Of course even as I chased wildlife phantoms through the woods, I shot the environment around me. Enjoyed a better ratio of
success with that, as well.
And who wouldn't?
By & large, landscape doesn't fly, leap
or otherwise steal away right before your clumsy eyes, as does the average critter.
For instance, I captured this while relaxing flat on my back
across deep forest loam, during the very best light near the end of a positively splendid autumn day.
If any bug bit me, I don't remember it.
Landscape waits patiently. It tends to stand still.
Sometimes, preternaturally so.
Among the first if probably not the very first landscape image I ever shot is below. Not a 1st class image per se, but true to the wilderness moment just the same.
I've always thought what this image really lacks is some kind of smallish, dinosaur-like critter peeking out from the grass:
No disrespect to those who love them, but I pretty much stopped shooting sunrise/sunsets real early on. Mostly, I think those exist to be savored.
Not squandered through a lens and provided desperate triage later.
When it comes to visually rich landscape, size really does
matter.
I was seriously embarrassed when the first prints of mine ever to hang on a gallery wall barely held up to 11x17.
That was positively puny, considering the intended content.
In theory, the image below needs to cover a good chunk of
wall, maybe in some busy motel hallway.
But it never could:
Size was also the rub every time the devil came in on a
landscape's details. If I wanted to do this sort of thing at a high level, then I couldn't stay small...
Increasingly, I felt caught between a photographic rock and
a hard place, as regards Superior landscape.
Happily I kept finding diversions along the
way, as I learned how to see the wild world through a proprietary lens.
