Glenn Randall - The Art, Science, and Craft of Great Landscape Photography

Glenn Randall

The Art, Science, and Craft of Great Landscape Photography

Glenn Randall (www.glennrandall.com)

Project Editor: Maggie Yates

Copyeditor: Maggie Yates

Layout: Hespenheide Design

Cover Design: Helmut Kraus

Printed in China

ISBN 978-1-937538-47-7

1st Edition 2015

2015 Glenn Randall

Rocky Nook, Inc.

802 East Cota St., 3rd Floor

Santa Barbara, CA 93103

www.rockynook.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Randall, Glenn.
The art, science, and craft of great landscape photography / Glenn Randall. 1st edition.
pages cm
ISBN 978-1-937538-47-7 (softcover : alk. paper)
I. Title.
TR660.R365 2014
770.92--dc23
2014043876

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While reasonable care has been exercised in the preparation of this book, the publisher and author assume no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein or from the use of the discs or programs that may accompany it.

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

This book is dedicated to my parents, who first introduced me to the wilderness, to my wife Cora, who always inspires me to do my best, and to Emily and Audrey, our daughters, in hopes that their generation will continue to value, protect, and enjoy our precious wild lands.

Stormy sunset over Longs Peak from the Ute Trail, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado

The roots of this book go back many years, and so there are many people to thank. My parents deserve thanks for the patience and love they showed when they took my sister and me camping, then hiking, and eventually backpacking in the wilds of California. My wife, Cora, and our children, Emily and Audrey, deserve thanks for tolerating the long absences that a career as a landscape photographer requires. Id like to thank the many photographers whose work inspired me during my photographic journey, including Galen Rowell, David Muench, Jack Dykinga, and Tom Till. And Id like to thank the staff at Rocky Nook for their painstaking efforts to make this book as good as it could be.

I am in love with photography books. They are the ultimate showcase for a photographers words and images, and one of the most powerful and important legacies that we leave behind as image-makers. As a photographer, I am inspired by looking at photography books. As an educator, I learn about photography by reading books on the topic. I have surrounded myself with photography books on every conceivable subjectthey are one of my few indulgences.

For six years in the 1980s, I ran a photo bookstore in Maine. Now, as director of Santa Fe Photographic Workshops, I receive photo books on a weekly basis as gifts, for review, to be considered for our campus bookstore, or from photographers who want to teach for us. Given my passion for photography books, I was delighted to receive an advance copy of Glenn Randalls new book, The Art, Science, and Craft of Great Landscape Photography. Glenn is one of our most popular instructors at the Workshops (and a friend), so I began pouring over his book as soon as it arrived. Immediately I realized that the book posed a pleasant dilemma for me.

Over the years of collecting photography books, I have found that they fall into three categoriesbooks on the technical aspects of the medium, books on the creative and aesthetic side of photography, and books filled with images (monographs). All three categories are well represented in my ever-growing library. Structured person that I am, all of my books are meticulously organized by category and subject matter so I can easily find whatever I am looking for.

All was well in my world of photography books until Glenns new book threw me for a loop. The Art, Science, and Craft of Great Landscape Photography is a wonderful collection of Glenns stunning landscape images, but it is also brimming with his advice on how to craft stronger images, along with clear explanations of key photo-related topics in geography, atmospheric optics, vision, and psychology. The scientific information is always coupled with tips on how to put that information to practical use in the pursuit of great images. The book also contains Glenns musings on the creative and aesthetic sensibilities we need as artistic beings to create compelling statements. So should Glenns book go in the monograph category or with the technical manuals? Perhaps it should go into the creative category instead?

I was stumped. Where should I put it? On what shelf and in which category did it belong? I realized that if I didnt put this beautiful book on the right shelf I might never find it again. A moment of panic ensued, and then I relaxed. The Art, Science, and Craft of Great Landscape Photography falls into all three of my categories, so it ended up on my coffee table where I can find it easily regardless of my photographic mood. Thanks, Glenn, for throwing my world of photography books completely off kilter.

I suggest you read this book because it is beautiful, informative, and inspirational. Let me know if you figure out what category to place it in.

Reid Callanan

Director, Santa Fe Photographic Workshops, January 2015

Indian paintbrush and Peak Two at sunset, Grenadier Range, Weminuche Wilderness, Colorado

Snowmass Mountain and Capitol Peak from Buckskin Pass, Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness, Colorado

I think of landscape photography as the pursuit of visual peak experiences. Im borrowing a term here from humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow, who studied human potentialthe heights to which humans can aspire, not the depths to which they can sink. According to Maslow, peak experiences can give a sense of the sacred, glimpsed in and through the particular instance of the momentary, the secular, the worldly. Whoa! That sounds awfully pretentious. But when I think back on the most beautiful scenes Ive ever witnessed, I understand what Maslow was talking about. Visual peak experiences are moments of extraordinary natural beauty, often ephemeral, that I seek to capture in such a way that a viewer of the photograph can share my sense of wonder and joy. Granted, my photographs rarely, if ever, achieve such lofty heights. Perhaps they never truly will. But for me it is the pursuit of visual peak experiences, and the arduous, ecstatic struggle to capture them on my cameras sensor, that makes landscape photography endlessly fascinating.