We photograph best the places we love most.

I don’t remember where I heard or read this, but I jotted it down knowing one day I’d write about it. (I can’t find attribution, by the way, so apparently it was never publicly uttered by one of the great landscape photographers.)

I’m in complete agreement; we do our best work in locations we love. These don’t necessarily have to be areas we live near – although they certainly might be. Proximity makes it much easier to cultivate and strengthen connections.

What does it mean to love a place?

Spending a significant amount of time there, you become intimately familiar with it. You develop a profound emotional bond with that environment. A longstanding, intimate relationship is established.

This creates obvious benefits when it comes to nature photography: you learn the idiosyncrasies of the place – the characteristics and intricacies which make it unique. You know how it changes from week to week, and from season to season. You understand its moods and begin to uncover its secrets. You discover nooks and crannies off the beaten path. You become familiar with its microclimate(s). You learn the landscape’s history: how it was shaped over time.

You fall in love.

From such long-standing connections come compelling, more personal photographs; the stories we tell about the places we love most reflect our unique relationships with them.

Does that mean it’s impossible to create good work in locations that are new to you? Absolutely not. First-time visits can produce very good results. That said, they can just as easily give rise to frustration – particularly if it’s a relatively brief stay. Regardless of how much advance planning you’ve done, it’s impossible to know all the nuts and bolts of a place until you begin to spend time there. It’s also much more difficult to pivot when conditions require a change of plans. It's not unusual for a "maiden shoot" to produce results that are less than pleasing.

Given enough time, we become more attuned to the location and better understand how to photograph it.

By no means am I suggesting you avoid traveling to places you’ve never before photographed. Working at a new location is fun: seeing new things, becoming acquainted with the place. Especially if you’ve been feeling stuck in a rut, a change of pace can inspire creativity. The challenge of unfamiliar surroundings can also strengthen powers of observation, motivate learning and stimulate problem-solving. Go for it!

Never underestimate the unique relationships you’ve created with the places in which you spend the most time, though.

If ever you find yourself feeling like one of the areas you frequent is “worn out,” remember the connection you’ve established with it is uniquely yours. How you see and experience that location is distinctive, which means the way you choose to visually represent it can be personal and authentic.

This is true even in heavily-visited locations, by the way, so don't let that intimidate you.

Your relationship with your favorite place - or places - will continue to evolve, just as any interpersonal relationship grows over time. Both you and the landscape will change. The wheels of life keep turning.

This is a good thing! It means there will always be new stories to tell about the locations we frequent most.

"There is only you and your camera. The limitations in your photography are in yourself, for what we see is what we are."
~Ernst Haas

About the Photograph

This is one of the places I love: the ocean shoreline in New Hampshire. If you didn't realize the Granite State has a seacoast you're not alone. It's not very long - less than 20 miles - but what it lacks in quantity it more than makes up for in terms of quality.

This spot is a large tidal pool at which I spent many an early morning over the span of five or six years. At high tide it completely disappears. I liked the challenge of working there because I never knew what kind of a vignette I might find. And I loved - still love - the location: the solitude, the sound of the water and buoys, the enormity of the vast Atlantic and the sky above it, watching the lobster boats head out, and the connection to New Hampshire's rich maritime history.

At that tidal pool (among other places) this daughter of the Midwest feels - profoundly - an unbreakable bond with the Granite State: my adoptive home.

Whether or not I walked away with a photograph it was always a special way to start the day.