20 Sep
2010

Posted in: Arches National Park, Dreamscapes
By Ian Plant    16 Comments

What makes a Dreamscape?

It’s the name of one of my photo portfolios. It’s my site’s motto. I guess it is my mission statement. Heck, it’s my brand identity. But what does ”Dreamscapes” really mean? I’ve struggled to define Dreamscapes for some time now. You see, it came about by accident, so I didn’t really get a chance to think about it ahead of time. A while back I named one of my photo portfolios Dreamscapes because I thought it sounded cool—which, as with most things in my life, is about as sophisticated as my “deep thinking” ever gets. Then along came Outdoor Photographer magazine last year, saying they wanted to do a profile on me. Once again, sounded cool. When the profile came out, it was called “Ian Plant Dreamscapes.” At that point my thinking got a bit more sophisticated—that sounded very cool! Before I even knew what I was doing, I had completely re-branded my site and my identity to go along with that very cool Outdoor Photographer profile title.  

But not unlike when Robert Redford’s character in the movie The Candidate wins the Senate election he wasn’t supposed to win, I had one of those “what do we do now?” moments (no, I’m not old enough to have seen the movie when it was released in 1972—I was only a few months old—which, in the estimation of some readers, does make me old, I guess). I had to think deeply, for the first time, about what it all meant. It was a painful experience, needless to say, considering my limited frontal lobe size and capabilities. My parietal lobe, on the other hand, is absolutely huge so no worries there.

So, all this twaddle aside, what is a Dreamscape? To me, Dreamscapes are photographs that move beyond the literal, transforming subjects into something unexpected by rendering the familiar in an unfamiliar way. It is, as I say in the tag line to this blog, an attempt to “see nature in a new light.” Let’s face it—nature has been photographed quite a bit in the past few decades. New techniques, new approaches, and new perspectives are necessary to keep things fresh and to move the state of the art forward. My goal is to find ways to do just that, and to create images that are, if nothing else, different from what people are used to seeing. It would be nice if people liked them too, but I’m not greedy. 

"Desert Window" - Arches National Park, Utah

I use a number of techniques to create Dreamscapes, including long exposures, light painting, low light photography, and non-traditional compositions. Although Photoshop is an important part of my digital work flow, used to optimize existing color and contrast, I typically don’t use it to create the ”dreamy” look of my photos. I prefer to let the wonder of nature and photographic craft guide my art, rather than reliance on computer techniques. But I’ll save that discussion for a later date.  

For example, with the image above of Turret Arch seen through North Window in Arches National Park, I was presented with a scene that has been photographed many times before. So I asked myself: ”How can I make an image that reinterprets this classic landscape in a new way?” Here’s the answer I came up with: I placed a stack of neutral density filters in front of my lens to slow down time itself, to capture not a moment, but the seamless passage of many moments. I made a 30 second exposure at sunrise, recording the moving clouds as streaks across the image frame. Knowing the direction and speed of the clouds was critical to making this image, so several test shots were fired, with varying exposure times, until I figured out all of the variables. Since the clouds were more or less headed my way, I got radiating diagonal streaks as they came nearer to me, perfect for filling the space in the upper left of the image, and essential to creating leading lines that would help direct the eye to the most important part of the scene.  

This week I’m going to focus on a number of images that aspire to Dreamscape status. Not all of them are good enough to ultimately win the title of Dreamscape; few of my image are. Unfortunately, the quest to make Dreamscapes is one of those things that is expressed more in aspiration than fulfillment. Nevertheless, I will continue to strive to make Dreamscapes, tweaking and perfecting my craft until hopefully, one day, I am worthy of the name. In the meantime, I’ve got no problem with keeping the brand identity. It is, after all, very cool. 

Technical details: Canon 5D Mark II camera, 17-40mm lens, ISO 200, f/18, 30 seconds, 10 stops worth of neutral density filtration to lengthen the exposure. 

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About Ian Plant  (275 Posts)

Ian Plant's photographs and instructional articles have appeared in a number of books, calendars, and magazines, including Outdoor Photographer and Popular Photography. Ian writes a regular blog column for Outdoor Photographer online, and he is the author of numerous instructional eBooks and digital processing tutorials. Ian leads several photo tours each year.