Arizona | Russ Bishop Photography

April 5, 2024April 5, 2024

Landscape Tip: What’s Your Angle?

Landscape Tip: What’s Your Angle? Captivating landscape photography typically includes one or more elements that make it stand out from the crowd. Magical light, richly saturated colors, and dramatic vistas can all make for great images, but sometimes we’re not rewarded with these sure-fire conditions even after the long hike or braving the inclement weather.

Fortunately there are other ways to create visually dynamic imagery when mother nature is not cooperating – namely your lens and your eyes. Perspective is a powerful tool that is limited only by your choice of focal length and framing.

A wide-angle lens with both excellent depth of field and a wide field of view can be used to emphasize a foreground element such as a plant or rock within the context of its larger mountain or desert environment. In most cases this also creates visual tension within the frame by directing the viewer’s eye from near to far elements, which in turn adds drama to the composition.

So the next time the elements aren’t working in your favor try adding a little visual spice to the scene with this simple technique. A subtle change in perspective through lens selection or camera position can entice your viewers to linger within the frame and might just turn a good image into a great one.

September 13, 2023September 13, 2023

Saguaro National Park

Saguaro National Park is unique among the nation’s natural sanctuaries. Almost entirely a wilderness preserve, it surrounds a major metropolitan area yet manages to retain its remote and wild feeling. Just minutes from the city lights of Tucson you’ll find yourself immersed in a world rich in Native American history and the striking flora of the Sonoran Desert.

Two units separated by the city, the Tucson Mountain District to the west and the Rincon Mountain District to the east, provide two unique environments. Signal Hill in the Tucson Mountain District includes hundreds of ancient Hohokam petroglyphs surrounded by dense saguaro forests and wonderful views of the local mountains.

The Rincon Mountain District to the east includes the land protected in the original monument before it became a park in 1994. It’s a desert sky island home to bears, cougars, and the elusive kudamundi. This side of the park has fewer saguaro than its western counterpart, but they are larger in size due to greater amounts of rainfall and runoff from the Rincon Mountains. Rising from the desert floor to over 8,500 feet, these rugged peaks even support a temperate conifer forest – rare in this desert climate.

The American southwest is a fascinating land of beauty and contrast. And for anyone searching for great desert photography, a chance to connect with past civilizations or simply find desert solitude Edward Abbey style, Saguaro National Park is a prime destination.

March 16, 2023March 16, 2023

Canyon Light

For all the equipment I’ve purchased over the years, from camera bodies to lenses and filters, the most important tool of my craft is one I’ve never had to buy. The world of natural light provides landscape photographers with a constantly varied selection from soft light to lightning and everything in between. Here canyon light illuminates the subtle hues of Antelope Canyon, and best of all there’s never a cost.

Unlike a studio strobe, it’s sometimes a challenge to harness the light Mother Nature provides. But therein lies the art of outdoor photography – knowing how to work with what you’re given or having the patience to wait for something better.

In previous posts I’ve mentioned various ways to work with challenging conditions, but there is one place where the light is constant and never leaves you wishing for more – the indirect, reflected light found deep in the canyons of the Southwest.

Its consistent, ethereal glow could easily be mistaken for artificial light, and its true colors can hardly be discerned by the naked eye in the dark recesses of a slot canyon. In sharp contrast to magic hour, the best time to experience this light is when the sun is high overhead and able to penetrate these deep fissures in the earth’s crust. And only when the scene is revealed on the sensor or emulsion do you see the true beauty of the canyon light.