The fog began to clear up and we could see the other side of the lake again. The morning light was almost gone and we were reaching the light of mid-morning. Indie and folk music was bumping from Shea’s beloved bluetooth speaker.
After making a few images in an attempt to embrace the fog, I pointed my camera to the opposite side of the lake. As the fog lifted, I made a few versions of this scene. Using the rocks on the bottom of the frame to ground the composition and the ridge of the mountain as the introduction of negative space at the top, I originally felt good about this photograph. The texture of the snow gently pushed through the fog adding a beautiful sense of depth.
But it’s just so cluttered.
There’s so much happening in this scene, I could have made four different images out of this scene. I don’t have enough resolution on the 80D to crop in and make a clean image. I’d need a GFX-50 for that (Sponsor me, Fujifilm).
When editing this, I found it difficult. I’ve never been a fan of the over-the-top editing I often see in landscape photography these days. That feels too much like lying about what was in front of me. Now, photography is all about lying and telling the truth (photography is inherently an oxymoron). I’m not saying I make very image as a purely objective view of the scene, because I have gotten creative with how I edit my images (take a look at this panorama I made in the Tetons, for example), but I do like going for a sense of “creative realness.”
This edit ended up looking quite nice, but the clutter of the image was too much for me to want to include it in my portfolio.
The lesson I learned:
When you find yourself making an image like this and you’re still in the field, zoom in on your screen (if you’re on digital) and pick out smaller subjects. More clean-cut, less “loud” compositions. If you have the luxury of a longer lens or a telextender, use that to your advantage, and you’ll walk away a much happier photographer.