Composition in Blue Rocks

CASPAR DAVD FRIEDRICH: "I must be entirely by myself, and know that I am alone in order to see and perceive Nature completely. Nothing should stand between her and myself. I must give myself to my surroundings, must merge with my clouds and cliffs in order to become what I am."

SHERMAN HINES: "Someone asked me once how I got to the spot where I actually took a photograph. I found that I followed noises, clouds, the winds, smells – but most of all it was the light that guided me. I don’t force myself on the environment, I let it manipulate me. There’s no confrontation with nature because I give in to it. I let myself be seduced completely."

PAUL STRAND: "Either you do it or you don’t. Certainly with things as changeable as sky and landscape with moving clouds and so on, if they look wonderful to you on a certain day and if you don’t do it then, you may never see them again for the rest of your life. So as a photographer you become very conscious – at least I do – that everything is in movement."

PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL: No matter how I submit, nature can be impenetrable. On the evening when this was taken, however, I was embraced. A clear sun that sparkled and defined form had given way to clouds that seemed to suck up the air. I was somewhere in the center of the peninsula, but the moaning song of the fog horn accompanied crows perched in still pines. Verse after verse sounded as the sun set. Not too far off the sea was changing, and I would change with it.

As a photographer, I live for those times when I'm so enfolded by the world around me. Day after day I may go out and submit myself to nature and she is closed, and then on one evening like this she leaves me breathless and vitalized. I point my camera and see compositions everywhere.