Joe Blog: Best of 2013 Part Deux: Outside

This is part deux of a three part Best of 2013. Why part deux? Because I'm French Canadian and part II always has to be part deux. I've chosen a three part series because I really have a hard time specializing. It's a bad business strategy, but different types of cool images call to me everyday and lots of fun in being a generalist. Interestingly, I seem to have groups of folks who admire my work according to these categories too, so it made sense to post the year's retrospective in three parts. Part I featured my favorite race images of 2013 and can be found here...
http://joeviger.blogspot.com/2013/12/best-of-2013-part-deux-outside.html
Part III are the people photographs...
http://joeviger.blogspot.com/2014/01/best-of-2013-part-iii-people.html

The gallery on my website says "Outside"... not "Landscape" as is the convention for many other photographers. Originally I did that to try to say something in a unique way, but as I think about it, it really is a better name for the gallery. Landscape somehow feels passive. Being outside for me is about experience. This is what first got me trying to make serious photographs. Being outside hiking, canoeing or back country skiing and trying to capture the feeling of the moment... the unique places, amazing scenes, remarkable weather and stunning light.

Looking through favorite images of the year is always interesting for me and a chance to be thoughtful about how I'm making photographs and why. I think the idea of portraying a feeling has driven some my post processing approaches. I'm not much of a pixel mover. I'm not very good at it actually, so typically what was in the frame stays in the frame. But I have continued to evolve the use of saturation, contrast, dodging and burning to get to the feeling I had when I clicked the shutter. I'm happy that, although not intentional, I'm seeing some stylistic consistency in the images because that feels like a pure process to me... a combination of what happens in the camera and in post. A point of view that is rendered in the final image.

Of the images here, three were made with a 70-200mm lens. Most were made with the wide end of a 17-55mm lens. I used an 11-16mm for 8 of the images. Obviously, my love of wide angle and layered composition continues to be a significant element in most photographs I make. A couple of other compositional elements came to the front in this years images. First, clouds and more clouds. I've really come to not like blue sky days. When there are clouds in the sky, I'm excited to pick up my camera. Second is lens flare. Shooting into the sun isn't always the best idea, but I love how lens flare can make such a strong impact on a landscape image. Again, it's how these elements evoke feeling in the photograph that makes them compelling to me.

If you're a fan of my outside photographs, thank you so much for your support! I appreciate all of you who offer your support, share images on Facebook and purchase prints.

Ok... enough chat... on to the photographs!

Madras, Oregon

Pinkham Notch, NH Moutonborough, NH

Intervale, NH

Crystal Lake in Eaton, NH. It was an amazing fall at this location. I made images there several mornings over a two week time period and each morning was remarkable.