One of my all time favorite lenses for shooting landscapes is the 70-200 VRII. I know that might seem odd but the truth is that range gives enough flexibility to go wide and capture a lot or to go tight and capture those little snippets of the overall picture. I often find that those little snippets can be just as if not more powerful then everything being seen at that moment.
While I was out driving last week I came across this one section of Gallatin Gateway that I like to often drive through. Wasn’t going for anything, completely open minded, just watching the light. In this case the light, as often is, was more interesting than the landscape. So why even include that landscape? Well you still need a spot to rest your eye on. I saw this image and new that in post adding a gradient to the bottom and really bringing down that exposure would make that foreground go away leaving one place for your eye to go to, that little bit of light hitting that one hillside. Really simple basic trick that also gives the allusion that the valley is really long and the other side is far away. It’s these little details that make people stop and look at your photographs and in the end that’s the goal.