1902-1984

Places 169

EXERCISELandscapeAssignment: Photograph a largeexpanse of any "natural" environ-ment. Depending on where you live,"natural" may mean vi rginwilderness, agricultural land, aseashore or an inner city park. Doyour best, however, to avoid build-ings, roads or other indications ofhuman influence.

Goal: Capture something of thecharacter of the landscape you pho-tograph. Is it lush, wild, domesti-cated, barren, pleasant, forbidding,calm, awesome? Take time to findout, and then express your conclu-sions in your photographs.

Tips: Don't just go out and pointyour camera at the view and call it alandscape because it has land andtrees and sky in it. Make the com-position work. Look for visual har-monies: recurring patterns in trees,rocks, the contours of the land,water, clouds.

Shoot in snow, rain, mist, brightsunlight, any weather. Notice how at-mospheric conditions change the en-vironment: How does rain affect anopen field, a pond or river, a forest?How does bright sunlight affectthem? Notice how clouds relate to theshape of the land.

Patience is important. For exam-ple, once you decide what to photo-graph, you may have to wait until theclouds do just the right thing.

Pay particular attention to tech-nique. Landscapes are very demand-ing subjects. For example, you maywant to use a filter to make cloudsmore distinct, to darken the sky orotherwise achieve the effect you want

(see Appendix). If it's raining, or thesky is heavily overcast, you may wantto use a larger aperture (or slowershutter speed) to brighten the photo-graph. If the whole scene seems toobright, you may want to darken it byusing a smaller aperture (or fasterspeed). Be aware of your position inrelation to the sun, and the effect thathas on your results. Experiment, andtake notes on what you're doing, soyou'll know what worked and whatdidn't.

Student photograph by ClarkPeterson.

170 The Photographic Eye