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The Hard Truth About Landscape Photography
3.5k Plays4 months ago
Landscape and nature photography is one of the most popular genres among enthusiast and hobbyist photographers. In this episode, Matt Kloskowski and Blake Rudis talk about the hard truth behind landscape photography and what it takes to get that great shot.
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Transcript
Introduction to Photography with Matt & Blake
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome to another Frame of Mine photography podcast where we try to adjust and change or solidify or morph or whatever you want to call it. Your Frame of Mine around various photography and photo editing topics. Today I'm joined by my buddy Blake Rudis from F64 Academy. How's it going, Blake? Good. How are you? Good, man. My name is Matt Klaskowski. If we haven't met before, online or in person, you can find me over at mattk.com. Blake and I are both photo educators in this space. So if you ever want to find out more about us, swing by the websites over at mattk.com. You can click on podcast. It's an audio podcast, but we do record us talking. There's really not any visuals to it, so you don't have to. But if you prefer to watch it, you can watch each episode over ah there as well.
Is Location Key in Landscape Photography?
00:00:56
Speaker
So our topic today is, i we we know what we're going to talk about. Blake, that we didn't even talk about like the actual name of our topic. We just know the topic. But the the working title I was going to give this is, is a great location necessary for your landscapes? I was know how important truth what's that land i was thinking the truth about landscape photography. The truth about landscape photography. All right. what Well, one of these As you can tell, it's got to do with location. I think location is ah is a primary driver of this. This goes back to
00:01:33
Speaker
This goes back to comments and questions that both of us have gotten a lot over the years. And I understand them. So I don't want to approach this from a perspective of not understanding where they come from, but we'll often talk about editing or taking landscapes and all these things. And inevitably questions will flood in, comments will flood in. Yeah, but I don't live in a great place.
Adapting to New Environments in Photography
00:02:01
Speaker
and
00:02:04
Speaker
It's tough to answer those questions. It'd be like, it'd be like saying, you know, it'd be like saying, I'm a, I'm, I'm a, I'm an architectural photographer. I can't travel. I don't have the means or the money or the time to travel. And I live in. the land, Florida. you know um it it's They don't go together, right? And so so landscapes is one of those things that, yeah, there there is a degree of of location matters. So that's kind of where this came about, was with just us talking about this um and kind of entering some of the some of the feedback that we get whenever we do talk about landscapes and and great locations.
00:02:53
Speaker
And this comes from, you know, we were talking in ah in ah in a past podcast. I used to live in the Bay area of San Francisco and I wasn't a great photographer, but I was surrounded by great stuff. So none of my images really were truly great. When I look back at the stuff from, you know, 2006 to 2011, nothing was really that great. So then I moved to, uh, Missouri of all places. Kansas is about 20 minutes north of
Finding Beauty Locally
00:03:17
Speaker
Kansas city. Matt's been to my location and it's pretty much just, you know, farm fields and barns and
00:03:24
Speaker
that's about it which is beautiful to a lot of people but when you're too close to something obviously ah you don't see that so when i first got here i was photographing the barnes i was photographing everything but i still had this deep down almost like regret that I moved from the Bay Area of of California, which we couldn't afford, to a military job in Missouri ah so that we could move to a more affordable location. So as I looked at that as, well, my landscape photography is over because I can only shoot the same barns over and over and over again so many times. And I have done that many, many times. The same barn, I've photographed like six times.
00:04:06
Speaker
ah But I longed for those great locations and I didn't have a whole lot of money. So I had to change my perspective on what landscape photography was to me, but for me to continue to be a landscape photographer in a place where I will tell you that where I live in the summer, in the spring, it's beautiful. It's absolutely gorgeous. Driving down, the it's just trees and it's green, especially if you get these blue skies, the white puffy clouds. but it doesn't translate very well into an amazing photograph.
Elements of Great Landscape Photography
00:04:40
Speaker
It's an amazing feeling when you're around it, but it's not necessarily amazing photograph. So that's one of the things that we want to touch on today is, is feeling versus scene where yes, you can find great locations. You can find great subjects. You can find great things to put in a landscape photo, but even that isn't going to make your images great, right?
00:05:02
Speaker
it's it it's a hard It's hard to come to to grips with the reality of what typically makes a great landscape photo. you know mountains, lakes, reflections, big, beautiful, gorgeous clouds and color in the sky. like Those are the ingredients. water Did I say waterfalls? No, you just did, though. That waterfalls, um you know patterns and those things, it's that's typically what makes a great landscape photo. um And and you know and i I fall into the same category as as Blake does.
00:05:44
Speaker
in that i I live in Tampa, Florida. Now, same thing with blankets. So you take your barns, which are beautiful, translate that to our beaches. Beaches are beautiful. But it's sand and water. We don't even have like the California coastline, the Oregon coastline, the Washington coastline. Those are cliffs and cliffs with trees hanging over and ah yeah waterfalls flowing into the ocean, all those different things. We we we don't have hills. it's It's flat. We don't have rocks. We don't have cliffs. We've got sand.
