The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 5,000 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 8 years to get that many views.

Click here to see the complete report.

The sun was out in a clear, light blue sky, the snow was deep, and the temperature was moderate at -8C. When the snow gets deep I’ll usually wear snowshoes, however, on this excursion I wanted to isolate and create from the intimate parts of the landscape. The usual large open scenics were not what I was looking to photograph, so that meant I would be kneeling, sitting, and lying in the snow. This would be that rare winter occasion when snowshoes and a tripod would just get in the way.

I crossed the unplowed road in front to my home and stepped into the familiar woods.  I began by kneeling deep in the snow to photograph a branch poking out of the snow, hoping that some future viewer would enjoy the same surrealistic elements of clashing shadows, and white highlights on the frosty branch that I was photographing.

The landscape was covered with deep, powdery snow and I had to be careful not to get a cold surprise down my neck as I trundled along, camera in hand, searching out intimate possibilities the snow, shadow, and light.

As I surveyed the scene I thought about a book I had just started reading, “Sketching Light,” by photographer, and author, Joe McNally. In it he writes, “As it always has been, light remains the language of all photographers, everywhere.”  What I was searching for really depended on the light. Too harsh and directional, or too soft and flat, or too dark, and everything would be lost. McNally is right. I needed just the right amount of light for my visual discussion.

I chose low angles, and had to be careful of the background influencing my subject. My lens choice was a short focal length 24-70mm and because allowing the camera to select the exposure with an automated mode would have taken the control away, I choose the manual exposure mode. Manual exposure meant I could determine how the bright high lights and how dark the shadows were.

I wanted graphic depictions that depended on the tonal elements more that the actual subjects. I will comment that getting back up after lying in the deep snow is easier said than done. Remember that the camera doesn’t like to be covered with wet snow, so with only one hand for support in the soft and shifting mass the word support doesn’t really apply.

I do like walking through a quiet, snow-covered forest because all sound is muffled. I couldn’t hear the distant highway, other people or even neighbour’s dogs. My boots made the only noise, although every now and then I would mutter some off-colour word as I struggled to regain an upright position after another prone camera angle. I expect some silent listener would have wondered at the sound of grunting, and then an exclamation that usually was followed by laughing, coming from the snow covered forest.

Photographers, except those macro enthusiasts, aren’t really interested in what I’ll call the intimate aspects of a landscape. They position their tripods for wide scenics or choose larger subjects like river valleys, waterfalls, meadows, and mountainscapes. After all, those are the scenes from the natural world that capture our imagination.

The vast and unending spaces shown in photographs by the greats like Ansel Adams and Galen Rowell are inspiring and I’ll admit to the lure of a mountain ridge or waves crashing along some sweeping ocean beach. However, every now and then I find myself seeking out shapes created by shadows and light that are easily passed by in the quest to artistically document open spaces and convey our appreciation of some expansive environment.

Those that don’t mind kneeling, sitting, or laying on the ground (or in my case deep snow) might enjoy looking closely into the landscape to photograph sculptures created by how the shadows and light changes an otherwise unremarkable subject.

I do appreciate your comments, Thanks

My website is at www.enmanscamera.com

Since people first started walking around with their daguerreotype cameras back in the 1840’s photography has been an evolving medium. Photography is a technological medium that constantly changes, both in the way it allows photographers to capture a subject’s image, and how those photographers then can produce that subject’s image for viewing.

Unlike many of the other creative mediums, camera technology has certainly evolved since the first amateur photographers were taking pictures of life around them, and is now at a place where anyone interested enough to take time with the today’s high powered cameras can produce very good photographs.

I have been involved with photography both as a working photographer and as a photography teacher for many years. I taught college level photography for 19 years, and I will say that I believe photographers are getting much better at their craft faster than when I was teaching students in what was then a film environment.

Film was less forgiving and learners had to wait to find out if they were successful. Students of photography had to do their assignments and sometimes wait lengthy delays for access to the school photo laboratory. Those that were very serious set up cramped little photo labs in bathrooms in order to make prints the same day.  As I think back I am not surprised at how slow progress was from the basics to a reasonable understanding of the craft and art of photography.

Today it is easy to examine the composition and exposure just by looking at the camera’s LCD and checking the histogram. Educating oneself is just that easy. Select the subject, think about the light and shadow, compose, and release the shutter. Review the LCD and if it’s wrong then try again until the image looks good.  Also, there is always the period of postproduction for balancing the overall tonal range if the image is lacking, or has too much contrast. That instant reinforcement is proof that digital is much better for the learning process of photography than ever before.

All someone who is serious about this medium needs to do is to take the time to learn the basics of photography, and how their camera works. All so very easy compared to when I was teaching so many years ago in what a friend described once described as “the days of click and pray”.

The immediate review we now have with the LCD is excellent for the learning process and I think it is mainly that feature, rather than a modern camera’s programmed ability to make a pretty good exposure, that allows beginner photographers to achieve good photographs these days.  It also allows me to regularly come in contact with excellent photographers that have become proficient without years of experience.

Photography has become so accessible and, in my opinion, a perfect creative medium for those that are comfortable with an artistic technology that is continually transforming itself. I recall when those of us that wanted to look at inspiring photographs were limited to purchasing or borrowing expensive books published by a few professional photographers. Now it is so easy to find images equal to anything ever produced by just browsing the internet. There are photographer forums, online magazines, websites, blogs and even Facebook, where spectacular photography can be viewed and used as inspiration by photographers.

I have been practicing photography and following photographic trends for well over thirty years and have never been happier to be involved in photography than right now.  A week doesn’t go by without some photographer stopping by my shop to show me their photographs and most are excellent and worth taking the time to view.

I’ll finish this with a motivational quote by fashion and fine art photographer Richard Avedon who said, “If a day goes by without my doing something related to photography, it’s as though I’ve neglected something essential to my existence, as though I had forgotten to wake up.

I appreciate your comments.

My website is at www.enmanscamera.com