Medicine Bow Peak - Landscape Photography Reflections
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Reflections/critiques of images I took while camping and trail running around Medicine Bow Peak.
First of all, what a stunning landscape. It was a quiet and clear weekend up there with very few people. I had been meaning to jaunt up this thing for a while and finally the right opportunity came. Lovely fall colours and soft light, impressive uplifted quartzite cliffs, and dozens of lakes dotted around - it was quite an imposing sight.
The night before was a stargazing feast for the eyes and I drifted off to sleep with the tent fly off. That was until I heard cayotes howling what sounded like 50m away from me. Then, it was as mad dash to the car with what I panic grabbed (torch, pocket knife, and a random stick in hand - had no pockets cause I was in my underpants).
Anyways, lovely night, other than the small hiccup.
So let's get to it. I took a few very similar exposures of the same scene and was thinking about which one I preferred. I decided to break them down a little to help come to a conclusion. We have two landscape images (A, and B), which are similarly framed with some minor differences, and one portrait image (C), that I cropped to remove some sky since there was not much detail going on making it just a waste of space and distracting. Check em out below.
Click on the images to enlarge them
Ultimately, I will choose image A) and C) as the ones to take forward and suitable for different scenarios since they are at different orientations.
However, there are still some critiques I have, especially about A). There is far too little space above the mountain that it feels like it's cramped. Could have worked a little bit more on positioning the foliage so that there's more depth to it in the foreground (like in C)). But ultimately, not a bad exposure.
C) to me is my favourite image. It really shows why landscapes often work well with some foreground. It helps contextualize and ground the photo - I'll have to look back to find which photographer explained that to me. I love the separation of the elements work in this image that gives directionality to the whole image, not just a single layer, which isn't quite achieved in image A). Unfortunately, C) is a pretty weird layout, so it probably doesn't provide the same feeling and expanse you'd expect from a landscape, especially if it were printed.
Lessons to take forward:
1. Leave some room up top, even if the sky is boring
2. Think carefully about separation of elements and create spaces for your eyes to rest on
3. Think about depth in foreground to create depth in the entire image
Anyways, those are my rambling thoughts.
Bella ciao!