There are times when you intuitively hone into an idea, and only later put your understanding into words. For years I worked on a series, “Gentle Edges”. It was a celebration of the beautiful line where sky and water met. Living in the high mountain deserts of New Mexico, it was a slow growing project, left to the whim and luck of short trips to the ocean. As I continued to verbalize the idea of the sweet edge, I thoughtfully settled on a perspective that showed just three things:  Sky, water, and the edge. Showing more became distracting, and it was in the process of deciding what images would enter the body of work that I learned to be a tough editor. An image that showed a lot of land pulled me away from the idea. An image that showed a grand amount of space meant that the focus on the edge disappeared. There were many images that tried to sneak into the collection. Images that were quite nice, but in truth were not about the gentle edge. I took these lessons with me, and they have always kept me vigilant in keeping a body of work consistent.

This image, “Misty Dawn”, more recently allowed me to explain another idea I had been instinctively practicing. Sometimes we need to let go of the giant reality in front of us and connect to the essence we want to convey. Here is what I saw at sunrise as I walked down to the shore of the lake: Water was gently lapping against the stones in front of my feet. There were patches of reeds that rolled the waves into a series of light hills and shadowy troughs. The immensity of the lake was mostly dark, especially to my left where hills of white pines and dense forest cast a shadow into the dark silver water. Fog had settled into some, but not all of the lake. And right above the densest part of fog, a yellow glow from the out-of-sight, but rising sun was pushing into the misty veil. In this dawn moment there was a lot going on. It was beautiful. I was happy. It was a moment to savor. And as a photographer, I was there to capture it. But capture what? My instinct, and what has now become a thoughtful process, was to show the intimate essence of the golden light coming through the fog swimming across the lake. Showing more, as pretty as it was, was fraught with technical dilemmas of extremes in light, but more importantly, would have pulled the viewer into other ideas, other distractions, away from that particular jewel of a moment that sang to me.

We can be too close, and we can be not close enough. One way I work through this is to think about the essence, the intimate essence, I want to convey, and then reach for the tool, the lens, to show exactly that. In the glory of these moments I need to step back and think about the idea I want to frame.

It is possible that the most important roll of film I ever shot was of my son in an alley, at midnight, in Avignon, France. Important because it was about family, images from that roll ended up holding weight in the ultimate viewing space of any artist, the refrigerator, but it was also an important roll, because I made so many images I liked. Truth be told, I liked most of the thirty-six images even though I know there is at least a pinch of Dad bias thrown in.

Here was the scene. Our family had recently arrived in France. Two adults were fried, and the fifteen month old was very well rested, and on his very own time zone. It was midnight, and he was going full speed. I took him outside the hotel to the alley running along its side, and let him go. Up and down, back and forth, wherever he was pulled. He was in the penguin walk stage, waddling and often flapping his arms as he explored. At times he seemed more like a drunk little man. I had my camera over my shoulder, and in it was high speed black and white film. I had learned to come back with an image I wanted in low light by not stubbornly clinging to only one kind of film. 3200 film was beautiful with its grain in these old, dark cities, and I knew I could choose a shutter speed I could hold.

When I look back on that roll I wonder why it worked. Was it because I was excited to be in a new place? Was it because I was a fan of Henri Cartier-Bresson, was in his country, and had often noticed how he would find a background first, and then let the subject fill it? Was it because it was my kid and I was very committed to the moment? Probably yes to all.

For the duration of our walk, which I made last for over an hour to help push him into the zone of sleep, I studied how the light fell on him, how he moved in and out of shadows, how the background of the alley helped set the stage, and how it sometimes helped pull the eye into the image. All these ideas had huge applicability to my work in the natural world, and make me often think how important it is to work outside my genre and my comfort range, just to improve the way I respond to what I know most.

