How A Landscape Can Be More Than Just Terrain Photographs of a flat landscape like the New Jersey Pine Barrens made with very wide angle lenses tend to be more about the sky than the landscape. I've photographed quite a few scenes like this one under all sorts of dramatic skies and now tend to photograph more intimate scenes. More trees, less [...]
A Northeast Vision Of The Pacific Northwest - Part 1 Artistic vision is an interesting thing. It's like your personality, no matter where you go, you take it with you. This became obvious when we headed to the State of Washington recently to check out the great Pacific Northwest. Being comfortable with your vision can help you help adapt to a landscape like [...]
As a landscape photographer used to producing clear images, it was challenging to shoot wildflowers with the Lensbaby and not obsess over getting every petal perfectly sharp
If you want to do landscape photography, it's a good idea to look at all the faces the landscape has to offer.
Composition is a Form of Communication Composition is an elusive thing for many photographers. On the other hand, the technical aspects of photography are fairly straight forward and systematic. One camera setting affects another in a logical way. Once that is learned, the photographer understands how a camera processes light coming through the lens and can create a well exposed photograph. This [...]
Andrew Wyeth and a New Jersey Shack The Judge's Shack is a beach shack and one of our state's lesser icons. New Jersey is known for many things. but our beach shacks tend to get little attention. They were small vacation homes built in rural parts of the Jersey shore back when there were rural parts of the Jersey Shore. Their only real [...]
Abstraction and Architecture The Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles California is an unusual piece of architecture. Its oddly exaggerated lines and curves look like a bizarre, animated city skyline. The bent metal shapes of the building are designed to reflect light and create a delightful changing play of light and shadow throughout the day and night. When photographing this building, I was drawn to [...]
Missouri's Rugged, Beautiful Landscape Here are more photographs from my trip to the Ozark Mountains in Southern Missouri with photographer Craig McCord. In my previous post I showed the old mills we visited which were set in a beautiful and rugged landscape. The photographs below show more of that landscape. There were not a lot of opportunities to photograph the grand landscape of the Ozark [...]
An aimless pursuit of beauty. What do you do when a day of scouting for photography locations doesn't yield anything? That happened recently on a trip to the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. We spent the afternoon hiking the Cliff and other trails to check out overlooks and waterfalls. My plan was to find the best ones and spend the next few [...]
Honoring and Preserving a Cold War Legacy When passing through the idyllic and peaceful countryside around Lumberton, New Jersey, one would never expect to come across a fearsome relic of the Cold War. Yet, until recently, just outside of town, were the remains of a Nike missile battery built in 1956 and designated with the catchy name PH-23/25. In the 1950's and 60's the army built [...]
Strange Trees, Stranger Rock Formations and That Beautiful Desert Moon A few years ago a visit to Joshua Tree National Park was a photographic bust for me. Part of it was timing. We were only there for 2 days, the weather was really hot, blah blah blah. In retrospect, mediocre vision on my part was the real reason my work wasn't what it should be. As a result I [...]
Strange, Surreal, and Fantastic Light in the Arizona Desert I'm going to depart from the rust, mold and decay of the abandoned places I've been photographing this Fall and return to our Arizona trip in October. This post reflects my first morning in the Copper State. Every now and then a photographer is blessed with an amazing sunrise or sunset. I had an [...]
Composition Still Rules This year we were fortunate to experience the Fall colors in Arizona, New England and New Jersey. Photographing these colors on the trees can be challenging because it is easy to be seduced by their beauty and forget what it takes to create a great photograph. The art of photography is more than pointing a camera in the general direction of a [...]
When my friends told me about you, I couldn’t wait to meet you. They said you were absolutely beautiful and that we would really hit if off. Unfortunately, it just didn’t work out. Sure, you are really gorgeous, but I just didn’t feel that spark between us. Every relationship is a two-way street and our failure to connect isn’t entirely my fault. For one thing, [...]
Attempting to Rate the Beauty of the American Landscape The Grand Canyon Grand Canyon Afterglow by Richard Lewis 2015 New England View Towards Mt. Monadnock by Richard Lewis 2015 In the last couple of weeks we were on a whirlwind tour, first in Arizona and then in New England. As a photographer, I am often perplexed, awed, inspired and completely [...]
An Urban Wasteland in the Middle of the New Jersey Pinelands. Brooksbrae Brick Factory 1 by Richard Lewis 2015 Brooksbrae Brick Factory 2 by Richard Lewis 2015 Brooksbrae Brick Factory 3 by Richard Lewis 2015 Brooksbrae Brick Factory 4 by Richard Lewis 2015 No matter how long I live in the New Jersey Pine [...]