Landscape Photography is Hard

Most of the halfway decent landscape photography images I've taken have been unplanned until now. There have been a few strokes of good fortune. Recently I decided to take landscapes more seriously. In doing so, I have now gone out twice to try and capture some images with planning and intention. Both outings did not go well.

I live in the heart of the Sonoran Desert, which is very picturesque and I have access to some great views within minutes. As I type this, out my office window I can see Four Peaks mountain, an icon that's well known in my area. The views from my back porch are epic. You would think making a great landscape photo would be easy. It's not.

On Tuesday I ventured out to a spot I like at sunset thinking it would be pretty easy to come home with a banger shot. I took a bunch of photos of a scene that I thought would work well. The light turned out to be all wrong and the scene wasn't what I hoped it would be in the photos. I would show you some of my sloppy work, but I deleted all of the photos. I don't normally do that as I like to review them again try to learn from my mistakes, but this time, I was just too disappointed to keep them.

This morning, I woke up at 5am to try and capture some sunrise photos. The sun sets opposite the mountains behind my house and they are bathed in purple tones for a few minutes every day. It's a sight to see. I have never been up early enough to capture the sun rising over them. That's what I attempted to do this morning. The forecast was partly cloudy and windy. I knew this meant dramatic skies and probably haze from dust in the air. I was right.

The weather was nice and cool, the wind was blowing but not too badly. I set my tripod up and using my ultra wide Fujinon 10-24 f4 lens, I created a composition that seemed good. I waited for the sun to rise and started snapping away. On the back of the screen the images looked pretty good. When I got home I found that they were just okay. I processed 2 images but found that my Saguaro cactus developed a hard lean to the left. That cactus was leaning to the left a fair amount. My lens distorted the thing, exaggerating the left-lean and there's no correcting that.

My lesson learned on this outing is that, I should really stick to my intuition on what my composition should be. To my eye, the mountains way in the background of that first image with the sun peaking above them and that glorious haze was the real image. But, I thought I should shoot it wide, including some foreground and ended up with mediocre result. I could have just put my 50mm or 85mm lens on and got that shot of the mountains, but I had to go wide angle for some reason. Not the best choice.

I really need an all purpose zoom lens. I'm going to buy the Fujinon 16-80mm f4 for this very reason. I find that most of the compositions I see for landscapes aren't wide, they're even a bit telephoto. Lesson learned. I'm going to keep trying.

Originally, I ended this blog post there. Later, I came back to this post and decided that I need to be more constructive in these posts if I'm going to improve. With that in mind, I'm creating a format for myself when it comes to analyzing a practice outing. It's a retrospective. It will go like this:

What Worked?

The fact that I actually thought ahead and timed my outing according to the weather forecast and cloud forecast was spot on. I expected there to be a lot of dust in the air and my goodness was there ever. So much so that Sky Harbor Airport had to shut down for a few hours on this day. That's why there's so much glow in the distance on these photos. That was good. Also, even though I don't love my composition, I think the balance of the Saguaro and the Ocotillo bushes in the foreground is nice and flows well. The light and clouds are really good too. The fact that I actually woke up and got out at 5am is pretty impressive.

What Didn't Work?

The overall composition is weak. The star of the show that morning was the haze in the air, especially as it gave the distant mountains a layer effect. The real composition would have been to zoom in on those mountains and show that light in greater detail. I didn't go with my first instinct about how to compose the shot. I also didn't get to this location with any composition in mind. Scouting for compositions during the day would have given me something I could be sure would work.

What Needs to be Improved Next Time?

The biggest lesson here is to go with my gut next time. Shoot what really draws me in instead of what I think I'm supposed to do. Also, scouting this location and dropping some map pins on areas that will work for compositions will help a ton. Next time I get up a 5am in a state of grog, I'll at least know where to go and what the shot should be. Also, I ordered a 16-80mm lens because I need something in addition to the my ultra-wide zoom. In fact, I'm guessing I'll use this other lens more than the ultra-wide.

There, a constructive review. I like this format and I'm going to stick to it when creating these posts about practicing.

I have a trip planned to go to Vermillion Cliffs, also known as White Pocket in a few weeks. I'm hoping I can sharpen my skills before then because this is a pretty exotic and epic location.