These aren't good photos; they're snapshots, the kind of photos someone takes while walking down a trail. The image quality is good -- thank you, new Nikon df camera. The photos also demonstrate the challenge of using that nice expensive wide angle lens in your camera bag.
The problem, in short, is that these are photos that were inspired by me standing there thinking: 'hey, that's a mighty fine view.' Being there almost always trumps a picture unless the photographer finds a photograph in the scene. Which I didn't really do in any of the above pics.
I also didn't put an object in the foreground. That's something you really need to do with wide angle lenses; otherwise they just push the subject deeper into the frame and away from the viewer. I tried -- trees, rocks, etc. Either the lighting was bad or the object was boring.
Example: Here's one below that was a good idea with a strong subject in the foreground: a big foxtail pine (I think it's a foxtail). But it was in the shadows and the valley wall in the background was strongly lit by a setting sun. The Valley wall is way too bright -- I needed to use a graduated neutral density filter to dampen the light on the valley wall but was too lazy to fish it out of my backpack. Result: weak grounder to second.
Check out my SmugMug site for more of my work, prints and licensing info. To save 20 percent on the cost of a SmugMug account, please click here. SmugMug lets you customize your page and sell prints and licenses -- unlike, for example, Flickr. I also think photos look better on SmugMug than Flickr or Facebook due to the way those sites compress big files.
--S.H.
The photos above are ©Steve Hymon and may not be used elsewhere without my advanced written permission. All rights reserved.
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