I’m sharing a wrap-up like this at the end of each month to help with accountability and discipline. The basic format: an inventory of how I spent the last month with regard to nature photography and our photo business, a casual discussion about the things that are on my mind, and a few non-photography recommendations at the end.
This could be a very short update since I focused on two things over the last month: 1) working on the fully revised and significantly expanded second edition of our Beyond the Grand Landscape ebook and 2) photographing, a lot (including the ice farming fun I discussed in my last post).
DEATH VALLEY, AGAIN: On the photography front, we made another visit to Death Valley National Park and experienced some exciting weather, including a cloud inversion that filled almost all of Death Valley (you can see a quick iPhone video here). As the sun emerged and the cloud layer dissipated, I created a few abstract photos and telephoto landscapes that I am pretty excited about. I am saving those photos for our Death Valley book project but am including a few other photos from the trip in this blog post.
We are frequently asked by both photographers and non-photographers why we keep going back to Death Valley. The answer is simple: the dynamic landscape. With every trip, we find something new and exciting. Also, the park is massive and cross-country travel is permitted. This means that a visitor can park on any roadside and head out into the landscape to see what they might find. for example, we spend quite a bit of time exploring the park’s sand dunes, salt flats, and mud playas. The weather has a big impact on each of these features, with every flood resetting some of our favorite spots. This makes them feel fresh with each visit.
Low clouds linger over the Panamint Mountains. Death Valley National Park.
The park features a basin and range topography, with alternating mountains and valleys. All of these mountain ranges feature extensive canyon systems. Many of these canyons can be explored on foot by parking on the side of a paved road and hiking across an alluvial fan to the canyon’s mouth (sometimes with a nice gravel walking surface and sometimes with massive rocks plus many channels to navigate). During our most recent trip to the park, we hiked to my 76th canyon (Ron’s 80th canyon), and again, it felt like a fresh experience. Although the hiking process is similar for most of these canyons, the experience is very different for each one—different rocks, new plants, and a sense of discovery.
This combination of dynamic landscape + opportunities for exploration + our love for the desert keeps pulling us back, especially since we always leave with even more ideas about places we want to visit compared to when we arrived. Of all the places we have visited, Death Valley offers the best combination of being able to become intimately familiar with the landscape while also having an almost endless range of options for exploration. The mild winter weather and always available campsites are a bonus, too. So we continue to return…
The Zabriskie Badlands, the Middle Basin salt flats, and the Panamint Mountains, with dappled light and lingering storm clouds.
BEYOND THE GRAND LANDSCAPE: After many months of work, I am almost finished with the Beyond the Grand Landscape project. I am completing one final edit and it will be for sale within two weeks or so. If you want to be sure you get it as soon as it is available, you can pre-order it now on our website. It feels so good to write those words—and it will feel even better to click the final button that uploads the document to our store.
We self-published the first version of the first edition almost ten years ago and it is exciting to see how many more photographers are working with nature’s smaller scenes now. As I have edited and revised each chapter, I have also enjoyed seeing how my thinking about nature photography and my practices have evolved. With the first edition, I struggled to articulate my thoughts about the more nebulous aspects of nature photography. With this version, the writing process has been a much more seamless experience of getting refined ideas from my brain into chapter form. That part of this project has felt affirming.
WORK HABITS: A few struggles have popped up along the way, all of which are on the mental side of getting a big project completed and into the world. The first one is my habit of inaccurately projecting how long an extensive project will take. I underestimate, set a deadline, and then work in unhealthy ways to reach the deadline. A simple way to address this would be taking my estimate and tripling it, but that seems foolish in the sense that I do not want projects to fill the tripled time just because I have set it aside. Every time I work on a big project, I see the same ineffective work habits pop up so I need to work on getting to the root causes and then test some different approaches to project scoping, making progress, and deadlines.
How did this pink rock possibly come into being? Its surface is razor sharp and it also looks a little like wood. Coming across these oddities is one reason we continue revisiting Death Valley National Park.
PERFECTIONISM, THE INTERNAL CRITIC, AND THE EXTERNAL CRITIC: The other challenge mostly bubbling below the surface relates to three interrelated issues: perfectionism, the internal critic, and fear of the external critic. Although I cannot find the references or podcast links at this moment, I remember hearing both Brooks Jensen of LensWork and music producer Rick Rubin discuss the importance of completing projects as an essential part of the creative process. I find the very end stage of completion to be the most challenging because it is the most vulnerable. Up until now, my opinion has been the only one that has mattered but soon, I will be putting myself forward for feedback and that feedback will inevitably include critique, and with distance, I, too, will likely think of things I could have done better or differently.