00:06:25
Speaker
and water and that's it. And and it becomes it becomes difficult for a landscape lover to find the satisfaction here that we have. Now, Florida's got a lot of other things. There's a lot of like Clyde Butcher. ah He's a famous Florida photographer. So he does a lot of old Florida and the swamps and the Everglades and the cypress trees and all those things. And and and that's pretty, but again, it's It's different from what I think a lot of people associate with a beautiful landscape. awesome and You've got to work. If you're going to stay in Florida, you've got to work. You've got to work where you're in Missouri. You've got to work to find a great photo. And even at then, that great photo is probably not going to get appreciated as much as if I go to
00:07:15
Speaker
outside of Portland up to Trillium Lake and take a picture of the rocks, the perfect reflection with Mount Hood in the background. Exactly. that That no matter what I find here is not going to translate like that photo does. Exactly. And
Conveying Emotions Through Images
00:07:30
Speaker
that that kind of brings us to our first point here is that, you know, great landscape images often require something great. um But that something great doesn't necessarily have to be like, let's talk about what could be great in an image. You talked about several different subjects that could be great, but you have lighting, you have weather, you have location, you have subject. But even then. That greatness might not like you could be in Yosemite at noon and take a picture of El Capitan and it could be a great shot because it's El Cap, right?
00:08:05
Speaker
But if I take that same, oh if you do it at sunset, it'll be even better. Or at sunrise, it'll be even better, right? yeah Same concept in Missouri or Kansas. I could take my camera to an open field. and it would look like an open field. And it's like, I have a buddy of mine who shoots all over Kansas, but he waits for the weather. So he doesn't just shoot, you know, blue sky with green on ah on the ground. um He shoots and waits for the weather to come through. And then you can see these thunderhead clouds moving across these fields. So now this field goes from being a boring field that you wouldn't find an attractive photo to something absolutely magnificent and amazing.
00:08:47
Speaker
So sometimes it's not necessarily about the location is a bad location. It's just the greatness. of other things that could come in and make it better. Sunset light, sunrise light, moonlight. you know And I think a lot of times people get close-minded to those locations. And I i do to a degree here. I mean, this this buddy of mine I'm talking about, he lives in Kansas, a stone's throw from where I am. I could very much do a lot like that, but that's not my style. So I have to think about the style of photography that I have and what I like to shoot in landscapes versus trying to make a location work.
00:09:24
Speaker
which is a very different concept. I like to shoot mountains. I like to shoot rivers. I like to shoot waterfalls. I like to shoot
The Art of Composition
00:09:31
Speaker
dramatic things. So I have to wait for dramatic lighting if I want to do that in Missouri, which doesn't happen quite as often as I'd like unless it's, you know, May through July when we have our storm season. But then once we get into December, we have snow, but if we don't have snow, everything's brown and dead. I think you were out here in December and it probably did not look like I lived in a beautiful place. well it was it was all It was all as brown as the wall that's behind you, everything. And it's like a tapestry of brown meets brown meets brown and until you get to the blue sky.
00:10:03
Speaker
but In the summer and the spring, all that brown is various different colors of green. So if I'm going to shoot my landscapes, I typically go dormant in the in the winter unless there's snow, unless there's weather. So the great thing that happens in the and in the winter time is going to be snow. So you have to, and I think in landscape photography, you have to understand what is it that I'm shooting? Is it the location? Is it the weather? Is it the light? Or is it all three? Because if all three of those come together, that's when you have truly magnificent, amazing landscape photography happening in front of you. We're going to take a very quick moment for a word from our sponsor, which is always me. We're talking about outdoor and landscape photography here. And I have something to offer you because I think one of the most important aspects once you get to a location is composition. Okay.
00:10:52
Speaker
You're going to be presented with the weather and the light that you're presented with when you're there. But what you can do with it and what you can do with composition involves so much more. I call it learning a skill for life because it really is. Once you make that skill your own, And I can tell you that two decades ago, I didn't feel good about composition, whereas now that's really the last thing I worry about when I go somewhere because I feel confident enough that I'm going to make a good composition if I get my camera into the right place. So my Inside the Composition course, it's a very unique course. It approaches photography composition from ah ah from a very different aspect. There's a few different, but I would say, sections to the course. The first one is,
00:11:35
Speaker
You're seeing me out shooting, but it's different. Number one, I try to avoid national parks because those don't require too much creativity because a lot of the same shots are are just, they're not very unique. So I try to avoid national parks and really talk about the concepts and you'll find me going to locations that I've never been to before. And you'll see my raw reactions to them. Okay, you'll see me, you'll hear me talking and then you'll see me looking at things and talking about what I'm thinking as I look at them and working different compositions. So that's one part to it. The other part to it is digging through a library because as I said, I didn't do national parks. I can do so much more rather than take you to one location and talk about how I would shoot it. Chances are that you're not going to be at that location.
00:12:20
Speaker
But when I can show you a hundred different photos of different places and talk about what they have in common, what compositional elements and fundamentals they have in
Balancing Elements in Photography
00:12:30
Speaker
common. Now you can really learn some of those. I hate to call them rules, but we'll just call them very strong fundamentals. Now you can really learn and see how they apply in different scenes. And the last part, again, I hesitate to use the term homework, but there are assignments. So there are assignments to get you thinking. It's really hard to practice composition. So because we can't always be out there, but when you can look through your photos, look through other people's photos with a purposeful assignment, you can make some of these techniques your own and be better prepared ah to do this when you to get out there, swing by the website at mattk.com, click on courses, and you'll see the Inside the Composition course to find out more. somebody so Somebody that I met years ago, he had ah he had an interesting article he wrote. um He called it Fact Moment Light, and I kind of changed, in my interpretation of it, changed the the word fact to subject, because he was primarily talking about
00:13:26
Speaker
people and and and in the context of ah of almost in journalistic photography because that's what he did. But I just kind of changed it to subject, moment late. But the idea of what he wrote was really impactful to me because he explained it in a way that I then used whenever I did a ah photo critique, I then used because it took it it took the ownership off me saying something poor about the photo. So what I what i i said is is, listen, I look at every photo of subject, moment, light. And and and but preferably you get all three of those things.
