I hear often that in order to capture beautiful photographs of landscapes that you have to go to beautiful places. I never really agreed with this because every place on this planet has something beautiful to yield, it just takes some careful observations. Cityscapes or landscapes images of cities, are still quite beautiful to me and as I have noticed a lot more challenging then landscapes. When you’re out in the open shooting a great sunset over the mountains, it’s pretty easy to capture a memorable image. But try and do that same thing with a city? It’s really not so easy to do. Thus the challenge is born.
This past year I was working on a project in Flint, MI and I was having a heck of time coming up with images of downtown historic Flint. While some subjects really stood out, like the historic Capitol Theatre, others were quite hidden. A friend of mine was there telling me all about the history of this and that building but I couldn’t see a shot of any of them. It was a challenge. In the end, shooting with the D4, 24-70 AF-S, and 70-200 VRII, I got a handful of images I really liked and some not so much. The challenge was really centered around composition as there are so many distractions in a city compared to the great outdoors. Finding those areas where the mind calms down and is able to make sense of the surroundings is really where the best images are. It takes time and practice to see these areas but in toady’s world capturing the world around us doesn’t mean traveling to somewhere else.