I love photographing people, but heading outdoors to experience the earth and nature can be tremendously rewarding. As a photographer, it can be challenging trying to capture the wonders around us into a simple photograph. Adding to that challenge are the iconic places so often photographed. How do we bring something new to the table? How do we infuse a photograph with something of ourselves?
I enjoy workshops, spending time with other photographers while learning something new or absorbing some of the artistic energy of the workshop leaders, making it part of my own artistic makeup. I’ve now attended three workshops run by Moose Peterson, a renowned wildlife and landscape photographer. The first Moose workshop I attended was in Kauai a few years ago, part of his Digital Landscape Workshop Series. Even though I’d been shooting for years, the experience was amazing, and I think it’s fair to say it changed my photography.
The DLWS workshops, held for several years, are now history. His new venture is K&M Adventures, run with his good friend, Kevin Dobler. Kevin was also a regular instructor at DLWS, and like Moose, loves landscape and wildlife photography.
Wouldn’t you know, Moose announced a K&M Adventures trip to Grand Canyon. I visited the canyon when I was 15. While it would be a few years before I’d use an SLR, I still had a strong interest in photography. I remember the disappointment with capturing the grandeur of the place on film. It’s just so big it defies our efforts to describe it in an image. Frankly, standing on the rim, it is surreal even in person. So, it seemed the perfect location to learn and Moose and Kevin were the perfect photographers to teach. I called to sign up right away.
K&M Adventures really is a different concept and approach. The group is limited to eight students, and we spent nearly the entire time together – sunrise shoots, then breakfast, a noon get-together for questions and one-on-one help with finishing photos, then our sunset shoot, and finally dinner. Meal times were great with lots of socializing and laughs. Kevin is a flight instructor, so I could talk photography and flying – pretty much all I could ask for!
Then there was the shooting. We had terrific photo weather the first couple days (that is, cloudy and snowy). Clouds bring character to the canyon. Blue skies make it tougher to add drama to a photo. In an iconic place like Grand Canyon that has been photographed regularly for the past 150 years or so, we need a little drama.
When there were tons of clouds, the entire canyon could be filled with white – clouds and snow – and there’s nothing to see. Or, they could pass by, opening the canyon for us while providing a snowy region to make the subject of a photo. Clouds give life to the rocks. Indeed, such a landscape exists because of the interactions of rock and water.
But even an evening with just some high clouds could be good. I’ll never forget the evening shooting before the sunset looking for something, anything, that might really pull me in and help involve someone viewing my photo. Sort of an okay sunset, but nothing special. Then, just as the sun disappeared, the canyon literally lit up with magenta light. It happened in the course of a minute or so.
In fact, I was pretty much done shooting, when, WOW! Surprises like that can just make your day. Patience is a virtue a photographer needs. Not every shoot will provide a winning shot, but you don’t really know until the light is gone.
Grand Canyon is a wonderful place for a photographer and has been for more than a century. The colors are fabulous, but the textures and lines and levels give us plenty of opportunities for dramatic black and white images as well. Imagining all the photographers who have come before, so many carting their big 8×10 glass plates around the rim and into the canyon, it’s awesome. It’s worth stopping from time to time, too, just to put the camera down and look. Experience millions of years of evolution of our remarkable little dot of a planet. Wondrous.
Moose and Kevin are terrific teachers. Their understanding of visual perception and ability to impart that knowledge on the students is fabulous. It really doesn’t get much better.
