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500 yards?

Guy Tal

Editor at Large
Maybe somewhat of a provocative topic. You may recall a quip by Brett Weston stating that "anything more than 500 yards from the car just isn't photogenic."

I certainly do a fair amout of roadside/quick-hike photography but for the most part my photographic work is an extension of being in the wilds, often miles away from any road let alone a car.

I'm interested in thoughts on the effect of wilderness and/or solitude on creativity and whether those of you who operate in a similar manner find that your images captured under such conditions differ in style and personal meaning from your "500 yards from the car" work.

Guy
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Guy,

The first difference is mechanical: weight versus stamina and time.

The second is a question of taking a picture of something I see or within something. Here I'm actually encased in my subject, returning home to our birthplace millions of years ago.

I have returned where nature shows sovereignty. I'm diminished. Time has stopped. Imperatives flew away.

I am closer to elemental things that allow for language itself: Near far, up-down, red-yellow-brown-green, light-dark, rough-smooth, known-unkown and so forth.

So yes 500 yards will be very different from 10 yards, but 2,000 yards must be a whole new experience.

Asher
 
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For commercial photography this is true. No issues of weight or stamina or time for the shooter. The fact of the matter is if you shoot from the tourist locales, the tourists will be able to buy your photo and know they were there and had seen the same thing.

That said, I personally find the best stuff is often 10+ feet off the trail. In some of the more touristy places I have seen the world revert to the forest primeval in just 10 feet (3 m). This is the boundary for finding specimens easily though you can find them on the trail too. And I know of some locales where getting 10 feet of the trails is worthless if not downright suicidal due to the steep gradient of the terrain.

And even better than distance is simply going places close by again and again so you can learn to see more as the seasons change.

Though in truth I enjoy hiking and what are a few miles of switchbacks to reach a meadow or clear the treeline. The landscape opportunities are much better farther out. This is not because they are always better further out, but the exercise clears the mind and viewing more variation of the terrain helps one see better which both lead to better photos. This effort often makes images more meaningful and better due to seeing more.

As to style, how I think tends to stay the same. Though I have been 500 m off the road and not taken shots as the quick jaunt from the road was rougher than I expected I was underdressed and shivering (snowy ridgline with winds blasting snow onto me on a 70 F day). But when properly geared up (miles out) then I shoot the same way I would otherwise.

my $0.02,

Sean
 

Guy Tal

Editor at Large
he exercise clears the mind and viewing more variation of the terrain helps one see better which both lead to better photos. This effort often makes images more meaningful and better due to seeing more.

Thanks Sean! This is exactly what I was looking for.

Guy
 

Guy Tal

Editor at Large
Asher, you described in abstract terms what to me is a big part of the experience of being outdoors. I am curious though about your observation on language. Do you feel the need to articulate your thoughts and emotions in formal language when out on your own? For me it's almost the opposite - language becomes a burden. I just soak in the full spectrum of information around me through every sense and with no language barriers - nothing is lost to translation (at least the translation into human tongues).

Perhaps a heresy to mention in a photography forum, but when I am truly detached from the man-made world, photography becomes a secondary pursuit, almost a burden sometimes.

Guy
 

Gary Ayala

New member
Guy-

Living in a metropolis like SoCal ... that 500 yards needs to include a 50 mile drive. I understand the concept, but for me .. to fully see the trail/nature, I think I would have to take the 500 yard hike repeatedly. We all appreciate the grandeur of nature ... the roaring waterfalls, wind swept sand dunes, Sequoias rising from the fog ... but it is nature and its subtlety which I find most fascinating and challenging for my photographic skills. Those little wonders of nature, the fungus emerging from the forrest litter, a tree frog's foot, a wild flower's single bloom, are the hardest to identify and appreciate on a single 500 yard hike.

Be that as it may, living in SoCal I have taken a reverse approach to Weston. My 500 yards is into the city. Shooting man and his creations. From the titanium wonder of the Disney Concert Hall to the crumbling walls of Skid Row. Events with trappings of extreme color, music, exotic foods and excitment to the dismal gray life of the homeless. That has been my 500 yards.

A when given lemons make lemonade approach to photography.

-G-
 

Mark Adams

New member
Guy,
Making good pictures for me, is also about distance. I am able to find that distance almost anywhere, if I put my mind to the task. Get in the zone, so to speak. I can pull out my macro and get in the zone in my backyard but I must admit that standing alone in the redwoods or watching the alpine glow develop across the Tetons makes the experience much richer. Having said that, I sometimes get a feeling when shooting that is almost spiritual, it is beyond that zone, it is a quiet in my being, a stillness. I feel hyper sensitive and one with myself. This meditative state is not about pictures but a serendipitous result of looking for pictures. I have never had that experience in my backyard but then Utah is not my backyard.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Guy Tal said:
Asher, you described in abstract terms what to me is a big part of the experience of being outdoors. I am curious though about your observation on language. Do you feel the need to articulate your thoughts and emotions in formal language when out on your own? For me it's almost the opposite - language becomes a burden. I just soak in the full spectrum of information around me through every sense and with no language barriers - nothing is lost to translation (at least the translation into human tongues).

Perhaps a heresy to mention in a photography forum, but when I am truly detached from the man-made world, photography becomes a secondary pursuit, almost a burden sometimes.

Guy
Guy,

Thanks for the kind words!

I refer to the very roots of our frames of reference, micro, macro, distances, everything that allow the "Cathedral" in our minds to have dimension and be populated with possibilites.

In the natural world we and nature talk to each other.

The lens is an interlocuter.

Asher
 

Diane Fields

New member
I'm not ready to add anything here---yet,--but this kind of thread may be my favorite. I was a visual/textile artist for many years and loved to learn about others creative processes--how and why they worked as they did--all mediums. I'm also a great lover of the natural world as well as the manmade--and the 'abandoned'. The wild and natural is somewhat different here east of the Mississippi from our US west and other parts of the world--but its there--and I even find it just here on my own 20 acres if I look for it.

Diane
 
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