At 325,000 acres, Denali State Park does not have the name recognition of its larger neighbor, Denali National Park, which at 6 million acres is famous for the tallest mountain in North America. Nevertheless, the state park does have panoramic…
The Road More Travelled
In the poem, The Road Not Taken, poet Robert Frost was confronted in a woods with the choice of two diverging roads. Students of literature know that he took “the one less traveled,” perhaps because he thought he would find…
Chiaroscuro
You need light to photograph, but without shadows your photos will not have any depth. Subjects will lack texture and form and appear flat. While this may seem to be counter-intuitive for a two-dimensional art form such as photography, there…
The Trees of Winter
As I write this, Southcentral Alaska is in the midst of a January deep freeze reminiscent of winters past. Subzero temperatures combined with ground fog are adorning trees with thick layers of hoarfrost — the foliage of winter. While the…
Working the Composition
In 1984, the biographical film, Amadeus, depicted a fictionalized rivalry between Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Italian composer Antonio Salieri in the mid-1700s of Vienna, Austria. Narrated by Salieri, the plot line follows him as he reluctantly comes to grips with…
Composition Flaws, Part 1
No one likes airing their dirty laundry, or in the case of photographers, showing their photographs which have failed. But recognizing mistakes and correcting them is a good way to learn and progress in any endeavor. Starting with this and…
Walk With Me
What makes some photos more visually appealing than others? As landscape photographers we are blessed – and sometimes overwhelmed – with a variety of compositional tools, many borrowed from painters. The rule of thirds, power shapes, the psychology of colors,…
The Art of Line and Shadow in Nature
Line is the most basic of design elements in composition. You don’t need to study art to know about lines; presented with paper and crayon a toddler instinctively draws lines. In photography, light is essential to a good photograph, but…