Grand Vistas vs. Intimate Scenes: How to Read a Landscape and Photograph Both

Grand Vistas vs. Intimate Scenes: How to Read a Landscape and Photograph Both

There’s a trap I fell into for years. I’d hike to some grand overlook, set up for the big shot, and come home with something that looked exactly like every other photograph of that place. The vista was there. The light was decent. But the image was flat because I’d stopped looking the moment I found the obvious composition. It took me a long time to understand that any location worth hiking to holds at least two photographs: the grand one you came for, and the intimate one you almost stepped over on the way there.