27-SEP-2006
The Firehole River, Yellowstone National Park, 2006
Heat colliding with cold shapes this vista – the hot thermal springs of Yellowstone breathing their mist into the chill of a last September dawn. The river itself runs around a curve at lower right, but it is the valley itself that takes star billing here. I use a row of pine trees as a screen in the middle left, their shapes echoing the plumes of steam. The huge hill behind this scene is covered with dead pine trees – a reminder of the real fire that swept through here in 1988. It is this interplay of live and dead trees, of make believe fire with the memory of real fire, that brings this vista to life in the imagination.
21-SEP-2006
Castle Rock, Moab, Utah, 2006
The great mesas and buttes of the American Southwest are timeless. My sepia vista of Castle Rock, shot from a mountain pass several miles away, makes the scene look as old as the first photographs of it. The distant hills in the far background fade away to white, just as they would in a 19th century image. The scene gradually fades in contrast and detail from front to back, as if we were going back in time to view the scene. I anchored the scene with a strong rock to the right, just as many 19th century photographers did in their own vistas. I rarely apply tints or colors to my images, but in this case, I feel the sepia form ages the content, and makes Castle Rock appear, as it would have looked to those who saw early photographic images of it in the 1800s. I cropped my picture into a long and narrow frame to add a sense of panoramic sweep.
23-SEP-2006
Afloat, Antelope Island State Park, Utah, 2006
Another way to create a memorable scenic vista is to abstract an incongruous subject. That is what I do here, exposing on a fiery sky to make the hills of Antelope Island and hundreds of water birds floating on the Great Salt Lake into black shapes. The sheer number of birds – with every last one of them floating calmly – is an incongruity, something we would never expect to see. I was stunned when I saw this sight, and still am. I placed the hills at the top of the frame to create imbalance and tension, playing against the incredible sense of peace in the water below. The long narrow frame carries us across the image, checking to see if every last bird is adrift.
20-OCT-2006
Dusk, Mono Lake, California, 2006
Mono Lake is ringed with ancient limestone towers known as tufa. I made this vista just after sunset, building it around five repeating horizontal layers. The branches of the bush at the lower right create my anchor layer – extended by the tiny branches emerging from the water just to the left of it. A thin layer of reflected clouds moving across the image provides my second layer. They echo the ripples in my third layer, created by a single grebe, the focal point of the entire image. The huge towers of abstracted tufa and their reflections make up the fourth layer, backed by a fifth layer of distant pinkish hills. All five layers are united by the repeating rhythms of the branches at the lower right and the tufa towers at upper left. The overall vista expresses a sense of tranquility in a surreal setting.