I don’t fancy myself a landscape photographer, and “fine art” is an approach – not an end game – for me as well. Nonetheless, this was the position I found myself in on a recent trip out West. I did pack my pack-and-head travel system, but it stayed in the bag as we largely ventured into canyons and generally explored the landscape around us.
So it was light that was given and mostly blue skies. No corn this time, but plenty of majestic and interesting rock formations. And mountains. I do regret that I only stitched a couple of panoramas together; they somehow do more justice to the majesty of places like Williams Canyon:
You can click on the image to get a larger size.
I shot a lot into the sun. This does result in some flair, especially with the ultra-wide angle lens I was using (16mm on a full frame 35mm body). I was glad to use all of the 42.4MP available to me. There was plenty of detail in the images.
Even though it is the land that takes center stage, I still like to include people in my images. It adds interest (a connection to other humans), and provides scale. It’s hard to judge how big something is, even with trees in the image. Trees vary. People are a much more stable, identifiable reference.
People aren’t just for scale, obviously. They’re part of the story, too. Our hosts, for example, were most gracious. It is the people who also make the land what it is, at least in this photographer’s opinion.
Well, Ok “Bentley”, you as well.
I’ve also played around with timelapse, and incorporated them and some shots in the following video. I hope that you enjoy.