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.

Take Your Camera Everywhere

Visual stuff happens. Beauty happens. Drama happens. Patterns happen. Nature happens. While it would be nice (photographically, at least) if we could predict when great visual things are going to happen, the best that we can do is to be prepared all the time. As photographers, that means carrying our cameras with us wherever we go. While most of us won't haul the DSLR over shoulders every hour of the day, it's easy to carry a tiny compact digital camera in your purse or jacket and you should. Beauty, drama, patterns, natural wonders--these kinds of things just suddenly appear and how many times have you said, "I wish I had my camera!" The opportunities don't have to be earth-shaking to be worth photographing either. I photographed these oranges in a grocery store in Las Vegas just because I thought the pattern was interesting. It's not the world's most original photo, but had I seen those oranges and not had my camera I know what I would have been saying to myself!