I don't just use clouds in many of my photographs; I actively pursue them for my images. If I hear a storm is a few days out, I'll travel to meet it. I'm not talking about hurricanes—I'll travel away from one of those; but give me an approaching garden-variety Florida storm, and I'll be there.
The story here is not that you should carry a wide-angle lens—or even better, several of them. I carry two or three wide-angle lenses routinely, and like me, I'm sure you realize their value and their importance. This lens how-to story is about ideas for how you can use them to maximize their creative potential and their stunning effect.
This will probably surprise you, but for someone writing about the advantages of heading out with one camera and one lens, I mostly don't do that. As a professional photographer who emphasizes travel images and loves to apply special techniques, I most often carry a rather full kit of lenses and a back-up DSLR, plus filters and a tripod.
How did I get to be the photographer I am today? It’s a question I get asked a lot by beginner photographers and, I think, there are some valuable lessons in my story. First though, I want to talk about how I view the work of other photographers.
Some photographers call it a personal project; others, a self-assignment. I haven’t spent a lot of time thinking about whether there’s a difference, and if there is, what it might be. Besides, I have my own mash-up of it: the personal assignment.
There’ll always be an opportunity to make a photograph. What makes that photo more than simply a record of a place, what will turn it into a creative image, is how you deal with the opportunity—and sometimes how far you stretch it.
Regular readers know that I emphasize in these columns the idea of visualizing opportunities that will set your images apart from the rest. There is another aspect to that idea, and that’s setting your images apart from each other. In other words, adding variety to your photography by adding, and even combining, techniques.
I ended the March 2017 column on my must-have lenses for travel photography and the tripods that support them with a promise that there’d be a part two on the gear that goes beyond cameras and lenses to enable me to get the pictures I envision.