ICONOGRAPHY

If you photograph landscapes - even if you just periodically thumb through Instagram - you’ll be familiar with iconic locations.

I’m talking about Mesa Arch, Diamond Beach or Kirkjufell in Iceland, the Old Man of Storr, the Wanaka Tree or Milford Sound in New Zealand, or that beautiful Japanese maple tree in Portland, Oregon.  Horseshoe Bend and Antelope Canyon in Arizona.  Zion’s Watchman, with the Virgin River flowing through the foreground.

I could go on but I’m not aiming to tip you into slumber.

If you’re not familiar with one or more of these locations just Google a couple and take a look at the images that come up.  I’d be willing to bet you’ll say, “Oh yeah, I’ve seen pictures of that.”

THEY’RE ICONS FOR A REASON

On the off chance you’ve not previously seen images of one of these locations, when you do you’ll be stunned.

Because, like cliches, these places have earned their standing for a reason: they’re stunningly beautiful locations that stir the heart, pop the eyeballs, and excite the soul.  Who wouldn’t want to see any of these place firsthand, to stand in awe of the grandeur this earth has to offer?

As photographers, and I suspect this holds for painters as well, we naturally would love to capture images of these places and make them our own, put our creative stamp on each, and share that experience with friends, family and other viewers.

THAT SAID…

Also like cliches, these icons, beautiful as they are, can be eye-rollers.  Or at least a lot less indicative of your artistic talent than you’d prefer they represent.

Why?  Because so many people - thousands, hundreds of thousands maybe - have taken those images.  Everybody’s seen them.  So even if you present an awesome image of, say, Stonehenge under the Milky Way, or the Snake River winding before the Grand Tetons beneath a stunning sunset, most viewers, having seen similar photos of those places, are likely to feel more “Meh” than they are “Holy sh**, that’s awesome!”

I certainly have no problem capturing iconic places.  Just because it’s been done, and done extremely well, doesn’t mean I shouldn’t give it a shot too. And, like anyone else, I’d still like to see those places firsthand.  But…that’s kind of the problem.

GROOVING ON THE DALLAS SKYLINE

I took an evening cityscape workshop several months ago, held locally here in Dallas.

I’d seen the iconic shots of the Dallas skyline and had long wondered where they’d been captured, particularly those with the skyline mirrored in smooth water.  So I took the workshop to find out.  (Fun fact: the only way to capture the water reflection of downtown Dallas is after heavy rains cause the Trinity River to overflow its banks…we didn’t get that shot, but what I captured is shown above).

After meeting the workshop leaders and other participants, we car-pooled to the site where we’d set up.  I rode with a guy who indicated he’d signed up for the same reason I had: to find the ideal location to shoot the Dallas skyline.

We laughed about it because we both agreed it would never be a portfolio image for either of us because it had been done so many times before.  But we also sheepishly admitted to each other that we still wanted the damn shot.

And that’s the root of the issue with iconic locations.

BLACKWATER, BIG BEND AND OTHER UNKNOWN PLACES

One of the reasons I think the Big Bend trip I took last February was so special - aside from the remote otherworldliness of the place - is that I captured images I’d not previously seen.  Not suggesting Big Bend hasn’t been photographed, but it’s nowhere near as photographed as Yosemite or Yellowstone or Acadia.  I had no references to work from in Big Bend, so all of my compositions were ad hoc, on the fly, made up solely by me.

Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, near Cambridge, gives me the same sense.  While not necessarily remote, it feels that way when you’re in the middle of it, and it’s certainly otherworldly.  But it’s not on anyone’s list of iconic landscape photo locations so it seems as though everything I capture there is mine alone.

Blackwater and Big Bend are both target rich and hard work.  Target rich because there’s so much to photograph that’s new and unseen (to me at least), and hard work because with no previous frame of reference upon which to base an image you’ve got to develop and refine your own compositions.

And therein lies the joy in unknown places.  Which also provides the not inconsequential benefit of making you a better photographer because you’ve got to think and work a little bit harder than you ordinarily would.

AIM FOR THE MASTERPIECE

You want to capture that epic shot in that iconic location?  Yeah, me too.

So I say do it!  Make the trip if you can and grab that image!  Make it yours and make it awesome, create your own masterpiece.  But don’t forget to turn around and capture that detail nobody else pays attention to because that might even be better, not least because it’ll be that rare image few have seen. When I captured the image of the defiant tree below, at Dead Horse Point State Park in Utah, everybody else was pointed the other way, toward the canyon gouged into the desert by the Colorado River. I got those shots too, but the one photo that defines that trip for me, the one I remember, is this solitary tree.

But, more important, don’t forget that local “go-to” spot near where you live - your own personal Yosemite or Zion.  You know that better than most, and the images you capture there - unlike the icons - will be special not only because they have your own stamp on them, but because they’ll be unfamiliar and unseen to most.

It’s like creating your own icon…and how cool is that?