00:14:14
Speaker
realistically, you're only going to get one, maybe if you get lucky too. You know, you very, very rarely get to get all three of those things combined, but the subject, you know, like you said, location, the ah ah bird, you know, if you're into bird photography, I happened. So for, for all these years I lived in Florida, I've lived in Florida since 1990. For all those years as a landscape photographer, I kind of cursed it. And then back in like 2015, when I started getting interested in in wildlife photography, I was like, I live in like the Mecca of bird photography. People to the locations that I go to in the Tampa Bay area regularly have people from around the world that go to these locations.
00:14:54
Speaker
wow So that's a whole lot better because I have people that message me and they're like, listen, I got i got nothing but crows and turkey vultures and where I go. you know And and i just you know it's same thing. You can show me a picture of a crow or you can show a picture of an eagle. I can tell you that the picture of the eagle will always be better. It will always be better. It will always resonate better with people than a turkey vulture or a crow will. So the subject matters. The moment you talked about the the weather, you know did that storm roll in? did Was there lightning? Whatever it was. you know
00:15:33
Speaker
So the moment and then of course the light, where is it noon or is there pretty clouds up in the sky? And I think i think the combination of all those things and it really helped me also frame a critique. Because then as I said before, i could take I could take the ownership off me. I wasn't the mean guy saying something bad. I just said, hey, in order to have a great photo, we need these three pillars. um You've got a great subject. Unfortunately, we fell short on the light. you know, and it makes it makes it very, very easy to then, you know, you got a little checklist in your mind and the person and then the person that's submitting the photos and you do a lot of photo critiques, the person submitting the photos almost becomes, starts to get good at photo critiquing their own stuff.
00:16:16
Speaker
right And that's really where we hope everybody can get to. you know I think what you touched on there is like, especially when I do critiques, I don't really focus on specific topics, but i I focus on the subjective nature first, which is what I feel about the image that I'm looking at. And then I focus on objective things. So I think what you're saying there is you're turning the subjective into objective when it comes to that by using those frameworks, which is a really powerful way to look at and view photos um And that kind of brings us on to the next topic because talk about the different types of birds. ah The next topic is I feel very strongly about it's our job as a photographer to build the experience for the viewer. Like there's a reason why we felt so
00:17:00
Speaker
in tune with what it is that we were shooting. And oftentimes if the image that you're shooting doesn't make the viewer feel wowed, even though you were wowed when you saw it, there's a disconnect between what you did to the photo to make that person feel the same thing that you felt. I know this is more ethereal and touchy, but you talked about different birds and I'm the same way here. Like we have, we have some pretty impressive birds here. We do have bald eagles that come through very rarely to have Osprey. in this area, but we do have some bald eagles and and and some other hawks and stuff like that, which is pretty nice to shoot for wildlife. But in a critique that I just recorded that's going to be going live in in a week or so, someone had submitted a picture of us of a snow goose that, like, I never would have thought of photographing a goose. I have
Turning the Ordinary into Extraordinary
00:17:46
Speaker
millions of geese that fly over ah pretty much all all the time in Missouri. You can go to almost any lake and see a goose, right?
00:17:54
Speaker
But this shot of this goose was so awesome. Man, I'm telling you, it was like standing all proud with its head cocked to the side. And then the way they edited it, it had like almost looked like peacock feathers behind it. I was so excited about this goose shot. that I was like, it blew away like 90% of my eagle shots and it's a goose, man. So this part this person who created this image created such an impactful shot of a goose. I will never, I will never for the history of the rest of my life forget that goose shot because it took an ordinary object and made it feel extraordinary to me through their artistic vision or their artistic perspective, Matt. So, you know, I feel like
00:18:38
Speaker
um If you want that shot to be amazing, regardless of where you are, regardless of what you photograph, it is completely and and utterly up to the photographer to make that happen. You cannot expect the viewer to look at your image and make it and have it feel as amazing as it was when you were there. I know we just talked about wildlife photography, but I've had the same thing happen with ah with Kansas. There's a place called the Tallgrass National Preserve. You want to talk about the flattest of flat, that's it. But that's also where you go if you want to shoot
00:19:11
Speaker
ah you know, storms moving in because you can see for 10 to 20 miles. So you can be a safe distance away and still have these amazing shots. Well, there's ah there's a one room schoolhouse there. I photographed this one room schoolhouse at sunrise. If I were to photograph that and during the daytime, it wouldn't have quite as and much impact as it did with the sunrise shot with the orange streaks and the green grass and this one lone schoolhouse at the bottom. So it was up to me to find what's gonna be the the the the best time of day, what's and then how do I process this to make someone say, wow, that's an amazing schoolhouse versus, oh look, a schoolhouse. You know what I mean? Like there's there's a difference between how someone's gonna perceive something based on how you display it to them. So my whole thing, and this is what I teach all the time is I don't i don't even like that term, make good photographs. I i like the term better build an experience because
00:20:07
Speaker
you're taking your experience that you had there and you're trying to imbue it into the piece. And that's truly what makes a great landscape photograph, regardless of where you live, regardless of the subject, regardless of the lighting and regardless of the weather.
