Alaska Backcountry Mountains and Grass Valley 0583

A QUESTION OF SCALE AND BALANCE

     I stood in a land that felt empty yet was a world filled with beauty. While void of people or even any sign of their presence, nature filled the land with an abundance of things it had created that I could behold and experience. As a photographer, I felt my challenge was to create an image that spoke of a sense-of-place. It gave me plenty of elements to use in telling that visual story. Before me was an expanse grass-filled valley dotted with trees, a stream of snowmelt waters, a range of mountains with dynamic jagged peaks, and a bank of clouds colliding with and being pushed over those same peaks.

     The open valley, mountains, and clouds had to be positioned and sized to exhibit the immense scale of the land while balancing the visual weight of all three element groups. Stand too far back or use too wide of a focal length would result in a huge valley with the background mountains and clouds being disproportionally diminished. Getting closer to the mountains or using longer focal lengths would reduce the angle of view, the scale of the valley, and length of the stream (causing a loss of depth feeling). I wandered around for some time (while keeping an eye on the grizzly far upstream and upwind) until I settled on a location that provided the best balance of scale between the valley and the mountains/clouds. With all that accomplished, I could finally get the camera out of the bag and go to work.