At 4 min:
“The negative is the composer’s score, all the information is there. The print is the performance, so you interpret the score at various aesthetic emotional levels, but never far enough away dividing the original concept.”
Regarding the digital revolution that he recognized as being on the horizon…
At 7 min:
“The thing that excites me is that in not too many years we’re going to have a entirely new medium of expression with the electronic image. I’ve seen what can happen to a print reproduced by the  laser scanner and how that is enhanced and that is just the beginning.   … and I know the potential is there and I know its going to be wonderful.  Well in that sense the negatives for these photographs as an example will take the place of a fresh kabal they are….personal or some early composer will then be reinterpreted through a fresh medium and I think that is marvelous.”
I highly recommend watching all (4) four videos and keep the knowledge shared in your back pocket as you think about your own photography. Part II of these videos is pure gold and is worthy of listening to often.
On my recent trip to New Mexico I went out of my way in the hope I could photograph the Egg Factory in the Bisti Badlands under some dramatic lighting conditions. Unfortunately for me the weather forecast changed quickly on my drive from “20% chance of rain” to 100% chance of extreme wind gusts up to 50 mph. This experience was a great reminder that Mother Nature seldom works on your schedule.
Unfortunately for me I started my hike with my 70-200mm lens on my camera body versus the 24mm tilt-shift I had as my spare in my camera bag. I realized this half way out on my hike. Given the wind conditions there was no chance I was going to swap lenses in the field. Given the conditions and my available lens option I opted to scout the area and make the most of my time in the raging wind tempest that was. I tried my hand at a few photos, but I ultimately think I got better photos from my iPhone. I’ll post those in the near future.
I should note this was the windiest conditions I’ve ever hiked in. If I had my mouth open just slightly I had wind blowing out my nose. A super odd sensation when you’re trying to breath air in as you’re breathing heavy from a fast paced hike.
White Sands National Monument never ceases to amaze me. Whether lit at sunrise, midday or at sunset its not hard to see the unique and beautiful qualities of the white gypsum sand. Â This particular photo was taken early in my trip. It should be of no surprise that the textures and patterns of the sand were of particular interest, but I was also drawn to this composition to contrast the unique white sand to the deep blue sky above.
Blue Skies Above - White Sands National Monument, New Mexico
Image Details:
Canon 1Ds Mark III, 24mm Tilt-shift, ISO 200, f/22, 1/125 sec
3-image vertical panoramic (~ 35 megapixels)