Photography as Communication
00:20:19
Speaker
yeah I've taken some amazing photographs. and and done some wonderful things with light after the fact on overcast landscape images. And you can do that pretty well. you know i've taken amazing black and white and or I've built amazing experiences with black and white images of puffy white clouds with blue skies with these dark, dramatic black skies with these white puffy clouds popping out.
00:20:43
Speaker
so it I think that's that's part of this discussion of like of of landscape photography is that it is difficult, it's extremely difficult to build an experience and it takes years of processing knowledge, pattern rapid recognition to be able to create that feeling that you want to create in the image. and we can we call Can we call for an industry-wide change to the puke-inducing statement of you don't take a great photo, you make a great photo. Can we call for an industry-wide change four to that to you don't take a great photo, you build a great experience? I would love it. and That would make my life complete, Matt.
00:21:33
Speaker
Oh, like I, I, I, I, every, anytime anybody says that I'm the last one. Yeah. Well, in these days, I don't think people realize like the difference. I used to be an analog shooter. I shot a lot of analog photography, film photography. And you know being in the darkroom, it was a making laborious process. But let's be honest, it is not a laborious process to to make an image these days. It really isn't. I mean, when when I would make an image in the darkroom, I would have to roll my own film, put it in my camera, go shoot, get it out of my camera,
00:22:09
Speaker
process the negatives, make a contact sheet, take the contact sheet, find the best image, circle it, find it in my in my and my negatives, put it through the enlarger, put it on a piece of paper, process it, run it through the chemicals, rinse it, dry it, then look at it. That that was like, just to make one photograph that was like a two to three hour process. It's like, we we have no excuse these days because you can put something in Photoshop and if it doesn't work, it was like, oh, delete, oh, next adjustment layer. Nope, next delete. If I were to do that in the darkroom, that would be a six to eight hour process on one photo. you know So i think I think that phrase was was really good for Ansel Adams' time period because he was truly talking about the boreus process of making a photograph. But this day and age, it's, it's
00:23:00
Speaker
We got to think more because just making a photograph is doesn't have the same impact anymore. Well, no. i mean it's And so many things have changed too. It's easier to travel to great places. Camera technology has gotten better to where, you you can put it on auto mode and in so many circumstances that will that will get you, that will take away the tech of all that stuff, which which leaves you to what what I always consider the important part. and always Always try to tell people this, get your camera into a great place in front of a great subject in great light.
00:23:46
Speaker
That's what, that that that takes care of everything. The other stuff is like you said, it's so much easier to do all that other stuff now. The hard part is you getting to the right place at the right time. That's the hard part of photography. The tech, the settings, the before, the after, know those have all become actually part of the easy parts that that that didn't used to be that way. I agree. um And you got great people like Matt who makes tools to make it easier for you.
00:24:20
Speaker
um the ah the Something you said about experience the or the the the helping people experience. And I think that's think that's where sometimes that becomes the hard part for people.
The Psychology Behind Images
00:24:33
Speaker
Because i see it a lot I see it a lot in, um and and you do the same thing. I do a lot of calls for entries to basically submit photos to me to to edit for various tutorials and courses and things like that. and And whenever I do this, on average, I get anywhere from five to 6,000 photos.
00:24:57
Speaker
And and i I make it a point over the the the month or two after that to really go through and and look at all those photos and make multiple passes at them because the mood you're in one day, ah you can't you can't get away from your mood that and that your mood has an impact on this stuff. So the mood I'm in one day, something doesn't resonate, resonates the next day. Or one day something did resonate and then doesn't resonate the next day. But as I look through those photos, I see experiences that I think people really liked, but unfortunately, they didn't translate into a good photo.
00:25:33
Speaker
and and And we all know that, we all we all see it every day on social media. yeah My wife and I go to the beach a lot and we'll be sitting there on the balcony at sunset and having a old fashioned or a cocktail or a glass of wine. And life feels amazing. And of course, like all people, you gotta to grab your phone, you gotta take a picture and you gotta put it on social media because so we only share the highlights on social media. So you got to put that on your highlight reel of, you know, so amazing. And then the next day when I look at that photo, I'm like, oh, there's a garbage can. There's like, there's, there's somebody, there's somebody, there's some miserable dude coming back from the beach with seven chairs and three bags over him while the kids are running back to the car. And he's just miserable sweating and he's in the picture.
00:26:30
Speaker
I think you sent me some of these pictures in December when my location hasn't been the best. And I'm like, yeah thanks, Matt. there's There's a garbage can in there. There's all these things that my experience the night before is not my experience the next day looking at this. And and when you sit back and then Now, if you're making photos for anybody else but yourself, which I think to some degree, most people are, I think some people say, I only make photos for myself. But I think, and and by and large, people like appreciation and there's nothing wrong with that. And by and large, we want to share some of those photos and hope others appreciate them. Well, now when that photo hits their tablet or their phone or their computer screen or looks at it on the wall,
00:27:17
Speaker
Now, we don't have the context of me and my wife were having a great night chatting. I had three old fashions. The breeze was blowing in my face. I could smell the salty air. We don't have that context. You know what we see? We see the dude miserable walking with three chairs, seven chairs, three bags, up the beach, sweating, screaming at the kids. That's me. That's me. that's You took a picture of me. I've got three boys. that That's what we see, you know? And and and that's why, you know, that you're you you've got to find a scene. and it's It's challenging. It's challenging to find that scene that not only covers being a beautiful scene, a great subject in great light, but also transfers that experience to other people. And that's a challenge. And and again, which is why I think location matters.
