Establish a Sense of Scale

There is no place on earth I'd rather spend time taking pictures than the American southwest. The spaces are so vast there that, unless you've actually experienced them, they are hard to fathom. And that lack of universal familiarity can be a problem when it comes to trying to share the sense of incredible space and distance in a landscape photo. You must include something of known size--a visual common denominator--in order for your viewers to grasp the enormity of the places you've photographed. Probably the most familiar (and available) scale indicator is another human being. Within a few inches, we all know the approximate size of another person and that immediately gives us a visual point of reference to the overall scale in a particular landscape. In the scene here I included my on-call scale model Lynne and had her walk into the immense openness of this spectacular Mexican Hat, Utah landscape. Without having her as a visual measuring stick it's almost impossible to grasp the enormity of the setting.