Be Curious With Your Landscape Photography

Are you curious about your landscape photography? Or are you just looking for scenic views, composing a picture, and moving on? Being curious about your landscape photography can help you better understand the subject you are photographing and the world around it. Be curious.

I am sometimes curious about my own landscape photography. I’ll photograph a subject or scene and then think more about how or why it is there. But too often, I just visit a place, take my pictures, and move on, never really taking the time to be curious and take the opportunity to learn more about the rock formations, the mountains, the valleys, the trees, or even the history.

While listening to the F-Stop, Collaborate, and Listen podcast hosted by Matt Payne a few weeks ago, I listened to Episode #397 with Dave Showalter, where the topic of curiosity was touched on. 

In that podcast episode, the guest talked about being endlessly curious and how just a little extra thought and research can give you a much more comprehensive understanding of the scene and the environment. He described a scene where he was photographing some woodpeckers nesting in a Saguaro cactus and how just a few Google searches informed him of the entire ecosystem—from why that type of cactus only grows in that area of the United States to what benefits the woodpeckers have from the cactus and that they return and create new nests each year. It was fascinating to see how all of the elements line up to form this ecosystem.

As I thought about that podcast episode, I realized that I, as a landscape photographer, should seek to be endlessly curious.

Why Be Curious?

From a landscape photographer's perspective, why be curious? As landscape photographers, we spend a lot of time outdoors, often experiencing nature at a level many others never come close to. Unlike many visitors, even if we never leave an overlook, we spend more time there than most as we study the scene and compose our shots. We often revisit a spot, repeatedly trying to get the photograph we are after. Spending more time there and making frequent visits lets us experience an area differently, just from repetition.

Beyond the overlooks, many landscape photographers hike to specific locations or explore trails and scenes away from the beaten path. Again, this affords an opportunity to experience nature differently than the typical tourist in the park.

If we take that exploration just one step further, by being curious, we can very quickly learn more about the area we are photographing. Maybe it is more about how the environment formed geologically. Maybe it is about why certain plants and trees thrive here or don’t thrive here. Or maybe it is about the people's history of the area—who settled first, did people just pass through, or whether the land remains relatively untouched.

Answering these questions helps us become more in tune with the environment and have a better understanding. It might help us compose our photos differently to help tell the story of the environment. It also might enable us to better protect the environment we are photographing by educating others, either through our images or conversations.

A Little Curiosity Goes a Long Way

I have a first-hand example of how a little bit of curiosity can go a long way to learn more about a particular area or scene. Being endlessly curious does not mean spending lots and lots of time endlessly researching an area; just a few quick searches or light reading can provide a wealth of information.

One of my favorite local areas to photograph is the Cedar Falls area in Hocking Hills State Park. I make frequent trips to the area as the scene changes from season to season. Because of this, I have done some light research into that area to better understand the natural environment and the history of the location.

With just fifteen to twenty minutes of online research about that location, I quickly learned the following:

• Cedar Falls has the greatest volume of water in the park. Because of this, if it has been dry, I often visit it first to instantly get a feel for how the other waterfalls in the area are probably running.
• There used to be an old grist mill above the falls in the mid-1800s. While I could do more research on this aspect, it does tell me people have been visiting this waterfall for a long time.
• Though called Cedar Falls, the trees near it were actually misidentified and are actually Eastern Hemlocks.
• The rock and gorge walls were carved from Black Hand Sandstone.

None of the information above was very difficult to find. A few quick Google searches or even some reading from the park brochure would help surface this information. Each of the points above could lead to one more level of understanding. For example, even just a little bit more curiosity could reveal even more information.

For example:

• Are there other waterfalls in the area with close to the same volume of water? How much more volume do they have?
• How long was the grist mill active? Was there a town the ground grain went to? What was the active route?
• Reading and learning more about the Eastern Hemlocks prevalent in the area.
• Why is Black Hand Sandstone prevalent in this particular area?

With a bit of curiosity, I can quickly gain a better understanding of the area I am photographing, which will help build an even greater connection and understanding of the environment.

Start Being Curious

As you are photographing landscapes, I encourage you to start being more curious. Do more than just take a pretty picture; spend a little extra time to learn more about what you are photographing.

Doing so will help build your connection and understanding of the area. A deeper understanding of what you are photographing will inevitably help you make stronger compositions and more moving imagery than if you are just passing by, making images as you go.

With my own landscape photography, I intend to start being more curious about what I am photographing, from how it was formed to why certain things live there to how those things interact and the area's history.

Be curious. Be endlessly curious.