00:28:15
Speaker
it's It is, and you know, the thing that I tell people is that it's a conversation. A photo is a conversation, and it's ah and unfortunately, if you're not there to speak for that photo, that photo is speaking for you, right? So a lot of people wish they could be an effective communicator in an analogy purpose, but not everyone's an effective communicator. Well, if you want to be ah an effective landscape photographer, you have to understand that your image is a communication process. So what you put into it is ah is a way that communicates with the individual. And to do that, you have to kind of know how the brain sees things. Like I've done a lot of brain studies and I'm kind of obsessed with it to a certain degree, but there's a way, there is almost a formula of sorts where you can make things feel that way.
Neuroscience of Artistic Vision
00:29:01
Speaker
and can build that experience if you know how the brain works and how the brain perceives things and what the brain perceives first. Now that's a topic for a whole nother story, but it's just like communication. People study ways to be a more effective communicator so that when they do get on stage and they do present that they make an impact. And if we think about our photography in the same way, you can't just snap do a little bit of processing and expect it to work. It's the same way you can't expect somebody to grab a microphone, walk up on stage, and just make a killer speech. It's it's a communication process. And if you want to if you really, truly want to make your images speak for you, you have to understand the art of communication without words. And that's that's where it comes in with your images in mind. and It's an an interesting perspective, because you're right. like Delivery matters.
00:29:56
Speaker
You know, we could tell we could tell the same story and the person that's really good at storytelling is going to make it more captivating than the person that just reads it um off of a script and then delivery matters, so. Yep. That's why I never use cards when I do speeches. Like I never used cards, never used paper because it just seems like people just tend to read from it. And I know they're putting a lot of love and passion into these speeches, especially like a retirement ceremony. Like because I saw hundreds of those when I was in the military and I know that there's a lot of love and passion that they're putting into that speech. But when they read it like this and then expect a ha ha and no one's ha ha and it's like,
00:30:37
Speaker
you know, if you would have delivered it without your face in front of the paper. And that's what ah that's how a lot of images come across though. You see what I'm saying? Like there there's there's a reason why effective communicators study communication.
00:30:52
Speaker
um So how do people, how how do people, yeah i guess I guess the question is, is how do you how do you learn this? do yeah I don't like self-promotion, but I mean, I spent... And I wasn't asking to lead you to to anything either. i just I'm curious like ah i'm um more curious in how to... like It's become an innate quality that I think you know you have, I have. I mean, certain people have, a lot of our listeners have it too. It's not to say that nobody does. it's ah It's a very innate quality. How do you get better at it?
00:31:30
Speaker
Well, I studied neuroscience for about four years. I studied neuroscience of memory, the neuroscience of sight, the neuroscience of expertise, um trying to get to what they don't have a neuroscience of, and that's vision, artistic vision. And I know how much you love that. So I created this course called Discovering Your Vision, where i I literally will, I walk people through the idea of how do you ah show up on a location, embrace that scene, feel for that scene, document those feelings, and then put those feelings into an image. And you really have to be in a mode of person. It's kind of like a successful marriage. Most successful marriages happen because there's open communication and you allow yourself to get vulnerable with your with your spouse, right? And I think it's very much the same way with art. Art is a vulnerable thing. You are putting yourself into that image
00:32:26
Speaker
and that image is going out on the internet. Now, if you don't understand your brain and how your brain works, then you aren't going to understand how to put yourself into that image. Alternatively, if you don't understand how the brain perceives images, then you won't know predictably how the individual on the other side of that image is going to perceive what you put into it, right? So you have to understand yourself, you have to understand your mind, you have to understand your own feelings, you have to understand the things that you love, you have to understand the things that you're passionate about, and you have to be able to put that into the image. And then when that's in the image, you have to understand, okay, the person is going to read this and how the people typically read imagery is in is in clusters. They do it in clusters of color and they do it in clusters of tonal value. Because the brain, if you know um ah a lot about it it it doesn't it, it can't take every detail
00:33:20
Speaker
and and and see every detail all at once. Because if it did, we everyone on this planet would go insane. Because if if we looked at, as we were driving, we had to say, oh, there's a sign. That sign is green. It has a white border. And the words say this, but everyone would be getting car accidents, right? So what the brain does is it makes inferences off of surroundings, and it it will attribute what it knows about that sign to something that it's seen before. And that's exactly how the brain works. It's like, okay, I've seen that, I don't need to spend time on it, move to the next thing. Until we see something that's extraordinary and we're like, whoa, I've never seen that before. That's how you get in there, that's how you get in there. So you take those scenes that you're that you're creating and you make that ordinary, extraordinary so that the brain has to stop and say, wow.
