Mindset: A Comparison of Expectation-Driven and Experience-Driven Photography

April 14, 2021 Sarah Marino

Over the weekend, I participated in the Out of Chicago (OOC) LIVE online conference as one of the instructors. This is the third online conference OOC has offered during the pandemic and they all have been such inspirational weekends. (Although the live conference is over, you can still purchase the recordings through April 16 and then access the sessions for the next year.) The organizers always pull together a great mix of inspiration, motivational storytelling, and practical education. I am usually on the side of practical education since that is what comes most naturally to me but last weekend, I had the chance to speak in one of the full conference keynote spots and give an “inspirational” talk. It felt like a big stretch and I was super-nervous leading up to my session but once it was over, I felt like I could do more on the “inspiring” side with some practice.

I chose “shifting your mindset” as the topic of my talk, with a focus on thinking about how you show up and the positive and negative ramifications of the ideas you bring along with you. The role of expectations in nature photography is one of the three areas I talked about, with the encouragement to set aside expectations and show up with an open mind. Generally, I think of expectations as blinders that you put on before you ever get out of the car, often leading to being laser-focused on a preconceived idea that may or may not materialize. By putting the expectations mindset aside, you can instead show up with an openness to serendipity and the opportunities that are in front of you at the moment instead of the conditions or compositions you hoped for that may never materialize.

Composition & Photographing Nature’s Small Scenes: 5 Essential Ideas

June 17, 2020 Sarah Marino

With composition, we are able to take the elements of nature that we connect with the most and arrange them in a manner that communicates our visual preferences and the stories we want to tell about our subjects. In this way, composition serves as an intensely personal window into how we see the natural world and choose to present it through our photography. In writing my most recent ebook, 11 Composition Lessons for Photographing Nature’s Small Scenes, I spent a lot of time thinking about the themes in my composition habits and find that these five ideas are most essential:

#1: Abstraction: See Beyond the Literal Qualities of Your Subject
#2: Simplification: Compose Around a Core Concept
#3: Exclusion: Elevate Your Subject by Eliminating Context
#4: Structure: Seek Out Scaffolding for Your Composition
#5: Details: Pay Attention to the Small Stuff

These ideas are the versatile, practical composition concepts that I return to again and again. Instead of relying on rigid rules (like the rule of thirds) that do not necessarily align with every photographer’s goals for personal expression or every scene we will come across, these ideas are instead tools for the toolbox that we can apply in a wide variety of scenarios to a broad range of subjects.

Mirrorless Camera Technology and Expanding Opportunities for Creative Expression

February 14, 2020 Sarah Marino

Canon just announced its newest mirrorless camera, the R5, causing the usual online buzz among photographers. One band of naysayers has me perplexed - nature photographers who use digital equipment but say things like “Never mirrorless!” in response to such announcements. Even though mirrorless cameras have been out for years and are used by many photographers, these negative attitudes persist. Given my own recent experience with a mirrorless camera, my response is “Why not mirrorless?” As I share below, some features specific to mirrorless cameras help remove barriers to creative expression and have enabled me to create photographs that I previously would have passed up due to technological limitations of my equipment.

I certainly do not think that the newest and best technology is necessary to create meaningful, inspiring, and technically sound photographs. And, for people with limited financial resources, spending money on experiences and time in the field is almost always going to be a better investment than buying a new camera. A camera is a tool and a skilled photographer will be able to create with a range of equipment. However, if new technology helps expand opportunities for creative expression, why not have an open mind?

A Slice of Focus: Lessons for Photographing Plants Using Shallow Depth of Field

June 14, 2019 Sarah Marino

Below, you will find a snippet of this recent article published on the Nature Photographers Network - click here to read the full post >>>

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Photographing small subjects opens up a world of opportunity for nature photographers. By seeking out nature’s details, a photographer can explore a world of plants, patterns, textures, and abstract subjects that are often overlooked or seen in a less interesting way by the human eye. In this article, we will discuss one way of photographing small scenes: using shallow depth of field to render only a small part of your subject in focus. This article focuses on plants and leaves but you can use these lessons on any small subject you encounter in nature.

Use Shallow Depth of Field to Simplify and Create Abstractions

For many landscape photographers, embracing shallow depth of field and the out of focus elements that come with it can be a major shift in mentality. When photographing small subjects like plants or flowers, shallow depth of field can often transform a subject from the literal to the abstract. Generally, using greater depth of field renders a subject more literally with all of its details more obvious to the viewer. Shallow depth of field, on the other hand, often lends a more simple, dreamy, and abstract quality to a photo. Instead of photographing petals or stems or leaves, you are photographing lines and shapes. Additionally, the abstract renditions that can emerge make shallow depth of field an excellent simplifying technique when photographing a chaotic subject.

Read the rest of this article on the Nature Photographers Network >>>

2018 Wrap-Up & A Few Favorite Photographs (Sarah)

December 21, 2018 Sarah Marino

Below, you will find some photographs that I like from 2018 (I wouldn’t call them favorites yet as many of the photos that I think might end up as favorites from this year still remain unprocessed). This year, our time spent in natural and wild places started in Death Valley National Park and also included an extended visit to some lesser-known locations in Utah, a few weeks around Moab, a lot of summer hiking in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains, a visit to the Pacific Northwest (Vancouver Island, Mount Rainier National Park, and Craters of the Moon National Monument on the way home), fall colors in Colorado and Zion National Park, and another trip back to Death Valley. With these travels, I am getting closer to having robust photo portfolios of Death Valley, Zion, and Colorado fall colors, each of which I hope to fully share in 2019.

