I’ve been giving a lot of thought recently to what goes in to making a great landscape photograph. It turns out there are four things, four pillars if you will.  Four, that’s a good number.  There are the four legs of a table or the four wheels of a car.  And not to forget the four sacred directions of the Native Americans.

In landscape photography the four pillars are evenly divided between the aesthetics and the technical.  So what are they?  The two aesthetic pillars are Fantastic Light and Strong Composition.  No surprise there.  The two technical pillars are Appropriate Sharpness and Optimum Exposure.  No surprise there either.  If just one of those pillars is missing, well, the table collapses, the image suffers.

Let’s look at them one by one….

Joshua Tree Spring Sunrise (2011)

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The 2012 Joshua Tree Fine Art Festival is coming up next weekend.  The dates are Friday, April 6 to Sunday, April 8.  I’m excited to be returning and catching up with old friends.  This is the first art festival I ever did and so returning is like a homecoming.  The festival is at the Oasis Visitor Center in Twentynine Palms, CA.  The hours are 9:00 to 5:00.  Come on out and see some great art.

I’ll be showing some old favorites along with some new photographs I’m very excited about.  As far as the old favorites go I’m planning on showing Virgin River and the Watchman from Zion National Park.

This has proved to be my most popular photograph and has won awards.  It was captured on Thanksgiving day back in 2008.  I was in Zion with my wife and daughter for the Thanksgiving weekend.  I slipped out for this sunset and caught a beauty.  Beginners luck!  I’ve returned many times but never with light this good.  (By the way, to get a better view of the photographs you can enlarge them by clicking on them.)

To go along with the Watchman is another photograph taken that same weekend along the Riverside Walk to the Gateway to the Narrows.  When my family is with me we always do this walk.  It’s our favorite – for obvious reasons.

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I got a comment on a recent post on workflow.  (Lightroom Tutorial – Workflow)

The question was if there was a way in Lightroom to sort through a large number of photographs to select the ones you want to work on.

Here’s the situation.  You’ve just returned from a five day workshop.  And you have a thousand or so photographs.  Now we know that not everyone of these images is a keeper.  Personally, I’m delighted if I get four or five keepers from a five day workshop.  Hey, given the vagaries of weather and light, I’m happy if I get one.

But the prospect of sifting through hundreds and even thousands of images can be a bit overwhelming.  So here’s what I do.

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There are about as many definitions of “fine art photography” as there are people who call themselves “fine art photographers.”  For many of us, fine art photography is an expression of our view of the world.  Much of what we see in the world is captured in the images we capture in the field.  But that’s not the whole story.  Why?  Because the true expressive quality of our photographs comes to life in the post processing – the digital darkroom if you will.

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When I do art festivals and shows I’m often asked, “Did you manipulate that photograph?”  I have several answers.  The most direct is, “Yes, of course.” 

Other times I’ll reply, “My photographs are what I saw, not what the camera saw.”  Or if I’m feeling really wordy I’ll answer, “Let me explain it this way.  I approach photography from the mindset of a painter. I want to give myself the same creative freedom of a painter.”  To which the inquirer will often respond, “Oh, I get it; you’re an artist.”

To manipulate or not to manipulate.  That’s not even the question.  Why?  Because you have to go to extremes to have a photograph that is NOT manipulated.  OK, that’s a pretty bold statement.  So let’s take a deeper look.

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In the previous post in this series I presented the idea that calendar art is a worthy first goal for serious photographers.  (Read Taking Your Photography to the Next Level.)  And aside from the fact that the subject matter of calendar art may be fairly run of the mill, the technical and aesthetic qualities are generally excellent.

In that post I ended with this thought:

Calendar art is about the subject of the photograph.  The photographer is transparent.  In fine art photography the influence of the artist becomes more apparent.

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Art is the desire of a man to express himself, to record the reactions of his personality to the world he lives in.  ~Amy Lowell

Join me on an upcoming workshop.  Click here for more details.

To see more of my photographs click here.

I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way – things I had no words for.

Often times when out shooting with other photographers I hear them say, “I wish I had brought my grad ND filter.”  Or maybe they didn’t have the lens they needed.  “Where is it?” I ask.  “It’s back in my hotel room,” is their response.  “Why didn’t you bring it with you?”  “I didn’t think I would need it,” or “It’s too heavy.”

Truth to tell, I don’t understand the rationale of selecting the gear you think you might need when going out on a shoot.  Why not take it all?  I suppose if you have 20 lenses (I exaggerate) you can’t take them all with you.  But a normal complement of gear that gives you the flexibility you need isn’t that hard to pack and carry.

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I read a great series of articles by George Barr on taking the next step in photography.  They were passed along to me by a good friend – Brian Graham.  I have some early thoughts on what Barr proposes.

In his articles he defines six or seven steps for both technical and aesthetic growth in photography.  His articles define each step, discuss ways you can determine what step you’re in and gives ideas on how to advance to the next step.

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