Photographing Landscapes

Throughout my career as a Landscape Architect one of the biggest challenges I found was directing how a landscape was to be photographed. Photographing outdoors is different than in a “sealed” environment such as a room. Lighting, scale and perspective are all skewed. Things are larger, brighter and less contained. Parameters shift moment by moment as time of day progresses and finding the”right light” requires patience and observation.

Sometimes sitting on site through an entire day is needed to achieve the desired effect. Some photographers I worked with instantly got it, others not se easily and analyzing individual shots was necessary to convey what I was looking for. Color, texture, lighting all played a part in what was needed.

Admittedly, no one could read my mind and at times expressing exactly what I wanted wasn’t my best quality. I learned that begin present when photographing was being done was the best way to convey my intent. After a few run throughs and working together I learned what was needed from the photographers viewpoint to achieve what was needed. I was a novice, not knowing how to get what I wanted from the end product and as we did more shoots I gained the knowledge needed to express what I wanted the end product to be and how we can achieve it.

As things progressed in my artistic endeavours I started to utitlize this knowledge for my own benefit. Photographiing seemingly uniterestignitems, leaf patterns, pavement, textures etc. in my travels that many may seem odd. These have become the blocks I use to compose my photo montages.

Please follow me and my blog as we go through the process of continuing to refine them as I strive to find the “perfect image”.