00:34:09
Speaker
And they'll ah oftentimes the brain will say, how did they do this? And the first thing usually that usually someone will say when they see ah amazing is like, wow, this looks like a painting. Well, what they're saying when they say, wow, this looks like a painting is not this looks fake. That's the only thing that they know that has made them feel before. So what they're saying there is, wow, you made me feel something when I saw this. because paintings and and other forms of art typically move us more than a photograph does. So if a photograph gets to that point, that's when you know you've nailed it. If someone ever says to you, wow, this is beautiful, it looks like a painting, it looks like a work of art, what they're telling you is, I'm feeling something. So you have to know how the brand works in that way. Because a painting, a painting is not typically like the painter doesn't, if the painter's painting a great landscape,
00:35:00
Speaker
they're They're probably painting it with great clouds. They're painting it without the parking lot or the garbage can that leads down the path to the great landscape. They're not painting it with the guy walking back from the beach with seven chairs in his pants. They're taking the highlight. the highlights from it, not the highlights, but you know what I mean. Albert Bierstadt did a painting, um the Mount Cochrane, I think is what it's called. um But he was a ah American landscape painter who traveled the Sierras quite a bit. And I think if you really truly want to understand how to make a great photo, you have to understand
00:35:40
Speaker
what great art is. So I often go back to art because that's what my major was in and I learned art history and all that other stuff that I hated at the time but absolutely love now. But Albert Bierstadt did this painting, I think it's called Mount Cochran, I think that's what it is, but I could be wrong on that. Essentially it looks like a waterfall with wispy clouds and like foggy clouds and a mountain in the background and a bear drinking out of the lake and you're like, wow, where did he go to shoot this? Like, but then when you, or not shoot this, but paint this, but then when you look in and you research it, It's essentially a painted composite. He saw that mountain somewhere else.
00:36:14
Speaker
sketched it, liked it. He saw that waterfall, sketched it, liked it. He saw that lake, sketched it, liked it. He saw that bear, sketched it, liked it. he saw those And then when he got back to his studio, he painted that whole scene as if it was a scene that he had showed up on with his watercolors or some sort and then painted it, right? So he's taking the highlights, exactly. He's taking the highlights of all these places that he's seen and putting it into this image. And we can do that with our own images. You push and pull the things that you want the viewer to see and not want the viewer to see by placing the light in the ways that you want to place that light. I've seen that painting. It's fake art. Yeah. It's not real. It's fake art. It can only be art if that's what the person's eye saw all at once.
Developing a Critical Eye
00:36:59
Speaker
Yeah. Just like a camera can only be. It's only a photo if it wasn't manipulated and it was the way the camera saw it. So can I take a perspective
00:37:13
Speaker
a perspective of, I don't want to say different from the the neuro the the neuroscience of it. I think think kind of helping people learn to to develop this skill. the we can't We can't argue that taste is involved here. you're Your taste matters. As I look through the 6,000 photos that people submit, I realize some people have better taste than other people have. um And one of the ways one of the ways you get better at it, it's so it's so yeah here's here' a great analogy. so yeah i used to work I worked at Kelby kelby Media for 10 years. And so Scott and I became very good friends over the years. And one thing that I always admired about Scott is he he he he went through just about every area of photography, okay?
00:38:09
Speaker
Portraits, landscapes, sports, still life, you know macro, um all these different things. And when he started, he he wasn't good at that. so So how did he get good? How did he develop the taste for it? He developed the taste for it by doing it, by looking at what others had done and and developing a critical eye for what was the difference between what he did and what somebody else did. and And that's an important process. And if if you're not doing that, if you're not looking at your photos and developing that critical eye, it's it's hard to get good. you know we Blake and I talk about you know use foreground as an element in in a photo. Well, people send me photos all the time like, hey, I used foreground. Yeah, I didn't mean 90% foreground that's blank dirt trampled with foot footprints.
00:39:06
Speaker
So so you have to learn to look at it and be like, all right, this foreground is interesting. This foreground invites me into the photo. This foreground looks like a bunch of people trampled on the dirt in the sand that led to the trees and mountains behind it. You know, I remember when I first got into photography, I would walk through the neighborhood. I took pictures of trees and I was showing Scott one day and he's like. You shouldn't show this photo. I'm like, why? And he's like, it's of trees. I'm like, yeah, but I've seen beautiful pictures of just trees before. And he's like, where? And I had a magazine. And I went and I grabbed the magazine. I'm like, look. And it was, ah what's that? The Sequoia, Sequoia is in Northern California. And he's like, look, he's like, yeah. He goes, that's not Brandon, Florida.
00:39:56
Speaker
it's and he' he's he's like He's like, you're saying your tree is the same as these trees in the fog and the mist with the towering trees and the patterns and the green and all that. so he's like He's like, that's not Brandon, Florida. He's like, though the trees you took are not the same. And that was my slow wake up call. to developing some taste around this stuff. And it's hard, sometimes you gotta put yourself out there and ask people too. Ask people around you, you know, why what why why is this not contest? If you can enter a contest and keep a safe distance from getting too caught up in it, but still take the good from understanding why your photo didn't resonate or when, I think there is there's advantages there too.
00:40:44
Speaker
Well, you know, I've been working on this course for like a year and a half, the one I'm working on now, and you you've heard every struggle I've had with it. And I've even called you asking if it's even a good idea because what I'm trying to do is very, very, very, very difficult. It's extremely difficult. It's it's all based on what is a great photo and how do you make a great photo, you know? and It's a course that I might put out there and it might flop because people are like, Blake, that's your taste and not mine. And that could be true. Maybe what I feel like a great photo is, but that's all I can educate from. All I can educate from is my own taste, right? So that's a very interesting, ah interesting conversation. It's not going to keep me from doing the course, but
00:41:26
Speaker
Yeah. And I think there's always to get there. right you know it's it's getting it's Some people are a little bit more analytical. Some people are a little bit more creative in nature. And I would challenge the one that's analytical to try to become more creative. I would challenge the one that's creative to try to become a little bit more analytical. Try to bring both both sides into how you're looking at something. um That's why I'm a gem. It works out great. Cause I could be analytical and creative. I mean, I spent 20 years in the military also as an artist. So, you know, I can tell one side to shut up and then the other side plays.
