When the sun goes behind the clouds, many photographers pack away their cameras. But there is no bad light if only one finds a subject to match. Soft light is perfect for landscape photography during an overcast day or after sunset looking east (which implies shooting at “sunset point” in the morning*). Soft light is also beautiful for portraits, except perhaps for very rugged men.
From Ansel Adams and Eliot Porter to David Muench, many photographers have been attracted by the desert landscape.
The main reasons that I love the desert are its simplicity, quality of light due to low humidity in the air, and the ability to get away from the masses; if only you hike a mile. The absence of vegetation reveals the underlying geological structures; the bare bones of Earth laid out in front of us.
On a recent trip, we almost got trapped because of Covid-19 travel restrictions. For a second, I considered renting a campervan (aka RV) and hiding in The Sheltering Dessert. This is the title of a book by Henno Martin (1910-1998), a German professor of geology who, along with Hermann Korn and their dog named Otto, lived for two years in the Namib desert.
Balancing rock: Kollorsuaq, Greenland, 16 mm, f/8, stack of 6 images
I’m back from an expedition cruise to the Baffin Bay high up in the Arctic between Canada and Greenland, a trip that brought me back to the roots as a landscape photographer.
Landscapes have been my exclusive subjects for more than 20 years when shooting film with a 4×5 view camera. Landscapes require detail. A beautiful scene, matching light (there is no such thing as bad light as everything boils down to finding a subject that matches the light), a solid composition, and exceptional detail in both the shadows and the highlights can create another level of viewing pleasure; the finished print revealing more detail than was perceivable with the naked eye.
Gullfoss, Iceland. Nikon D810, Nikkor 28 f/1.4, at f/11, 4 s, ISO 50. Composite image with focus stack on foreground. 6-stop ND filter.
I never understood why waterfalls grab the hearts and minds of so many photographers. Go to any location that advertises a waterfall and it is guaranteed that there will be a large parking space, lots of cars, and buses with their engines idling. Masses of people, often out of shape, hike along a trail. The first action when the lookout point is reached is to pull out a camera and photograph the falls. In post-processing the images are cropped just above the pool, around which the fellow visitors had their picnic.
More recently, a popular thing seems to be “dying for a selfie”; people standing extremely close with their back on the brink of a fall, trying to get the best perspective of themselves leaning over the gorge.