Eye to Eye

Congratulations! This is the Image of the Week selection for the Travel and Culture Gallery, week ending 21st September, 2012!
>Click here for large version<

Icons. Most people love them, many landscape photographers hate them, and both groups for the same reason: because they're icons.

Arches NP in Utah is full of icons, and many of them have been photographed to death by millions of people who were all equally excited when they were standing right next to one of them. Especially the ones close to the parking of course.

I like photographing these iconic places, because they're usually worth seeing with your own eyes, and because they provide a challenge to any serious photographer: how on earth am I going to create something different here?. I've been to many places that few people have ever visited before, and to shoot something original in those places is very easy - just point your camera in any direction, and you're done. Well, maybe not like that, but you know what I mean. When you're standing in a spot from where many thousands, or even millions of photographs have been taken before you, it makes you think a little more about what you're going to do.

Before my first visit to Arches I had seen many pictures of Turret Arch shot through North Window, and never had I noticed that North Window was actually this big. It wasn't until I walked towards this giant opening and noticed it's position relative to Turret Arch that I realized that I had been completely wrong. It's a way more impressive scene than the photographs I had seen ever suggested.

The first thing I therefore did was to add a human element to the shot to give a sense of scale to the image. It's still the same icon that's been shot to death, but the combination of the human element and the snow in the background make it just a little more different from the rest, which was all I was after.

I also shot another version of this scene without the person and with very different lighting conditions that I will post later in the landscape forum.

Your comments are appreciated as always.

Marsel

Beautiful. The human figure is a subtle point that adds so much more.

Very well done image of this icon!

Marsel wrote:...Especially the ones close to the parking of course...

Very effective variation! There's no substitute for creativity -- the human figure makes all the difference, and I like that she's not just standing center frame.

The human element here really places the scene in context. Love the snow too. Awesome work again Marsel!

Perfection Marsel---wonderful interpretation! I think the addition of a person for scale really made the shot. I do feel the bg and fg compete with each other too much as both are about equal in power. My thoughts were a small, maybe very small, all around crop of the image would force the viewer to gravitate to that formation in the bg more, and that would pull the viewer in even more. Wonderful job and very creative in any case .

Paul

Nice. (Although it probably would be fine posting the in the Landscape forum, with such a small human element.) I like shooting icons, I dont care if they're cliche or not. If I've never shot the icon before, it wouldn't have been cliche to me. I would have taken this shot when I was there too, except there were about 150 chinese tourists standing where your wife is now, so I passed. Love the snow. I suspect that it could have helped reduce the crowds.

I strongly believe you are one of the most influential travel and landscape photographers working today. Always a pleasure to view your images Marsel...

Thank you for all your kind words!