In earlier days I worked with an earth education organization that was trying to do vital and different work in helping kids and adults build life long relationships with, and understandings about, the planet. It was good stuff, and as you might imagine, it was pushed away by mainstream education. At the end of those years a friend in the group went off to make a difference in the way Alaskan adventure companies ran their businesses; he started down a path of green tourism before it was a word. I was beginning my journey in photography, and the two of us fell out of touch. I can’t remember what brought us back together, but in the mid-90’s he asked if I might come up to Alaska and photograph one of their camps in Denali. Get myself there, no pay, a tent out back, and food. It was an easy choice. I had a blast with his like-minded staff, but many days of rain were frustrating given my “assignment” of showing the lodge and cabins in sunny, blue sky light.

While I still felt new to the photographic journey, it was all I did. I was a new instructor at The Santa Fe Workshops, had just moved to Santa Fe, and photographically was still in the tradition of everything being sharp from front to back. By chance, right before I left for Alaska, I heard Keith Carter give a presentation at The Workshops. His work at the time was deeply rooted in the east Texas communities close to his home. Technically he placed shallow focus on his subjects, giving the rest of the image a dreamy, magical quality. He mentioned that he used one camera and one lens.

In Alaska, on a particularly wet, cold day, hunkered down in the tent, my spirits sank a bit, wondering if I would even make a good image for my friend, let alone for myself. That afternoon there was a slight break in the weather, the clouds started to part a bit, and uncharacteristically I grabbed my medium format camera, one lens, and nothing else. No tripod, no camera bag, but I am sure, I brought along the words of Keith Carter. And off I wandered in the woods around the camp. That is when I found the mushroom. It was huge. It’s presence called out to me and I sat down in front of it, placed the camera on the ground, pushed the lens into vegetation, opened the aperture, and made an important photograph, different than my sharp front to back photos. I have often said that I had a choice of making an image that might go into a guidebook on mushrooms, or making a photograph of a mushroom that seemed like a leprechaun might come and rest under it. That day, wet, cold, and empty of images, I pulled out a story from a photographer in a very different genre, and made something new. Something important.

In recent years my mind works differently when making a photograph.  Sure, I still react to the beauty in front of me, but more than before I react to what is in me, brought forward and alive by what is in front of me.  A couple months ago I was along the Big Sur coast of California.  My buddy, Richard Newman, and I are making a dvd.  That’s another story I want to talk about, but at this particular moment we were watching fog come into and envelope the coast.  It turned a day of details and clarity into a day of simple lines, gentle edges.  I thought about how fog is one of several weather elements that can tug at our emotions.  Depending on where you are (in life, right now!), it can surround you with different feelings, perhaps loneliness or solitude.  At that moment I felt peaceful and still.  The surreal bliss of being alone and feeling alive.

It is as if I now let go of the quick reaction – snap the pretty picture – and connect intuitively to what is going on inside.

I realized I had been staring at the koi in the pond for a long time. They were swimming back and forth very slowly, almost hypnotically.  Around and around in a little outdoor Hawaiian pool.  And as I watched them, lulled by their gently swishes of movement, they transformed into orange paintbrushes.

A visit of a just a minute would not have revealed this.  I needed to hang out and see the rhythm.  I needed to lose the koi and find paintbrushes.

Some days I find myself looking for natural filters in order to make photographs into the sun. Laying on my stomach I peered out and focused on distant petals while the nearby petals were so close to the lens they became ethereal washes of pink, orange, and yellow.  Shifting my position left-right and up-down allowed me the ability to bring in certain colors, let go of others, and lead the eye where I wanted it to go.

I have learned to let go of any expectations when I set out to see and possibly make a photograph.  A few years ago I arrived on Nantucket Island with ideas of images filled with sea grasses, waves, and sunset light.  Soon after the weather quickly turned into a wild, windy, and wet storm.  The island was hunkered down and I was bummed.  I could not make the photographs in my head.  I remember the moment when I shook off my disappointment and decided to go for the essence of storm.  From that point on I learned to let go of my pre-conceived images and enter a place wide-eyed and curious about what it had to offer.

One of my challenges is to convey the essence of a place, a season, a time of day, or a moment. Over the years I have swung between showing the big picture and coming in close to show the details, and for the moment enjoy what I think of as an intimate, intermediate landscape. In this case, an image that gives you a feeling for both the place – an autumn birch and maple forest – and the details – the leaf covered rock in the middle of a stream.