Iconic Places - Iconic Shots
This past weekend Len sent Ann and me a short e-mail. It contained a link to a video by Andy Mumford, a British landscape photographer living in Lisbon (Portugal!!!!) and it was about photographing in iconic locations. (Thanks Len). Ann and I watched it that night - it contained insights, some we were very familiar with, others that led us to thinking differently about our upcoming trip. One of the subjects he discussed was going to iconic places with expectations and preconceived notions about particular images you’d like to make. That got me thinking about one iconic location where Ann and I went to and, in the end, wound up coming back with the iconic shot. Without us even knowing it!
To get to the image, we have to go back down memory lane - July 2013 to be precise. Ann had just gotten her X-T1, and I had started my 1-year exercise of photographing with just my X-100 with it’s fixed 23mm lens (35mm lens equivalent). It was before we’d really gotten serious, so we went to the Japanese Garden in the late morning, without tripods (Ann didn’t even have a tripod yet if I recall) and we intended for it to be an exploration trip. See, despite wanting to go there many a time, we never got around to it, so it was our first time there.
As we walked through the main wooden gate, we decided to go right, and then right again along the outside of the gardens. As we walked down the descending walkway, off to your left amongst all of the lovely bushes is one of the most stunning Japanese Maples you’ll ever see. Maybe 8 feet tall, max, it is simply a lovely tree. So I made a bee-line to it.
As is typical of Japanese Maples, the light, airy leaves offer a thin veil through with you can see the often amazing structures of the tree behind. And that’s what I wanted to capture. The soft veil of colors surrounding this stunning growth of twisted branches.
While I was making my series of shots, Ann had gone around and, with her wide angle lens, had begun photographing the underside of the tree from the downhill side of the walkway. Hand-holding her image took a bit of doing, but she managed to get a lovely composition and to have those amazing branches razor sharp.
When I asked if she had anything, she said she thought so, and after a few minutes she stepped back and showed me. Damn! I had no idea! So, what do I do? I go and make one myself.
Of course, with my fixed and much less wide lens, I couldn’t make the same image, so I moved around a bit until I had a composition I was satisfied with (though not with that bottom left corner). Ann’s is just so much more dramatic!
We photographed the rest of the morning and decided something that you’re now familiar with - we’d be returning to the gardens time and time again because it’s rich with images.
A couple of months later, Ann was in her office at her desk doing some thing or another with images. Next thing I hear is, “Dan, come here!” As I walk into her office I look at her monitor and say, “Hey, that’s your tree. How did they get your image?” “That’s not my image.” Ann then shows me a google image search of the Portland Japanese Garden and low and behold, dozens of the exact same image of the tree. Ok, each is ever so slightly different with subtle (sometimes dramatic) changes in color and different times of day. Each is beautiful in its own way (except those that really over-do the saturation), largely because the tree is beautiful. But it makes you realize that you’re not the only genius to have made such a lovely image from that location.
The only thing we have to say for ourselves is that we had no idea what it was we were photographing when we pressed the shutter.
It didn’t take long in our journeys back to the Japanese Garden to confirm what the internet had already enlightened us about. On one of our subsequent trips we had a guy come up to us (by now our tripods and photo vests made us the photo experts for anyone who has a photo question) and ask, “Hello, I’m from Seattle and drove down for the day to photograph these gardens. Do you know where the tree is?” No, he didn’t have to describe which tree, or say the tree everyone photographs, we knew what he meant. “It’s that tree over there.” About an hour later, he came up to us and thanked us. (nice guy). We’ve pointed it out to other people, and watched as people lined up, waiting patiently, to get “the shot.” Strange thing is, in large part because we’ve already done it, and in part because everyone else does it, we’ve never tried to go back and make a better image of it.
For us, photographically it was better when we didn’t know what it was. Still, the crowds take nothing away from the beauty of the tree, so we often stop just to admire it. And that’s enough. For now at least!
You see, sometimes you have to make whatever image is “your” image from an iconic place. Part of it is that there is a reason those images (all zillion of them) exist - the place, like “the tree”, is just so beautiful, or stunning, or sublime, or awe inspiring. You can’t not make an image of it. And sometimes you have to make the image to get it out of you, so you can move on to more personal images from an iconic site or subject. And sometimes, you just have to make it your own. So it’s not like we don’t go to iconic places; face it, several are on our upcoming trip, but we will make them our own. One of my favorite side-comments about iconic places is about Ansel Adam’s beloved Tunnel View at Yosemite. “Nobody’s at Tunnel View at midnight!”
I’ll leave you with one final image from that day. It’s one of my (and Ann’s) favorites. I’ve never see the light like it was that late morning/early afternoon (in part because we now get there so early and leave as soon as the crowds arrive, so the sun is much lower). And I’ve never see an image that resembles this in a google search for Portland Japanese Garden.
Ann and I will be taking off in just over a week for our Fall Grand Adventure - 2019. I promise I’ll do a post about it before we go. July has been a crazy work month for me - three appellate court briefs in one month. I think I’ve used up my self-prescribed allotment of working on weekends for the year. Anyway, I’ve got the maps set up and the images selected for the post. Now I just have to write it - in-between getting ready for the trip!