Beyond a lot of wonderful time spent outside, this year felt quietly consequential for my photography. For almost ten years, nature photography has taken up an immense amount of time and space in my mind. When I first picked up a camera, I squeezed photography into tiny slices of time around an intense job and full-time graduate school. Now, years later, my life revolves around nature and photography – the people with whom we spend the most time, the place we choose to live, the places we choose to visit, and how we spend our time outdoors. During all these years with this pursuit at the core of my life, photography has brought some happiness plus a lot of angst, frustration, and even a bit of despair.

This last year felt like a turning point in which my happiness and satisfaction with photography has for the first time outweighed those other negative emotions. I actually like and feel proud of some of my work. I feel like I am finally on a path that reflects my adoration for and personal interests in the natural world. For the first time, I feel comfortable with who I am becoming as a photographer and feel like I am able to consistently realize my goals through the photos I take. I am also having a lot more fun and caring a lot less about what other people think about my work (see: the selection of photos below, none of which will make much of a ripple on social media). I still find it challenging to process and share my photos, choosing instead to spend my photo time outside taking new photos. Beyond those persistent challenges, it feels good to finally feel like I am making some positive progress on one of the most important things in my life after years of fits and starts.

Black & White Nature Photography Portfolio #2: Intimate Landscapes & Abstracts

March 8, 2017 Sarah Marino

This is my second black and white photo portfolio that I will be sharing here on our blog (the other three posts in this series can be found here: grand landscapes, plants, and tips for creating better black and white photographs). This post features some of nature's smaller scenes - narrower slices of grand landscapes, intimate landscapes, and abstract renditions of natural subjects. You can view all of these photos plus others, at a much larger size, in my Black + White: Small Scenes & Abstracts gallery.

7 Tips for Photographing Smaller Scenes

July 9, 2015 Sarah Marino

If you would like to learn more about this topic, you might find our Beyond the Grand Landscape: A Guide to Photographing Nature’s Smaller Scenes to be a worthwhile investment. You can save 20% on your purchase of this ebook through July 15 with the code NPG20.

A fellow photographer recently contacted me for some tips on how to be more successful in identifying and photographing small scenes in the field. This photographer is very talented at taking photographs of grand landscapes but shared that they could use some help with identifying and photographing smaller scenes. This experience is common since taking photographs of smaller scenes does require the development of some different skills and a shift in mindset when compared to pursuing grand landscapes. And, since we receive similar comments and inquiries fairly often, this seems like a good topic for a blog post.

For the purposes of this post, smaller scenes include intimate landscapes, abstract subjects, patterns, textures, and artistic portraits of plants. Such photographs often, but not always, encompass a narrow field of view, usually lacking the sweeping nature of a grand scenic and focusing instead on the arrangement of the smaller details of a landscape. Such photographs also often rely less on the literal qualities of the subject (like tree bark or a plant) and instead focus on more abstract qualities like lines, curves, patterns, and textures. Photos that fall in these categories are generally crafted to convey a particular mood, emotion, or observation with a degree of intimacy, understanding, or closeness.

Photography & Expectations

October 21, 2014 Sarah Marino

A few days ago, a photographer on Facebook sadly lamented that they made a trip all the way down to the San Juan Mountains of Colorado only to be sorely disappointed because of the state of the aspen trees. This year was a mixed bag, with some patches changing quite early, some getting blackened by frost, and others slowly fading to a dull green. I would agree with this photographer’s sentiment (and should note that I have sounded a lot like this in the past) – 2014 was not a great year for fall colors in the San Juans if you arrived with specific expectations for hillsides of golden aspens, mountaintops full of fresh snow, and interesting weather for photography. Still, fellow Dreamscaper Ron Coscorrosa and I both came away with quite a few photos we like from the same place at the same time. The difference between us and the photographer I mentioned above? We arrived with few expectations for what we hoped to photograph and instead welcomed the opportunities that came along.

Beyond the Grand Landscape

May 12, 2014 Sarah Marino

Autumn in Vermont, Photo by Sarah Marino

One of the most prevalent pieces of advice offered to landscape photographers is also one of the most limiting: “Shoot during the golden hour.” And, if you observe a mass of photographers at some popular locations, the advice actually seems to be put in practice as “Shoot during the golden fifteen minutes and only if there are colorful clouds filling the sky.” For photographers living by this golden hour mantra, you may be missing a lot of what nature has to offer.

While I thoroughly enjoy photographing grand landscapes under beautiful light, I have come to enjoy photographing small scenes – abstracts, intimate landscapes, and macro photographs – even more. Years ago, one of the main reasons that I took up landscape photography was because it offered one of the only times I could quiet my mind. At the time, I was in graduate school and working a stressful, full-time job. I was almost always working through a long to-do list or thinking about working through a long to-do list. During the brief periods of time I could get out for photography, the act of focusing enough to create a photograph was an escape from that stressful and busy life I had created for myself. Photographing smaller scenes in nature – like finding a beautiful patch of corn lilies or exploring a set of sand dunes to photograph the light and shadows at the end of the day – was so rejuvenating.