Landscape photography is often considered the realm of the wide-angle lens, but as my editor made clear in the pitch for this article—“It isn’t all about wide-angle.” And she is right: As photographers, we tend to grab the 35mm (or wider) lens when we are inspired by our vistas. Could it be the sheer scale—the vastness of the oceans and mountains—that enchants us? And is it human folly to try to encapsulate what cannot be confined? Do we want to replicate what our natural angle of view perceives, or, perhaps, is it the distortion created by wide angle lenses that we like, the bending of these grand gifts of nature to fit our humble frame?
Regardless as to why, these are decisions we make as photographers, often decisions made in haste, and I encourage you to reject them. Take a different approach, a more challenging approach—use a telephoto lens. Telephoto makes everything a little more demanding: photographically, your focus needs to be precise; stability and shake-free support are more crucial; composition becomes more decisive; and a sense of abstraction, more acute. Physically, the lenses and supports are larger and heavier, and the above-described technical musts are more arduous and time consuming. Setups and adjustments require more muscle, extra steps with tripods and stability, dealing with the elements, and even time looking through a viewfinder for exact composition and focus. It’s just physically and creatively more work.
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