I agree that the landscape at post 568 is special. I continue to marvel at your early talent. As someone posted a few pages back, have we seen a more evocative mount Rushmore? I know from a trip to Italy in my mid-20s one’s photography eye is dragged up to a new level in such a stimulating period in a new country. But I too was taking Kodachromes and had them posted home, so saw nothing of them till my return. I alternated, in the one camera I had, with Ilford FP4 and had that developed and printed in Italy. Did I need to see the results to benefit from what I’d seen? Almost not. Indeed, in my recollection of some shots I almost did not need to take them at all in order to learn from them. I saw them before raising the camera to my eye. I had a trip to Europe two years earlier, aged 23, which I have long almost discounted as a learning phase, but some of those photographs were also better than anything I’d done earlier.
Before I start one of my essays - a great sequence on Yellowstone, Lynn. I've not been there, but your images now make me want to see it while I still can.
I'm ever amazed at how much ice and snow there was in June that year, untypical for late spring and early summer in North America.
One of my basic problems with photography when I travel is, when I first visit a new place I go into auto program and take all the usual tourist snaps. Even when I've not bothered to check out the postcards I subconsciously replicate them.
I then have to plan (if the site is worth the effort) a second visit to let that odd part of my brain that works out how I make my images take over, and only then do I do my most meaningful photos.
Hence the thousands (if not tens of thousands) of Lovely Landscapes in my archives. All sadly gathering dust. Now and then I look at them and recall those many small moments when II was photographing them. I then return them to their nests (Kodak yellow boxes) to marinate in their chemistry for the next decade or longer. As maybe we all do. Or do we?
So maybe 25% of my photography is more meaningful to me than the usual First Impression images I so easily make.
Back in the days when I took stock for architects and publishers, I had an entirely different approach. A 'shoot' then involved a lot of preparation to research my subjects (buildings) and figuring out when the light would be best. I had spirit levels to keep those damn verticals damn well vertical and a sturdy Linhof tripod for the best resolution in my slides. That tripod weighed like it was made of cast iron (which maybe it was, being after all German) and took up too much valuable space in my baggage, but it came with me everywhere. In my film era I used Kodachrome or as a second choice Ektachrome. In 2009 I went over to digital and after a not entirely satisfying time with a Canon (a prosumer 450D so maybe not an ideal choice) I bit the bullet and invested into Nikons which I still use,.
On one time only trips, I try to "program" my brain to kick my creative instincts into gear and do the best possible work in what time is available to me. Fortunately, I'm what you could call a happy wanderer in life, in that I enjoy taking my time and traveling slowly and if I can returning to places I've been to before to have a second look-see and trying new visual approaches.
Lynn did truly wonderful work on his fast-track across the USA back then. Far better than I would have done, and in fact did for much of my travel over the same territory in that year, 1979. Fortunately, I had my own car and I was easily able to back-track to places I wanted to see and photograph again.
I will admit, sort of grudgingly, that when looking at Lynn's posted images makes me rather envious (in an admiring way) of his ability to record so much in such a short time.