Who's not familiar with the game of finding shapes and figures in cumulus clouds?

Anyone can play, and it doesn't apply only to clouds.

Photographers routinely use their imaginations to create more unique compositions.

One way to interpret the landscape more creatively is to avoid labeling what you're seeing. Instead of a "creek" or "trees" or "boulders," visually translate what you're looking at into shapes, or blocks of color, or lines, curves and arcs.

Notice textures. Patterns. Repetition.

Moving away from labels frees your mind to think in terms of abstractions. The geometry becomes more obvious. You consider how colors are arranged. You notice the luminosity values of objects. It's easier to see the relationships between various elements.

Then it's a matter of arranging these elements effectively within the frame.

You can take it one step further and use your imagination to go way beyond the obvious. Transforming a recognizable subject into something less immediately distinguishable - or perhaps not at all identifiable - can be quite fun.

Like this:

These are the Mesquite Sand Dunes in Death Valley National Park. The color of the sand, the shading, and the repeating patterns I saw on that early morning were more visually compelling to my eye than the grand landscape, so I tried compressing the scene and was much happier with the result.

You can apply the same principle of abstraction to architectural photography. Rather than documenting buildings in a photorealistic manner, it's interesting to look at them in a less literal way.

(Of course, if the architect who designed the building is your client, you'll more than likely be composing representationally.)

Though primarily a landscape and nature photographer, I enjoy shooting both buildings and outdoor sculpture. Chicago being my home city, I suppose that's how I developed my affinity for architecture: the Windy City is the birthplace of the modern skyscraper and well-known for its pioneering designs.

I find architectural photography to be a great change of pace. It's fun, it's challenging, and it almost always gives me a creative shot in the arm.

In the thick of planning an architectural shoot for later this year, urban photography has been front of mind. I approach buildings in the same way you might play the cloud game: I consider them with an open mind and from a variety of vantage points, free my imagination, and see what happens.

Rarely will I include an entire building in the frame, though I'm not adverse to doing so. It's just that going in tighter uncovers interesting details. Isolating elements creates many more options.

I generally work handheld - which is the exact opposite of my typical workflow when creating landscapes - and carry a single lens (100-400mm zoom).

Usually I have a short list of buildings and/or outdoor art in mind, but if something catches my eye along the way, I'll stop. There have been times I've never made it to the intended address because I've been sidetracked by other fascinating - and unexpected - subjects.

This is a detail of the Pritzker Music Pavilion, an outdoor concert venue in Chicago's Millennium Park and home of the Grant Park Symphony. Designed by Frank Gehry, it opened in 2004. Shoot as the sun is going down, and the steel takes on pink hues when light reflects off of the venue's red seats.

Relatively new to the scene, Santiago Calatrava's Constellation (2020) is probably my favorite public sculpture in the city. It sits on the west bank of the Chicago River where the waterway splits. It's bright red and stands nearly 30-feet high. You can't miss it.

In the next photo, I used a few of the points of Constellation's "leaves" to frame the elegant lines of Trump Tower, reflected and distorted in the glass façade of River Point Tower. The complementary colors are visually dynamic.

Calatrava describes these as leaves, but here I see a hand beckoning you to follow. (He says potato, I say potahtoe...)

The complementary background color is provided by the blue/green glass façade of the office building at 333 W. Wacker Drive.

I can't identify this next building for you because I'm not sure of the address myself! I do know it's situated on the East Bank of the Chicago River near Madison Street. This is an example of keeping your eyes open to "see what you see."

That afternoon I was taking a friend on the Chicago Architecture Center's River Cruise. (Side note: if you visit Chicago - or if you're a resident and have never done it - I highly recommend this tour. I've been out with the CAC folks multiple times and it never gets old.) Anyway, I glanced up and saw this grid. Or is it a honeycomb? Depending on how you look at it, you see squares or you see diamonds. Both the lighting and pattern knocked me over.

While I was captivated by this motif, the building the guide was discussing was on the opposite side of the river, so this high-rise remains anonymous until I'm in town next and can take a walk over there.

Just as quickly, the effect was erased by our shifting position and there was no longer anything visually remarkable to see. I was quite happy to have made this photo.

Finally, it's the Aqua Tower, designed by Jeanne Gang and completed in 2010. Situated between Millennium Park and the River, it's a mixed-use building housing a hotel, apartments, condos and offices. The unusual, irregularly shaped balconies give the building its wave-like appearance.

Composition is important, as always. With architectural abstracts, though, the subject is in the details or fragments of the whole: shapes, lines, textures and angles. Things like repeating patterns, symmetry, negative space and color are used to organize the photo.

If you're unaccustomed to looking at structures in this way, it can take a little bit of time to get the hang of it. Once you do, though, you might find you've been bitten by the bug.

In Local News

It's very, very dry here in Teton Country. Earlier this week the relative humidity in Idaho Falls was 7%. There are burn bans pretty much everywhere, but that's not going to stop lightning from causing problems. (Conditions are such that storms which do pop up are often dry, meaning no rain reaches the ground, and they become potentially dangerous as fire hazards.)

Over last weekend, a lightning strike started a fire near Signal Mountain in Grand Teton National Park. Fortunately, crews were able to contain it by the next day and no damage was done to any of the nearby structures (Signal Mountain Lodge, etc.).

In spite of the burn bans, campfires are still allowed in approved rings in Yellowstone and Grand Teton campgrounds, which seems foolish. Teton Interagency firefighters have had to put out 75 unattended or abandoned campfires so far this year.

Fire danger level in Grand Teton National Park, Bridger-Teton National Forest, and the National Elk Refuge has been raised to Very High.