Many of us tell stories related to our photographs — I relate a short one with almost every photograph that I share on this website. These stories fall into several categories. They may relate the circumstances surrounding the making of the photograph. Some attempt to describe technical issues related to the image. A few will try to extrapolate meaning from the photograph and relate it to non-photographic subjects including the photographer’s personal life. Some photographers seek to impress with stories of the tremendous lengths they went to in order to make the photograph.

I often wonder how much these stories affect how they photographs are interpreted. Does a great story increase our interest in a mundane photograph? Do beautiful photographs get overlooked because the photographer doesn’t elaborate on them? How important is (or isn’t) it to know the lengths the photographer went through to make the photograph?

I have included two of my photographs with this post — photographs that many people like and remember and occasionally collect.

Sandstone Patterns and Canyon Light. Southern Utah. October 19, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.*

This morning various things had me thinking about what a landscape photograph might do, how it might work, and what it might try to “show.” This is — no surprise! — a gigantic subject and much too big for a “morning musings” post, even a long one. Frankly, it would take a book to even begin to cover it. So regard what follows as just a few thoughts that came up today. (I’ve also used this post as an excuse to post a second photograph today — I have so many new ones that I think I need to speed up the process!)

I actually find it difficult to fully explain what it is that I’m looking for or trying to do in “landscape” (or certain other types of) photographs. There is a strong “I know it when I see it” element that almost defies description and analysis. In fact, too much analysis can be paralyzing, and I strongly believe that a lot of it is better left for later  when I’m not in the process of making photographs.

It is also the case, I think, that there is not just one kind of landscape photograph — something that should be self-evident to anyone who has looked at a lot of landscape photography, especially along the outer boundaries of the genre. Most often we think of “natural landscape” with no or little evidence of what we think of as non-natural elements, but there are also urban landscapes, industrial landscapes, and much more. I’m not going to try to undo that intellectual and aesthetic knot in this little post!

What I can do is share a little bit of what I’m looking for when I photograph landscape subjects, though even this can become complex. Here is a short list:

• The big reflected in the small. While we can point the camera at the “all of it” (as my wife refers to the big landscape subjects), it is difficult to do so without overwhelming the viewer with too much information. In addition, because we are often familiar with the big views, it is difficult to create them in ways that show us anything new about the subject. On the other hand, my experience with these places is formed from the sum of many small elements that work together to create the feeling of the whole. I tend to think that the, done right, a single tree against red rock can evoke the feeling of the Southwest as much as a photograph with a larger scope.
• Geometry. I’m continually fascinated by the shapes, lines, angles, curves, textures of things in the landscape. This is, frankly, a sort of visual obsession, though one that I think I share with a lot of other photographers and visually-oriented people. In a sense, this leads to viewing the landscape as a sort of abstraction where these visual elements themselves form the basis of the image.
• Feeling. Certain elements of the landscape evoke, at least for some of us, emotional responses. Some are probably obvious — the power of a storm, for example. Others might be a bit more elusive — such as quietness or stillness.  For several reasons, this is potentially a very complex aspect of the work. The feelings are very personal, and in some cases they may not be “visible” to other viewers. They can also be tied up with other elements of the experience of the place that only the photographer knows. The viewer brings his or her own response to the  photograph in ways that the photographer cannot know.
• Light. The quality of light has a fascination to many of us that is perhaps almost impossible to explain to people who don’t see this way. (Looking back, I eventually realized that I was “afflicted” by this from a very young age!) There is something about certain effects of light — something in its spotlight, haze and atmosphere that glows, variations in its color, soft light that fills shadows — that simply stops some of us in our tracks.
• Holding the ephemeral. Virtually everything we photograph is changing — in fact, virtually everything in our world is. The seasons change, trees grow and die, storms pass, the way we see evolves, special light appears and is gone. The list is endless. I believe that landscape photography — and, actually, photography in general — is at least partially an attempt to grasp and hold onto these things as they pass by.
• Place. The role of “place” is obvious when the place is well-known, but it is important to me in photographs that do not focus on a well-known place, as is the case with most of my photographs. Almost every landscape photograph is tied to a real, concrete place, whether or not that is its most important feature.
• What/How I See. I believe strongly in the idea that a photograph (or, especially, a group of photographs) ultimately tells us more about the photographer than about what is in front of the camera. I’m fascinated every time I work with other photographers and see, yet again, that we can stand side-by-side, shooting the same subjects, and come up with very different ways of seeing them. So a photograph of a Utah canyon wall is not just a photograph of that wall — it is evidence of what I saw in that canyon and of how I saw it.

This list could go on, but this is just a “morning musings” post, so I’ll stop here. What and how do you see the landscape when you photograph or look at photographs?

• About the photograph: I made this photograph in a Utah slot canyon recently. I’m tempted to say that the slot canyons are all about the light. Though that might be a bit of an exaggeration, canyon light is very special. I virtually always comes down from far above, and softens and picks up color as it reflects between higher rock walls. As I walk through such canyons I am usually hyper-aware of the quality and color of the light, and I’m often looking up. That was the case in this canyon when I looked up to see this amazing scene of complex and interacting patterns on the canyon wall: curves, vertical drainage lines, horizontal strata, various cracks in the rock.

Morning Musings are somewhat irregular posts in which I write about whatever is on my mind at the moment. Connections to photography may be tenuous at times!

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.