On the Discipline of Foreground

Every landscape photograph begins as a portrait of something six feet in front of you — a rock, a clump of paintbrush, a piece of driftwood, a fence post. The mountains, however famous, are background. They have always been background. Treat them that way.

Beginners make the opposite mistake. They drive to a viewpoint and photograph what is on the sign. The result is a record of the sign rather than a photograph of the place. The shutter is pressed before the photographer has decided what is closest.

On a long bench above the Conundrum Valley one September I spent ninety minutes choosing a single piece of granite. The Maroon Bells were doing what the Maroon Bells do behind me. I made one photograph in which the rock is the entire foreground and the Bells are the size of a thumbnail in the upper third. That photograph is in the second book. The other photographs I made that day are in a drawer.