The last time I was at Mt. Rushmore I had it all to myself. I didn't see one other person except for a couple of employees at the visitor center. A couple of days later I had Badlands National Park entirely to myself. I was there for several hours and saw only one single car as I was leaving. At both places the weather was mild and beautiful. I've often had Rocky Mountain National Park almost to myself in the middle of the week.
Besides going to national parks on off-season, you can also adapt your photographic vision to accomodate "normal" places that might not allow you to crop landscape into pristine wilderness. I thinking finding beauty and solace in our current environment is perhaps more difficult, but ultimately better for your soul.
I don't mean that you have to accept track houses or trash blowing through the margins of your landscapes, but recreating the Ansel Adams style nature images is hardly new ground. In fact, it is more like commercial work, since pretty wilderness scenes are what sell to the general public. Nothing wrong with it, but it isn't much of a challenge beyond the technical requirements of the using the camera.
Good idea frank.
Hey! How bout cemetaries. I bet you could get some cool shots in cemetaries.
Weston used about 3 pages in his Daybooks describing how meticulously he photographed a toilet.
Hey F,
I agree that just shooting 'perfect' landscapes is somewhat narrowing as any subject matter shot to the exclusion of all other possibilities can be, if I understand the subcurrent of your note correctly. I shoot just for myself and have no particular inclination to sell images, I do appreciate a fine looking landscape and since one that is untouched by hand or foot is a bit rarer nowadays I can't resist the urge to snap a picture when I see one.
I think if you shoot landscapes you are never going to find something that hasn't been done by Ansel/Eddy or a thousand other photographers before you. All you can do is stamp your particular style on the scene that may be lit in a way that no-one else may have had the chance to shoot in. I like landscapes but I shoot many many other things both commercially and for my bedroom walls, I just happen to enjoy the 'entire' process of taking landscape pictures, from planning the trip, choice of camera/film, the drive to the location/s, waiting for light, roaming around the place etc.
Its all great fun and I'm never going to have a show in any gallery or museum so don't have to raise the bar on my work or myself any higher than I feel like, some things I feel are just 'fun' and for me my photographic efforts will be left at that level. Maybe trying to extend beyond that would destroy some of the very enjoyment I get from taking pictures and since thats the main reason I do it I'll probably continue in my own little way.
CP Goerz.
New Mexico. All of it.
125,000 square miles. 1.8 million residents, 1 million of which live within 30 miles of downtown Albuquerque. Lots of open space.
Andrew, I probably do the same shots you do, and I can't help but do a few Ansels when I visit Yosemite. But to miss the beauty of light on a hiking trail, or to worry about a few sky worms (Ansel's nemesis) is to miss much of what makes the experience worthwhile. I'd say we should embrace the fact that people walk around in the landscape, and that an occassional telephone wire or dusty road ain't such a bad thing to include in the picture.
Absolutely!
CP Goerz
I'm not opposed to the landscape "as it is" that is to say, with evidence of civilization---in fact I think its an important element important in many situations.
One the best photos I never took was of a haystack near a dairy outside of Tulare(sorry for being a "pinhead" about this, but thats where the haystack was located!) The stack was covered with a tarp and weighted down with old tires neatly hanging off the sides. A bored farm youth no doubt added the big "M"s so passing motorists would get a laugh out of the larger than life MOOOOOO MOOOOOO spelled out on the side of the hay stack.
The crowds I"m avoiding are the sort that create traffic jams, overflow parking lots and create lines outside the lavatories and food concessions (when travelling with my 5 &7 year olds.) Part of the National Park experience in the Summer, or so I thought. Kings Canyon NP (there I go again being a pinhead) looked nearly abandoned when I was last there. It struck me as odd---but in a good way. I try to avoid Yosemite in the summer but I've got to drive through the place to reach some favorite campsites on the eastern slope. Now winter, spring and autumn in Yosemite are another story.
"I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority"---EB White
John, speaking about avoiding crowds:
During the 1980's I made two month-long visits to London to make b&w photographs. Not being able to manage the LF rig around town by myself, I took the Nikon each time, with a brick of Tri-X 135-36.
Each visit produced a "brick" of street scenes, landscapes, park and river views, etc. without containing a single soul. Somehow, I inadvertently managed to make the place look like a ghost town. Do I get the pinhead award?
My tactic these days is based on the theory that nearly everyone stays in his car when "outdoors". We adults now see our city exclusively from behind the wheel, kids from the back seat. Not like our childhood when we walked everywhere.
So early Saturday morning I take my camera UNDER that bridge we all drive OVER during rush hour. It is often as deserted and pristine as the day it was built. I'm all alone at last. There is even one here in Springfield which still has Indian carvings in the sheer rock river bank.
Only let me emphasize EARLY MORNING, when the local controlled substance distribution brotherhood is sleeping it off.
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