These perfectionist tendencies have been a continual thread through my experience as a photographer, and I see others dealing with the same issues so a short discussion on the topic seems worthwhile. On the surface, perfectionism appears to be striving to achieve consistently high standards. In my previous career, these tendencies generally played out in a positive way and helped me achieve quite a bit in a short time. With photography—a much more personal pursuit—the same habits and tendencies have had a much more negative impact on my progress. Instead of motivating me toward success, perfectionism has been an excuse to avoid taking risks and confronting failure.
As I have developed more confidence in my photography, I have been able to more consistently silence the internal critic that accompanies perfectionism. Now that I have an almost final version of this project, the self-doubt starts creeping in again. An example: I have been asking myself why exactly I think I need to share MY thoughts on photography with others. In this article on a totally unrelated topic, psychologist Rob Henderson discussed an idea called "the ‘1 percent rule’ about the internet: 1 percent of people create new content, 9 percent contribute to the content (e.g., through comments, likes, reactions, etc.), and 90 percent are lurkers and just view the content.” Why do I feel compelled to be part of that one percent when it comes to nature photography? I’ve been frequently thinking about this over the last week as I get closer to putting this ebook up for sale and I keep on returning to the same answer: If I had a resource like this when I was starting out, it would have been quite helpful. Having a reason beyond my own ego has helped me push through to a final version.
A small section of a massive expanse of mud tiles, likely left behind by the flooding caused by Hurricane Hilary in August 2023.
From projects like the one I am discussing here to sharing portfolios of work or even single photos on social media, I have found three things to be helpful in confronting these interrelated issues:
If I let these fears and concerns related to perfectionism keep me from sharing my work or finishing projects, I’ll never know what might be on the other side. To use a sports analogy, I’d rather be on the playing field than on the sidelines. The benefits related to being on the field typically far exceed the emotional safety of remaining on the sidelines.
External validation is only a bonus. If I feel good about what I have created, that is enough. This is harder with something that I am offering for sale like this ebook but the general principle is still helpful in pushing through the fear of failure that comes before putting a big project into the world.
Harsh external criticism is often more of a reflection of the insecurity of the person on the other end than it is of me. I take a moment to consider any feedback but actively work to not dwell on it, especially if the person providing the feedback seems most interested in cutting me down. If something in the feedback resonates or seems valid, I consider acting on it and let the rest go.
If you are coming from a place of stifling perfectionism, doing any of these things on a consistent basis is hard but the investment of time to reframe your thinking and habits is worth it. With each subsequent project, I feel like I am getting better at doing each of these things and it has made the experience of creating and sharing both my photography and writing feel more satisfying, and has helped me accept that some failure and criticism is an acceptable cost for getting to the bigger rewards on the other end of sharing.
We found a hillside covered in one of my favorite plants, the turtleback. With its fuzzy, blue-green leaves, it is always exciting to see in a desert landscape. At first, I was sad to see that all of these large turtleback plants were mostly dead. With some closer inspection, I realized that the dead plants offer a more subtle type of beauty, with pretty shapes and soft colors.
THIS MONTH’S RECOMMENDATIONS
Podcast 🎧 How to Discover Your Own Taste. Ezra Klein talks to author Kyle Chayka about a topic tangentially related to nature photography. I took away a few gems from the conversation, which is hard to describe. From the show description: “We talk about how today’s internet encourages everything to look more the same and is even dulling our ability to know what we like. And we discuss what we can do to strengthen our sense of personal taste in order to live a richer, more beautiful life.”
Article 📖 The Women Who Walked Away. This article from New York Magazine looks into the very sad but compelling story of a woman, her son, and her sister who decided to camp over the winter outside of Gunnison, Colorado (one of the coldest places in the state).
Book 📕 The Comfort of Crows by Margaret Renkl. I have just started reading this book and think it will be of interest to anyone who wants to develop a stronger connection with and appreciation for the natural world.
Recipe 🍲 Texas Chili. This is a strange recipe (cocoa powder, beer, and strong coffee in a chili recipe) but it is my go-to for cold weather. This recipe works without the meat. I just add some olive oil and more beans.
Photo-Related Recommendations 📸 Subscribe to our newsletter! I share a list just like this but entirely focused on nature photography in each issue of our newsletter.
Sarah Marino is a full-time photographer, nature enthusiast, and writer based in southwestern Colorado. In addition to photographing grand landscapes, Sarah is best known for her photographs of smaller subjects including intimate landscapes, abstract renditions of natural subjects, and creative portraits of plants and trees. Sarah is the author or co-author of a diverse range of educational resources for nature photographers on subjects including composition and visual design, photographing nature’s small scenes, black and white photography, Death Valley National Park, and Yellowstone National Park. Sarah, a co-founder of the Nature First Alliance for Responsible Nature Photography, also seeks to promote the responsible stewardship of natural and wild places through her photography and teaching.