One of the advantages of having a great place to photograph close to my home is that I can always quickly get there. Brooks Jensen – one of the photographers I highly regard – likes to say “Luck is when preparation meets opportunity”. Well, I’m always prepared. All my photo gear is in the car. As soon as I see a great sunset, I hop into my car and take off to those flower fields that I mentioned in the previous post.
Here is one of the lucky moments I think:
Chamomile at Sunset
Recently I got a link to a somewhat interesting article Preparation In Fine Art Landscape Photography. While I found it interesting (I do myself lots of the things listed in the article and find them useful), at the same time I thought it is too simplistic and pragmatic.
The most important thing I do in the field is missing from the article’s list: connecting with a landscape. Before I even take my camera out of a bag I spend time observing landscape that surround me – from tiny flowers to tall mountains to high sky up above. What’s interesting in it, how do I feel about it, is it a happy place or a sad place, is it powerful or weak? I spend as much time as I need to feel the things that surround me, walking around or simply sitting. I may even close my eyes and focus on scents or sounds of birds singing or waves crashing onto the shore. Can you imagine that – a photographer with his eyes closed?
Call me naïve and romantic – because quite frankly that who I am – but when I photograph I don’t follow any specific list of steps, I follow my emotions.
Two Trees on a Hill at Sunset
I’ve been to Palouse many times but still have not found a good place to photograph at sunrise or sunset except the Steptoe Butte. The last trip was not exception. One day we scouted pretty large area trying to find a good composition and end-up with missing sunset. There was a great sky but we could not find a great composition. I ended up taking pretty simple photographs like this:
Sunset in Palouse
Other days I was experimenting with new angles from Steptoe Butte, trying to include some strong foreground into a picture:
Sunset with a Rock
It is nice to have a photo archive. Mine just crossed 100,000 photos mark. Do I visit my archive often? No. It is practically impossible to find a photograph of a particular subject or even a place there. But I still keep all the originals – raw or jpeg files. As technology develops I might want to revisit some of the photographs that I’ve picked long time ago.
Just today I recalled that there is a photo posted on my website and mentioned in one of my blog post – https://blog.vitphoto.com/2010/03/26/to-shoot-or-not-to-shoot/ – that had strong vignette. I remember I spent lots of time trying to correct it as much as possible. Now we finally have ability to automatically correct vignette in Photoshop for some specific lenses. In no time I was able to re-develop the image and get much better result. The change might look subtle for some, for me the difference is big – it opened up the image:
While there – I mean while being in photo archive to pull original raw file for this photograph – I’ve discovered a couple of other photographs which I found interesting. Both are taken at the same place and same sunset.
For I don’t know which time I learn over and over not to give up on a sunset too soon. It is not over until it is dark.
We were photographing Half Dome in Yosemite Valley at sunset. The Dome was partially covered with cloud. Golden rays of a low Sun were breaking thru the clouds. That’s when I got this nice moody photograph of the Dome:
And after that the light completely disappeared. We packed our cameras and tripods and went to nearby small village to do some shopping before leaving to our camp for the night.
Just as were leaving the village I saw top of Half Dome lit up with this gorgeous purple light. The setting Sun has found its way thru the clouds for the last time for the day. We sharply turned around and parked. As quickly as I could I unpacked camera, set it up on tripod and managed to catch last purple light on a puffy cloud hanging at the top of Half Dome:
Great things happen when you least expect them. Like tonight on my way home I saw this gorgeous sunset. I just had to stop and take some photographs.
This is a series of posts with translation of my interview published in Russian at http://landscapists.info/vitaly-prokopenko. The question from the interview: “How do you prepare for taking a photograph? Do you see you image in your mind’s eye first and then wait for the right light, or take a photograph immediately as you see something?”
This differs from time to time. Sometimes I have an images in my mind’s eye even before I see it and take a photograph. And then I search for a place where I can make that photograph.
Sometimes, after studying a location at home, I imagine a lot of different photographs I’ll be able to take. Then when I arrive to the destination I find it looking completely different from what I have imagined. That is often disappointing. The important thing is not put camera aside. I almost make myself to start photographing in that case and after a couple of days I start seeing photographs around me my own way. Still after the first trip to a location I rarely bring good photographs, more often I use them to study the place at home and be clearer vision next time.
Sometimes I find a beautiful place but the light is not right. I take my compass out take a not of how the sun is moving across the sky, where I’d like it to be to get better light and most importantly when it is going to be there. Sometimes it means that I need to wait for a summer or winter.
Sometimes a place is beautiful, the sun is where I’d like it to be. It is just covered with clouds. I’m watching how clouds sail across the sky, how light and shadow moves across the land. And I wait until a sun breaks thru the clouds and shines on a particular rock, hill or tree. Here a spot of light is getting closer, it looks like in just a moment it will light up your subject. But not – a miss. Next. Again a miss. It seems like the light plays with you, does not let to catch itself. I can spend an hour like that – observing light and shadow. When finally a ray of the sun falls on that rock, hill or tree it is such a joy – here it is what I have been waiting for.
Sometimes everything looks dull, the sky is filled with clouds so thick they form one big cloud. Everything around is grey and flat. It seems like there is no chance there’ll be any sunset. Then suddenly just before sun drops below horizon, the last ray of the sun finds a tunnel in the clouds, breaks thru and lights up the sky in unbelievable hues.
vitali prokopenko | fine art 