00:42:04
Speaker
and And somebody like Scott Kelby got so good because he was so he was so creative, but he also had an analytical mind. But I think his creative mind is one of the best I've i've i've ever been around somebody to experience. I watched him morph through and become almost really an expert in all of these areas of photography that when he first took his first picture of, he didn't know. um And that was that was an admiralable admirable quality that that i try yeah I learned a lot from during. But what I saw in your notes, I saw some some ways to to wrap this up and help people, um some things people can do to to to get better at this also.
00:42:47
Speaker
But to help there help their photography travels. That was a bigger point than I expected us to spend time on, but I think it was important. So I think ah points three and four, I think we can kind of combine here and that's um travel expenses. are just as important as gear expenses if you're a landscape photographer. So what that means is that there might be a year where maybe you don't buy a new camera and you don't buy the new lens, and instead you take that money and invest it in two trips. In full honesty, I am a landscape photographer, primarily. That's what I enjoy doing the most. I'm an artist by trade, but I predominantly study and teach in the landscape photography area. but
00:43:28
Speaker
I lost my train of thought on that. Hold on, you're gonna have to edit this one out.
00:43:33
Speaker
um But I know that if I'm gonna, if I want to really truly want to make great landscape photographs, I'm gonna have to go places, right? I'm gonna have to not make the gear purchase and make the purchase on a great landscape. And that might mean taking to Oh, that's the point. Okay, we'll go back. We'll go back.
00:43:58
Speaker
This is the point. So with that being said, I don't shoot a lot of... landscape photography every year. Someone might say, Oh, you're a photographer. You must have your camera in your hand all the time.
Travel and Local Exploration in Photography
00:44:10
Speaker
I might, I might pick up my camera for what I call big trips three times a year. If I'm, if I'm lucky, most times it's two times a year. If I'm lucky. Um, that's because things get expensive. I got to go a lot of places. I got to research things. I'm an educator. I'm a father. I got all this stuff going on. It's very difficult for me to separate myself from my life and go do these things. But I do know that.
00:44:31
Speaker
there are some years where I will spend money on gear and there are some years where I will spend more money on trips. And some of these trips don't have to be the mega trip where you're going to like, you know, um Olympic National Park, which is going to cost probably about four grand if you're going to go for a week, to be honest, between your flight, your rental car, ah your food. and It's three, about three to four grand sometimes for some of these big trips. So I actually started this new strategy and I've used it a lot in the last year where I drew an imaginary eight to 10 hour circle around where I live in Kansas City, Missouri.
00:45:06
Speaker
and this imaginary circle, I say, okay, look for places that are in this imaginary circle. And in an eight to 10 hour, ah excursion north, south, east or west. I could be up in Michigan. I could be down in Texas. I could be over in Tennessee. I could be um over in Colorado within eight to 10 hours. So there is greatness around me that doesn't require me to have to fly everywhere all the time because I can cut some expenses by using that eight to 10 hour travel time. And usually how I do that is I'll wake up at four o'clock in the morning. So I'm on the road by five.
00:45:37
Speaker
so that when I get to that location, it's only like two or three. I can scout for a little bit by my first sunset shot, then go check into the hotel, then maybe go do a night shot, then come back. And now I'm not going too far out. I'm taking three to four days on those trips rather than making this big expense for a trip. Because a lot of times people will say, well, I don't have the money to make those trips. okay you might not have the money to fly and get a rental car and all those travel expenses, they add up real quick. But if you got an extra, you know, five, $600, you could easily drive to someplace. If you really got to get frugal, sleep out of your vehicle for three days at a campground instead of doing it at a hotel, which I've done that before too. You know, that's the the beauty of kind of
00:46:22
Speaker
making it a journey and and making the whole experience of landscape photography more about the journey that got you out to do this stuff because that journey is where you're going to get a lot of that excitement. A lot of that excitement gets generated in the journey. And that excitement can then get put into the photos, which then helps make your photos better. So if you look at landscape photography more as a journey, not that you're going to get the best things, but you're getting yourself out there to make something great, that adds into the whole process. And I think a lot of times people look at it as, okay, well, I live in this place and I don't have the money to go to these other places. Well, you can draw an eight to 10 hour circle around anywhere you live in America.
00:46:58
Speaker
That's all I know. I can't tell you that about Europe or whatever, but I would venture to say almost anywhere you live, you can draw an eight to ten hour circle around where you live. And there's some greatness there. I just did this recently. I went down to Arkansas with my son, photographed a couple of chapels because I like to do um church photography with super wide angle lenses. It was a great time. It took took us two days. That's it. We drove down three hours down. We photographed one chapel, stayed the night, photographed some waterfalls, went to another chapel and then came home. And it it filled my cup more than I think going to something like Colorado did, you know? So yeah there can be things that are close to you that that excite you just as much as things that are epic and grand and far away. So when you hear us say, put something great in front of it, it doesn't necessarily mean that you have to go to these amazingly great places that cost a great amount of money. It could be that you just go eight to 10 hours local to where you live to find something amazing.
00:47:56
Speaker
And I think there's also, I think number one, that's great advice. And if you get as creative about looking for places to go as you do spending time in Lightroom or Photoshop or trying to be creative in there or looking up photography tips, I think you'll find you can do other things too. So my wife and I were years ago, we're going to Chicago. and we're checking in and they said, oh, well, we have an upper floor room with a great view. It was an extra $75 a night. I'm like, oh, let's get it. And she's like, she's like, we're staying here three nights. She's like, that's an extra, you know, whatever that comes out to. And when you frame it that way, yes, it's it's an extra two to $300. It could be an extra four or $500. Oh gosh, I got this.
