Identifying a flow line within any particular landscape is the critical first step for me in choosing a composition, since it becomes the axis for imposing a sense of motion to the image. I think of it as a foil against which to move the camera. As my motion strokes have evolved into more complex curves, I have been able to use less obvious flow lines, while simultaneously varying my motion stroke and employing more dramatic cross strokes.
The horizon or a shoreline, a pronounced light or shadow or a tree trunk, are obvious choices as flow lines, but they can be very limiting since ninety degree +/- opposing landscape elements tend to over-exaggerate, and thus overwhelm the effects of the stroke.
Another way of thinking about the contrasting effect of the motion-stroke is to express it in terms of the degree to which I can move the camera against the grain of the flow line without completely losing the viewer and still add to the image’s texture.
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While editing my Kauai landscape series’, I thought about how the island has its own particular texture. In fact every landscape has a unique texture, which if emphasized, offers up its very own character embodying its color, its perspective, its shape, and its scale.
An early photographic objective of mine was to overcome the shiny, smooth feel of the photographic print by expressing depth through the visual emphasis of texture. At first, I chose subjects having textured surfaces, and then captured them from a direction so the light source was projected or reflected across their surface.
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Photographing big landscape raises the issue of how to effectively portray vastness. Whether seascape or landscape, great empty spaces limited mostly by the horizon, distant mountains, shoreline, clouds or sky, require dealing with a whole lot of empty space. I try to solve this by invoking color and light differentiation, texture, and pattern – no matter how subtle – to provide some perspective and reduce the portions of the colossal landscape into elemental blocks. During thirty years focusing on landscape, I have primarily explored how motion strokes can meld these elements to explore the depth of space.
A month ago, a friend sent me a link to the 100 best pictures from the Hubble Telescope’s 16-year journey. What first struck me about these images was the incredible vastness of outer space. The dimensions of the Sombrero Galaxy – 28 million light years from Earth, 50,000 light years across, and its 800 billion suns, are staggering. How do you get your mind around the eternity of the cosmos? (more…)
Read MoreAntarctica’s 5,000 foot average elevation is the highest of all the continents, and consisting almost entirely of ice, it accounts for 80% of the earth’s fresh water. So the recent discovery that one vast ice sheet, in Western Antarctica has not only begun melting, but has already reached a point of no return, is beyond scary. (more…)
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Walking down the extended pier, I passed the eerie 91-passenger ship whose windows were being replaced after the recent storm blew them out and forced her back to port. Just past her, I saw our Ocean Diamond, which comfortingly was a much larger vessel – higher, taller and longer. As I stood with the other 180 passengers boarding this 300’ long ship, I exhaled, feeling more comfortable about crossing the 500-mile wide Drake Passage considered among the roughest oceans in the world.
Greeted by the Captain, first officers, and our Expedition Crew, I was further reassured that all was in order, and our personal gear was waiting for us in our appointed cabins. Within an hour, we assembled for safety instructions, and by 6 PM the Ocean Diamond was cast loose to begin our journey out the 50 mile Beagle Channel to Drake’s Passage with the beautiful setting sun highlighting the steep Andies backdrop. (more…)
