...the heart has its seasons its evenings and songs of its own...Robert Hunter

This image is one of my more personal photographic expressions.  Captured in the foothills near the mouth of Red Butte Canyon, it doesn’t really say that much about the specific location but rather speaks of a place in the inner self, some universal geography of the heart. The image’s simplicity is amplified by the vagueness of its reference to the landscape. And yet, without this reference to terra firma the power of the image is lost.

Please help me decide on a title for this image.

This is a new image from last Friday, captured about an hour after my previous post, in the foothills just west of Dry Fork. Although I’d been out hiking and photographing for more than five hours and was eager to get home for dinner, this scene stopped me in my tracks. I spent about ten minutes making fifteen exposures of three different compositions. This is my favorite from the set; it’s also one of my favorite images of the year so far. The light on the landscape isn’t moonlight, but lights from downtown SLC, lighting last years dried and golden grasses and creating a phosphorescent dreamscape. What I like best about this image is its fairy tale quality; it has the feel of a Chris Miles painting.

Russian Olive Silhouettes on the Shoulder of Little Black Mountain, Salt Lake City Foothills, Utah

Every year I plan on spending more time in the foothills. Those rolling ridgelines, grassy slopes, and stony outcrops north and east of Salt Lake City, from City Creek to Parley’s Canyon and east to East Canyon. I’ve always felt there was a ton of potential to make some really personal and compelling landscapes. As well as great potential for intimate landscapes, those artistic impressions of the geography, somewhere in-between the grand landscape and the microcosm. Not to mention the infinite potential for making close-up wildflower portraits.

 Every year I make a couple of forays into the foothills, make a couple of decent images, and quickly get drawn away, first by the water flowing out of the canyons, and then by the opening of the high glaciated basins of the Cottonwood Canyons.

Pioneer Limekiln in Limekiln Gulch, Salt Lake City Foothills, Utah

I hadn't been here since I was a teen. I had a vague memory, but had forgotten the exact location of this Limekiln until a few days ago when I spotted it from the ridge-line high above. Thought it was about time for a visit. The next morning brought light rain and brooding clouds that I thought would be perfect for a photograph. Originally built in the mid 1800's  this restored Limekiln, and others like it were important to the early construction of Salt Lake City. I did use Photoshop to remove the chain link fence erected on the backside of the kiln to keep people off.

Wildflowers at Sunset, Mt. Timpanogos Wilderness, Utah

A single image does not necessarily indicate the amount of time required to create it. This is not to say that an image doesn’t have to stand on its own merits regardless of how much effort went into its creation, but in landscape photography some images may take years to coalesce. The idea for an image may be there, but Mother Nature does things on her own time.

This is one of my classic images; one of my strongest examples of timing and the decisive moment in the landscape. This image captures a strong combination of seasonal and daily timing to be sure, but there is another element at work here. There’s an additional layer of timing that, after six years of returning to this location, at the same time of day, at the same time of year, finally produced dramatic clouds. The fact that it was dead calm for this 4 second exposure is somewhat of a miracle.

Mint and Clouds, Albion Basin, Utah

Time is a component of every image, but not every moment is created equally. Timing can be as important in photography as light. Legendary photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson is well known for applying the idea of the decisive moment to photography. His candid images of people combined the meticulous organization of visual elements with the culmination of the moment.

This same principal can also be applied to landscape photography. Landscapes have their decisive moments as well. Luckily for landscape photographers these moments come and go on a near daily basis. One thing is for sure, the landscape is not static. It’s in a constant state of flux. Light and weather can change by the second and the continual progression of the seasons guarantees transformation.

View from Chimney Rock Overlook Trail, Capitol Reef National Park, Utah

Sublime landscape combined with a mind-blowing cloudscape. Photomatix HDR brings all of the detail out of the shadows, and because it's in black & white there are no wacky colors.  Black and white photography is able to be highly manipulated without raising objections. The same degree of manipulation on the color image looked totally overdone. BTW this image was converted to black and white in Photomatix, simply taking the saturation all the way to the left, and then dialing-in the brightness, contrast, and compression.

Mt. Olivet Cemetery, Salt Lake City, Utah

I spent a few hours last Friday morning experimenting with my Lensbaby.  This was one of my favorite images from the set. What attracts me to this image are the juxtapositions; juxtaposition between organic and constructed, spring and winter, life and death, dark and light.  Here again, the Lensbaby allows me to simplify the composition and at the same time add layers of meaning to the image.  

Simple Composition: Moonrise, Salt Lake City Foothills, Utah

I think most people are familiar with the acronym KISS, Keep It Simple Stupid. Okay, the stupid part may be a bit harsh, but there is no doubt this principal applies to photographers in at least two ways. The first is the gear we choose to bring with us in the field. Some photographers are wrestling with so much equipment that when an actual opportunity presents itself their reaction to the scene becomes bogged down with decisions about which equipment to use. The second application of the principal relates to composition. When in the field I always try to remember that photography is the art of exclusion. Deciding to focus on one subject at the exclusion of everything else is at the heart of photography in the field. Our imagery often becomes stronger as we focus more on the exclusion of extraneous details, and isolate the individual elements of a scene.

Blazing Sunset, Salt Lake City, Utah

Parks, gardens, and green spaces can offer amazing opportunities for nature photographers without having to leave the city.  Of course, given the choice, when photographing nature I prefer to be as far from civilization as possible.  Being out in the wilds isn’t always possible though, oftentimes life gets in the way. This doesn’t mean you have to wait for the weekend, or your summer vacation, to make great landscape and nature photographs. If you see an incredible sunset brewing, think of the closest park or green space where you might be able to capture an image uncluttered by utility lines or telephone poles, grab your camera bag and bust a move.

That’s exactly what I did to make this image. With no time to get to the mountains or to the Great Salt Lake and a first rate sunset materializing, I headed to the best place I could think of, the closest public golf course. I had seen this pond lit up before as I was driving by the course at sunset some months earlier, and I made a mental note. On this evening, I was glad I had made that mental note because it allowed me to go there instinctively, without wasting time I didn’t have. As it turned out, this was the most intense sunset I saw all year; I felt fortunate to be able to put myself in position to capture the splendor.