00:48:54
Speaker
Did you see that? I did. I don't know how to turn it off. It's these gestures. it's Apple like like it automatically makes these gestures. Watch, I wonder if it does it. ah Yeah. Anyway. It's a Zoom feature that we that that popped up and put the thumbs down on what Matt just said. so But the point of the story is is is i when when I asked her to look at it as, So I'm going to be able to take pictures from our room of the city.
00:49:26
Speaker
that would normally cost a lot of money you know to to do something. So if you can get to, if there's a hotel with a great rooftop in New York City, and then there's a cheaper hotel that you're thinking of staying at, don't look at it as the hotel cost, look at it as the photography cost. um I think i think that can think things like that can help you. And then to to what Blake said, I would even I would even encourage you something one extra from that and that is within an hour of your home.
00:49:59
Speaker
There's got to be something that's pretty decent to look at. You know, Blake, I bet you that within an hour of your home, there's a pretty cool barn with maybe a cool leading line fence or grass or road or something. Okay. Within an hour of your home, when it's within an hour of your home, ah because you can become an expert on that spot. and you can get the quintessential perfect photo of that spot. you know We always said ah you know somebody that lives in, yeah we we all know people, you and I both know people live in the Pacific Northwest.
00:50:34
Speaker
And we're always jealous of them because they're gonna get to go back to all of these great locations over and over and over again until they get that amazing shot that we're not gonna get on our three-day trip there. Absolutely. And you can do that around your home to where you take the photo that was maybe a four or a five and you make that photo a solid seven. Okay. Probably not going to get it to attend, but that's okay. Expectations to just make something that looks really cool.
Conclusion: Photography as a Joyful Pursuit
00:51:05
Speaker
Get to that spot in great light, in the great sunset, whatever that happens to be, but you can become an expert on that spot over and over again.
00:51:14
Speaker
That's the whole idea of scouting. And one thing that I used to do all the time as a kid when me and my buddy first got our driver's license is we would play a game called left, right, or straight, where you have a passenger in the car and you take turns at a stop sign. And when you get to the stop sign, you say left, right, or straight. And then that whoever's turn it is tells you what direction to go. We used to get lost in Delaware all the way. Sometimes we end up in Maryland and be like, where the heck are we? And then we have to find our way back home. Which kind of sucked because we didn't have GPSs back then. But nowadays, to scout, you can very easily, like, I could very easily do this in my own location. When COVID happened, my wife was like, what are we going to do? I'm like, I don't know, it's Sunday. Let's let's get in the Jeep, pull the top off, and then we'll play left, right or straight with the kids. So we drove all over where I live. And I found so many great locations that were even within 20 minutes of where I lived that I didn't even see before because I took the time to say,
00:52:03
Speaker
I don't know, let's go check it out. Let's see what's let's see what's going to be there. ah Left, right or straight. And then nowadays it's really easy because if you get lost, you just say go home and your car will pretty much take you home. But the idea is that a big portion of landscape photography that I think a lot of people overlook is scouting and finding the great stuff. And you have to be willing to take the time to scout and you have to understand that that's going to be a sunk cost sometimes. But it's a sunk cost that comes with ah Great benefit when you do find that location that you didn't find before And i' I'd also I mean, i'll I'll like to leave you with that photography doesn't always have to be a contest it can be an activity Yeah, I'm in competition with myself all the time. Yeah. Yeah, but and I when I say contest I don't mean that all these people listening to us are are entering competitions I think we get competitive with ourselves and we know what a good photo is and we insist that we go out and take it But it can be an activity
00:53:01
Speaker
I go, I meet, I have a group of friends that we go to the same beach and we meet for, there's a lot of bird photography there. I photographed these birds. ah tens and tens of thousands of frames. i almost still I almost auto delete the card when I come back. But it's an activity. Gets me out. And I still shoot. I'm still after that great shot. But I realize most of the time I'm not going to get it because I've been there enough times I've got the great shots. But hey, every once in a while I get surprised. Worst case scenario is I got to spend the morning with my friends. Absolutely. It's a hobby. It's what we love. It's what we're passionate about. Absolutely. All right, man. Where can people find out a little bit more about the man they call Lake Rudess?
00:53:49
Speaker
f64academy.com. That's ah where you can see the tutorials and kind of the more free-ish stuff that I do there. And then I've got a subscription website f64elite.com. But if you go to f64academy.com, you can get on my mailing list and learn about what I'm up to. Now, same with me, both MattK.com, I've got all tutorials and free tutorials, courses, all those things, but we both have mailing lists and Blake and I are both, because we talk about this a lot, are very, very personallyably personally accountable and invested in our mailing list, so we don't spam you, we we give you good stuff. so
00:54:26
Speaker
um I know everybody's got a mailing list that they ask you to be a part of, but um but we're we're we're very responsible with it where we try to really over-deliver what we what we give you on there. So those are two great places to go. I wouldn't send you i in i wouldn't send my father because my father's on my mailing list. Mine is too. My mom and my dad are both on mine. They always know when I'm busy because the families can tell. My dad's like, boy, you've been busy. I'm like, how do you know? I read your emails. I'm like, oh, you're the one.
00:54:56
Speaker
All right, man. Well, hey, great topic. This was Blake's idea and I'm glad we did it. So I appreciate it, man. Thank you. Good stuff. Thanks for having me. Take care of everybody and we'll see you again next time.