A Cure for the Summertime Blues

Summer landscape photography in California can be a real test of a person's patience and fortitude. The harsh light and long, hot days are anything but conducive to capturing the environment in its best light. Forms are presented in stark contrast, and highlight and shadow are pushed to their extremes. Unlike in the winter, when opportunities present themselves throughout the day, the summer usually pushes our image making to first and last light.

Outside of those extremes though, there are less obvious opportunities available to landscape photographers willing to adjust their approach to accommodate the conditions at hand. By shifting scale down to the macro level and using depth of field to control the play of light and shadow, it's possible to turn difficult lighting conditions into an opportunity for creative expression. Working in this manner tells a different story about a landscape—a more intimate story of detail and texture—while perhaps also pushing us out of our comfort zone into a new way of seeing.

The Essence of Things

"Most of us look at a thing and believe we have seen it, yet what we see is often only what our prejudices tell us to expect to see, or what our past experience tells us should be seen, or what our desire wants to see. Very rarely are we able to free our minds of thoughts and emotions, and just see for the simple pleasure of seeing. And so long as we fail to do this, so long will the essence of things be hidden from us."

— Bill Brandt

Wildflower, Study 1

Altocumulus Over Oak Copse

I went out early this morning to capture the beautiful cloud formations rolling through as a result of this unusual summer low. It's stunningly beautiful out there. I'm doing my best to enjoy it before the serious heat sets in next week.

Altocumulus Over Oak Copse

Just Being Outside is Therapeutic

"Just being outside is therapeutic. We are lucky to be in a position as relatively prosperous westerners to have enough time on our hands to reflect on our predicament in the world. We are not constantly preoccupied with whether we have a roof over our heads, whether we are warm enough and if we have food. This allows us to look at our place in the universe and the great thing about landscape photography is that it just feels right to be outside – it’s like being at home. The actual act of being outside and the creative aspect gives us back a relationship with the land that we have lost through the urban experience."

— Joe Cornish 

Westside Oak Forest, Study 3

Something Will Have Gone Out of Us

"Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed; if we permit the last virgin forests to be turned into comic books and plastic cigarette cases; If we drive the few remaining members of the wild species into zoos or to extinction; if we pollute the last clear air and dirty the last clean streams and push our paved roads through the last of the silence, so that never again will Americans be free in their own country from the noise, the exhausts, the stinks of human and automotive waste. And so that never again can we have the chance to see ourselves single, separate, vertical and individual in the world, part of the environment of trees and rocks and soil, brother to the other animals, part of the natural world and competent to belong in it. Without any remaining wilderness we are committed wholly, without chance for even momentary reflection and rest, to a headlong drive into our technological termite-life, the Brave New World of a completely man-controlled environment."

— Wallace Stegner

Fallen Timber, Little Truckee River

A Person Can Learn a Lot From a Dog

"A person can learn a lot from a dog, even a loopy one like ours. Marley taught me about living each day with unbridled exuberance and joy, about seizing the moment and following your heart. He taught me to appreciate the simple things-a walk in the woods, a fresh snowfall, a nap in a shaft of winter sunlight. And as he grew old and achy, he taught me about optimism in the face of adversity. Mostly, he taught me about friendship and selflessness and, above all else, unwavering loyalty."

— John Grogan

Winston

Be a Farmer of the Spirit

"Art begins not in the learning of skill, but in the decision to live artfully; to be a farmer of the spirit; to accept ambiguity; to not ignore, but to acknowledge the many problems in the world and to uphold one’s capacity for awe and compassion alongside, and despite of them."

— Guy Tal

After the Storm

A Way of Feeling

"Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever… it remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything."

— Aaron Siskind

Phillip Road