Russ Bishop | Russ Bishop Photography | Nature Photo Blog

November 3, 2011November 6, 2015

Figures on a Landscape

Hiker at the colorful Cedar Breaks Amphitheater, Cedar Breaks National Monument, Utah

There’s a popular climb at Joshua Tree called “Figures on a Landscape” that got me thinking about the connection between man and the environment. Not so much from an environmental standpoint (this could fill numerous posts), but photographically speaking. The climb is not long by Yosemite standards, but the lack of apparent holds on the colorful granite creates the illusion of climbers floating on a much larger stone palette.

Landscape photography can often portray the natural world in abstract even with the best intentions of preserving its true form. It’s the nature of the beast – and that’s fine when you’re creating intentional abstracts or scale is irrelevant. Perspective control lenses and software can correct bending horizons and converging trees to create a more accurate representation if necessary, but there isn’t much else in nature that conforms to our linear way of thinking.

Don’t get me wrong, that’s a good thing! Nature should be wild and chaotic and unpredictable, and in most cases that’s exactly what we’re hoping to capture. But there are times when this can also lead to confusion with our audience. When you’re trying to convey a sense of scale such as the immensity of the Grand Canyon or the vastness of the night sky the simple inclusion of a person in the frame can give your image an instant focal point and more importantly, a sense of perspective.

July 14, 2011November 6, 2015

Frozen in Time

Log sections on Blue Mesa, Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona

It’s hard to imagine that the vast desert that surrounds you as you whisk along Interstate 40 in Arizona was once a primordial swamp. During the Late Triassic period, about 225 million years ago, this area was a lush forest that was home to many large amphibians and early dinosaurs. The colorful Chinle Formation, which gives the Painted Desert its warm hues, also contains the sediments that have preserved the fossil trees, plants and animals of this ancient time.

At the center of this lunar landscape lies Petrified Forest National Park, which was set aside in 1962 to preserve the unique remains of this otherworldly place. In addition to its colorful badlands and fossil remains, the park also contains more than 600 archaeological sites, including petroglyphs and pit houses from some of its earliest pueblo inhabitants.

July 6, 2011November 6, 2015

Devil’s Postpile

Cliff and columnar basalt, Devil’s Postpile National Monument, California

This small national monument near Mammoth Lakes in the eastern Sierra Nevada is celebrating its centennial this week. It was spared a watery burial one hundred years ago today when congress saved it from a proposed dam on July 6, 1911.

Its unusual basalt columns are the by-product of an ancient lava lake, which rapidly formed and then cooled leaving behind the perfectly shaped hexagonal pillars that make up the cliff. The constant force of winter freeze and thaw is slowly eroding the formation, and the symmetrical blocks that look as though they were snapped together are littered at its base like a child’s building blocks.

The road to the monument, which is closed in winter but easily accessible the rest of the year, is just past the Mammoth Mountain ski area and is also the jumping off point for the popular Minarets and Ansel Adams Wilderness.