Broken Sky
Back during August of 2021 I spent a great deal of time on the Blue Ridge Parkway searching for various compositions just along the road side. I would stop in places with or without overlooks, and while for a while I was perfectly content to only worry about sunset, sunrise photography is just as magical. This was taken at around 8:30 in the morning just past Graveyard Fields headed north along the roadside. The crepuscular rays bleeding through, painting a valley with a inversion taking place. The haze was heavy, creating an interesting ghostly effect within the image itself, and I spent quite some time just watching the sky roll.
Sometimes in landscape photography you arrive on a location, and there’s nothing useable, no light, no foreground, no real background. It happens, it’s part of the game. In fact I wager I spent over a year looking at thousands of different potential compositions, and depending on my mood at that exact moment I would either write it down, or discount it out of hand. That, is in fact a mistake. One should never discount a location, or composition just because your not in the right mood. Every location, every composition has a place, a time and a purpose. You just have to be there when its ready. It’s been said landscape photography is 10% work, 90% luck. I don’t believe that in the way people mean it. Luck plays a big part in landscape photography, absolutely, but it’s not that you got lucky finding the composition, it’s that you’ve done the work. You scouted the location, you found a composition in the field, planned it out, set it up. You’ve done this with dozens, maybe even hundreds of locations. That way, when the weather turns out for you, you know what to do. Even in places you’ve never been you realize what makes a good composition, and can find it quickly, before the light leaves you. The luck is in whether or not you’re on location when the moment arrives.
This is all to say, that you as a photographer need to know what makes a photo. Not any old photo, what makes up your photo. You know how you shoot, what your methodology is, how to bring it all together. You need to be practiced in setting up, composing. Because behind every photo is all the minutes, hours, days you’ve spent in the field preparing for the shot. Get out there and keep working on your style, develop your eye more, work hard, and take as many photos as you can. People will mistake your hard work and developed talent for luck, that’s alright, smile and keep producing amazing works.
Until Next Time!
Aperture: f13
ISO: 640
SS: 1/250th
Focal: 84mm
Fujinon 50-140mm
