Someone out there may be wondering why it's such an effort to get out shooting. Why does it take so much effort to get together their gear, head out the door, and shoot some images. There may be lots of reasons. Maybe their photography is a bit dead and not all that interesting. Maybe all of their favorite locations don't seem that inviting anymore which just adds to the stagnation. What's a poor photographer to do? Well, I say this is where the saying "when the going gets tough, the tough get going". I'm talking about a mental confrontation that will help you break through this stagnation. Every time you struggle through a confrontation you strengthen your mind. It empowers you when out in the field and makes you a better photographer.

In my case, hadn't been doing serious landscape photography in ages. It'd been literally months since I'd taken a weekend wholly devoted to photography. There were lots of reasons why I was in this situation such as creating a new house for my lovely new bride, not enough energy to overcome the work week fatigue, and basically not enough draw to go to the same places again and again... All excuses to keep me from hitting the field and work my mind by producing images.

To get back into the game I decided to revisit one of my favorite locations this last Memorial Day weekend--the Alabama Hills. Specifically, I hoped to explore a new technique of stitching images together--another article altogether down the road by the way. In general, I hoped to explore how a photographer could find images even though they think they've shot everything there is to shoot.

The arch photographed above, Fig 1, is located in the middle of the Alabama Hills and has be extensively photographed by many famous and not so famous photographers. It would seem to the casual observer little if anything original could be captured here that would make the efforts worth while. I disagree. The key element of any photograph--if you're really making it your own--is you and your brain. I've written before the elements you personally bring to the table making subtle and important contributions will produce interesting, special, unique imagery. You are the key element. The corollary to this is you are the only limiting factor from shooting interesting distinctive imagery. It's a double edged sword.

This series of images in this article all have the same single element--Mt Williamson--in the background. A very high mountain in Continental US term--over 14,000 ft--it's often overlooked by its much more famous cousin (Mt Whitney) to the north. While the central attraction of each image is different--the image above is obviously all about the arch--they all have the same element. The point of this article is expanding the opportunities by looking at the same subjects but using different elements to create unique interesting images.

I very simply visualized Mt Whitney through the arch in Fig 1. I just discovered it by accident and had never photographed an arch before. So, without seeking any inner meaning or extra depth I decided to follow the most