Size: 7.5” x 7.5” on 8.5” x 11” JonCone Studio Type 5 Paper

Signed & stamped in verso

Wandering is a huge part of being a landscape photographer. Wandering on foot or by car, it doesn’t really matter because it’s in this process that your mind is free to discover and that discovery is what it’s all about. You open yourself to seeing subject, perspective and a point of view. Landscape photography is very fluid, you must both hold an idea of what you’re searching for and what you actually find, and hold both at the same time.

The storm clouds were building as they often do in the late summer afternoons in the Sierra Mountains. I had been wandering around searching for a decent foreground and came upon these five stones. Wanting to balance the exposure between the rocks and the distant mountain. I used a 2-stop split neutral density filter to reduce the sky brightness rather than adjust that later in the darkroom during development.

Balance at work again. I’ve come to the conclusion that humans seek balance. And when presented with an imbalance, whether in art, writing or socially, we seek to right it or we walk away and throw up our hands in exasperation. I’m not a practitioner of visual gimmicks, tricks to force an emotion. I want your emotive response to come from you, not be forced onto you.

Location: John Muir Wilderness, High Sierras

Technical Info: Hasselblad, Kodak T-Max 100 BW film, Zeiss 50mm, Deep Yellow #12, 3-stop ND, 2-stop Split ND, developed in Kodak X-tol 1:1.