It’s springtime in the Big Hole Valley, Montana, 9 miles north of Wisdom, up Doolittle Creek Road. Spring usually makes its showing around the first of July, due to its 6,100 ft elevation as it is here. It’s early morning after a rain shower the previous day, which has delivered its promised ground fog and the soft light of the early morning sun that will quickly give way to the heat of the day. I love the little pink flowers, “Prairie Smoke” in the foreground, which first captures the eye before it wanders to Doolittle Creek and the remaining fog in the distance.
It’s an interesting Assignment, having us describe and put forth our vision of how we like to shoot landscape images with a chosen representation of our approach. I chose this particular image because of its simplistic, uncomplicated view of the world we live in. This is always my primary goal. For us, it goes without saying that we need to be mindful of what nature, the weather and settings will dictate to us.
From there, good composition is essential for me. Whether I can use leading lines to draw the viewer into the image and explore what they may find, balance an image with near to far attractions (as in this image), or stabilize the image with similar objects. I am always aware of my canvas and where I choose to place the various elements. I tend to be always conscious of the rule of thirds, but I am not locked into it. In the attached image, I kind of fulfil that goal, with the prairie smoke flowers at the lower right and the light/dark of Doolittle Creek at the top left. There are so many subtle messages that one needs to be aware of, and one of them is that the eye is drawn to the highest contrast in an image, ie, the fog and the darkness of the creek.
