Getting unique images is the hardest task in photography but is also completely achievable, just need to keep straining the brain.
Andy,
I know I'm not alone in this, but your work always piques interest and nature is at the heart of our likes and dislikes in photography, but most of us have not taken a train outside a big city and just wandered around where wild grass or natural forrest meets the sky and hawks circle overhead looking for their next meal.
We are mostly urban and therefore a lot of pictures of things connected with out city and modern way of life. Still, beauty of human form and nature is fundamental as our reference points for everything each of us photographs.
We become good as street, wedding, portraits, objects and cityscapes, because that's what we are familiar with. Still it's refreshing to have among us Doug Herr and others to shoot birds and you and others to shoot landscapes. I will provide more of my work, I promise.
As to Nicolas, he has the Herculean task of maintaining a high and successful profile in a market for boats where there is much competition and only a few major companies with money that matters. The addition of architecture, especially the lifestyle that goes along with vineyards in the rich wine areas of France is a natural extension. But Nicolas also photographs life in Bangladesh in the "Watever" project and subtle art work with abstract writing with light as well as abstractions with the shadows on walls and plants and more.
So back to your love of nature. That is where your heart is and that's where your work will be best. Don't photograph for the editors, do it for your own soul. It will then have your marks all over it and
be different, since you are different! Just cheat and ask "What is most surprising and impressive to me and what is the best context to show it in? Should I map it out now or come back at dusk?"
Everything has to be entirely selfish, attending to your own whims, wishes, angst and daring.
That Editor? He or she will eventually fall in love with your work when it represents a coherent world that is your own and has your signature on it!
Asher