Another Landscape Photo?

I’m submitting two photos to the annual Arizona Photography Alliance members’ show, and since I’ve been outside more than not, it’ll be two landscape photos, one from a trip to Alaska and the other from a visit to Monument Valley. Why another landscape photo? IG is chock-full of them, FB overflows with pics of Horseshoe Bend, and they say that everything has been photographed. I’ve even seen “composite photos” in which the photographer/collagist clips and combines a sand dune, some poofy clouds, a lighthouse, maybe a pelican or some gulls, the Titanic, a puppy, all into a overwrought HDR composition guaranteed to break the Like meter. With all of these landscapes, what can possibly surprise us?

I don’t have the answer, but I can tell you why I chose these. The Alaska photo (You can find it in the What Sustains Us gallery) is from the deck of a ship on a misty morning in September near Glacier National Park. I wanted to show what I’d been seeing for a couple of days: the three states of water all at once —- solid, liquid, gas. The ship’s wake draws you in toward the hills, and the mists sets you flying above them. I also like the saturated blues and greens of the water and the sky.

The other photo was more challenging. I know that Monument Valley is one of the most photographed places on earth, thanks to the Johns —- Wayne and Ford —- and so I wanted a view I had never seen captured. I hope I got it. Strangely, this is just a few steps off the parking lot near the entrance, and I love the venerable old cedar and the hint of a summer storm on the horizon. When I printed this one, the horizon line was blown out, so I took several attempts to get it to look like this.

I’ll frame these on Wednesday, drop them off Friday, and then head out to find yet another view.