Landscape Creativity

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am occasionally challenged by landscapes. The human eye is easily able to appreciate beauty through its wide-angle, high dynamic range lens. It is easy to be awestruck by nature, especially when mountains, water, sunsets, and weather are involved. At the same time, it can be hard to capture those scenes with a digital SLR. As I work to master the settings that will yield the best landscape results, I sometimes limit my scene to just part of the majesty. In composing my landscape photos, it is often easier and more dramatic to use nature to frame itself versus capturing the wide expanse of an image, as below.



As I stood on the edge of the dock at Lake Chelan several weeks ago, the setting sun illuminated the impressive cloud formation you see above. At the same time, that cloud formation reflected the beautiful golden light onto neighboring cabins and the Lake Chelan Yacht Club. It was a brilliant end to my vacation.



In the end, my only advice for landscape photos is to be creative. Many prefer wide angles and reflections of grandeur. At the same time, I would advocate to not fear the zoom. There is such a thing as too much of a scene.