Articles from Nathan McCreery

The photograph at the lead of this article was made one cold winter morning when I went out to pick up my mail. There had been a snowstorm the day before, and it had partially melted and refrozen in the night. I used an iPhone and processed the image in Lightroom and then in Photoshop.

Photographing the landscape can be hard work—at times, very hard work. It entails rising well before daylight, in most cases, and working in sometimes very harsh conditions. Most of the time, you will be out in the woods until well past dark, waiting for just the right moment, which may not come—even after your most valiant efforts. It makes sense, then, to do everything you can to stack the odds in your favor. Here are some thoughts on that.

One of the most important things we can do when we are engineering our photographs is to control, or to direct, where we want the viewer’s eyes to go—what it is that we want them to see. To do that, we must use the architecture of the image to bring visual interest up in the areas that are most important and find ways to diminish what we either want to hide or at least subdue in interest.

I entered the field and profession of photography in 1978, having worked as a photographer’s assistant for two years. While working as a photographic assistant in a very busy portrait commercial studio, there was an opportunity to learn some of the ins and outs of running and managing a professional studio—things like scheduling sessions, making sure work was delivered in a timely manner, ensuring payment was received on time, managing staff, marketing, etc. There was so much more I needed to know about running a photographic business than simply creating usable, saleable, even stunningly beautiful images.

The question becomes: how does a photographer think? I don’t know how everyone else thinks, but I can tell you my process.

Charles Cramer is one of the photographers whose work I greatly admire. Cramer is one of the very premier landscape photographers in the world, having printed his photographic work first using the dye transfer process, then Cibachrome/Ilfochrome (which I have also printed), and now using digital means. I thought it might be interesting for people to see what was necessary to make color prints as recently as 50 years ago.

Always photograph with the end in mind. Make life easier for the guy in the darkroom, or the person in Lightroom—usually you.

I have wondered what it is that makes one photograph effective and another just a big yawn. Why is it that one photographer can make a photograph of an object and everyone's jaw drops to the floor, and another can make almost exactly the same photograph and no one is impressed—except the photographer’s mother, knowing being impressed is part of a mother's job description? 

Give your eyes a destination and a route to get there. Our job as artists is to find a place we want to direct the viewer’s eye to, find a way to direct them there, and then to show them what it is we want them to see. Everything else is just visual clutter.

Several years ago, I got a call one morning from the head ranger at Bighorn National Forest in Wyoming. He was inquiring if I would be interested in participating in Bighorn National Forest’s initial Artist in Residence program. That was during the COVID shutdown, and my state was really locked down—we couldn't even go camping in a state park! So, yes, absolutely yes.

So, paying attention to light direction is vital. And by the way, I have used studio photographs in several instances here because they more adequately illustrate the concept I am discussing. The point of that, of course, is that concepts and principles cross genres of photographic work. They are basic principles.

Every photo you’ve ever taken is just a record of one thing: light. It’s the invisible brush that paints every image, and if you don’t understand it, you’re not really photographing.

Photography is often misunderstood as merely a way to document reality, but in truth, it is an art form as complex and expressive as painting or sculpture. For me, photography is not just a technical process—it is a creative pursuit that requires both artistic vision and craftsmanship.

Capturing reality was never photography's sole purpose—it always flirted with imagination. But in an age dominated by digital tools and AI, how far can we push photographic art before it stops being photography?

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but sometimes, a few of those words need to be cut. Cropping isn’t just about trimming an image—it’s about sharpening the story you want to tell.

As you may guess, I am not a fan of rules, and the question I often ask is, "Who made the rules, and why do they think they can tell me what to think?" In fact, I may get a T-shirt made that says in large letters, "Screw the rules and screw the horse they came on!" So there, I've said it. And if that sets your teeth on edge... just read on!

What if you could control perspective distortion and focus with pinpoint accuracy at any aperture? Dive into the world of tilt/shift lenses and learn how pros use the Scheimpflug Principle to create stunning images.

There’s nothing quite like the solitude of my darkroom at dawn, the hum of my enlarger in the background, and the image slowly appearing on paper in my hands. For me, photography is more than capturing a moment—it’s a meditative journey into light, shadow, and form.

A few years ago, a friend of mine, a symphony maestro, was walking with me through my studio/gallery and remarked that I should compose a book, the title of which would be “The Known, the Unknown, and the Transcendent.” Tom was a true intellectual, a visionary who never allowed a conversation to descend into petty differences and discussions about equipment, etc. It was always about the art, beauty, and ideas.

Fact: Depth of field will remain constant across all formats and focal lengths as long as the aperture and the image size remain the same. There are several factors that determine how sharp, or not sharp, an image may be. One of those is depth of field, and another is the movement of the subject matter that occurs while the shutter is open. Here, I will discuss depth of field.

My photographs are hardly ever representative of objective reality, but they are representative of my vision, my artistic interpretation of the scene. In this article, I will talk about why I made a particular photograph, what was done in the camera, and then what I did in the darkroom to realize the finished image—or at least the image as it is right now. Realizing that I hardly ever reach a final conclusion on a photograph, especially when I am working on it in a wet, traditional darkroom, everything remains a “work in progress.”

When I began photographing the landscape, the only option was using film, either black and white or color. When using black and white film, most of us used the Zone System or a derivation of it. Even those who cursed it as being too constrictive—it is not—or some kind of voodoo (again, it is not) were using this type of system in some way.

Photographing the landscape can be hard work, at times very hard work. It entails rising well before daylight in most cases and working in sometimes very harsh conditions. Most of the time, you will be out in the woods until well past dark, waiting for just the right moment, which may not come—even after your most valiant efforts. It makes sense, then, to do everything you can to stack the odds in your favor. Here are some thoughts on that.

I have had the opportunity of working as an Artist in Residence for the National Park Service four times. The last residency was for Buffalo National River in Arkansas. In the spring of 2020, I got a call from one of the managers for the National Forest Service in Wyoming, wanting to know if I would be interested in coming to Wyoming to do a residency there in Bighorn National Forest, which I was glad to do. So, in early September 2020, I loaded up my gear into my Bronco and headed to Wyoming!

A question arises: Exactly why is it that you still use very large cameras and film when photographing the American landscape? Which is what I do.