One of the biggest challenges a visual artist faces is capturing people’s attention — and then keeping it. Compelling art captivates people. It inspires them to look around and appreciate every inch. Most pictures, however, are lucky to get more than a few seconds of anyone’s time.
I’ve lived my entire life in a state that’s home to five volcanoes. The word “mountain” has meant to me a permanently snow-capped peak that often reaches into the clouds.
Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains are nothing like that, but they are inspiring nonetheless — maybe more inspiring if you count the number of times they’ve been featured in songs. I can’t think of them without hearing John Denver singing about them, but Take Me Home, Country Roads is just one of dozens of songs in which they’re featured.
You often hear of artists talking about their careers in terms of personal growth. Over the nearly 20 years I’ve been photographing nature, my vision has certainly grown.
In the beginning, I was satisfied with images that made nature look as pretty as possible. Today, I try to make images that are pretty but also communicate how I felt when I pressed the shutter button. And in Pinnacles National Park, California, last month, that meant I had to find a way to photograph the wind.
It was the largest lenticular cloud I had ever seen. Lenticular clouds, which look a bit like flying saucers, hover around Mount Rainier several times a year, but this one seemed to be as large as the mountain itself.
There have always been stories about the origin of the land and the life that calls it home. Before there was science, those stories came from imagination and spirituality. In this series, I have created contemporary nature photography to illustrate them. Read more about my Legends of the Land series.
It used to be that once the sun went down, the sky was completely black. But that ended one night when the biggest dog ever decided to steal a snack from some farmers.
There are about 1,500 volcanoes on land — and even more underwater — but only one that you can truly climb inside.
I captured this image — one of my most popular — on my first attempt, but I certainly wouldn't call it a lucky shot.
It required getting up hours before sunrise, finding my way to the lake in the dark, and waiting for more than a half-hour on the frozen ground for the sun to finally clear the horizon. But the resulting image was definitely worth it.
