Explore Landscapes #129
Starting this Saturday, Explore Landscapes becomes a structured journey through the craft of landscape photography, aimed squarely at beginner and intermediate photographers.
Pencil Cholla Cactus and Granite Boulders (Joshua Tree National Park) | © 2025 Jon Norris
For the past few months, this newsletter has mostly been my travel journal. Recently, I took you across the Eastern Sierras on my backpacking series. Before that, we toured Bhutan together over four posts (one more, final installment to come next week), and I showed you glimpses of Hong Kong between trips. Mixed in were the more routine posts — the monthly One Picture reflections, my experiment shooting Kodak T-Max 100 on my medium format RZ67, and the announcement that after years of loyalty, I was leaving Adobe.
I love writing those posts. They’re honest, they’re fun, and they’re the closest thing to sitting around a campfire telling stories about where I’ve been.
But here’s what I’ve noticed after more than a decade behind a tripod, and five years leading photography workshops. The questions I’m asked aren’t really about where I went. They’re about how. How do you read a histogram when the sun is blasting your camera screen? How do you decide between focus stacking and hyperfocal distance? When should you consider using exposure bracketing?
Those are ‘craft’ questions, and I’ve been answering them one email or workshop at a time. It’s time to answer them properly.
Fonts Point, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, CA (16mm) | © 2021 Jon Norris
What’s Coming
Starting this coming Saturday, Explore Landscapes becomes a structured journey through the craft of landscape photography, aimed squarely at beginner and intermediate photographers.
Over the next six months, I’ll work through 25 technique posts organized around four themes:
Camera Skills & Exposure — Using manual mode without fear, histograms and why your camera screen lies to you, focus stacking versus hyperfocal distance, tripod habits that eliminate soft images, and how to read a scene before you ever open the legs.
Composition & Seeing — Why wide-angle shots can feel empty (and the fix), using negative space in big landscapes, finding order in chaotic forests, the case for a telephoto in grand scenery, and a year-long ‘same place, four seasons’ project.
Light, Weather & Timing — A minute-by-minute timeline of one sunrise shoot, shooting the bad weather you’d normally cancel, storm light and rainbows, and winter photography survival.
Workflow, Mindset & Ethics — My post-Adobe workflow six months in, a repeatable ten-step raw process, editing restraint, preparing files for large prints, and what ‘Leave No Trace’ looks like for a photographer.
Some of these build directly on posts you’ve already read here — the T-Max film experiment, the astro post about photographing “half the park after dark,” my leaving-Adobe story. Now those posts get the deliberate, practical follow-ups they deserve.
Pinto Mountain from the Sand Dune | © 2025 Jon Norris
The New Rhythm
Here’s how the schedule breaks down:
Saturday main posts carry the technique content. One focused topic per week, written the way I wish someone had explained it to me twenty years ago — with real examples, honest assessments of what works and what’s myth, and practice drills you can run at your local park before you ever book a trip.
Wednesday dispatches keep this newsletter what it’s always been. From-the-field notes, trip reports, and the monthly One Month – One Picture reflections. I’m not giving up the campfire stories. I’m just making sure I alternate them with the ‘classroom’.
Each technique post stands alone, so you can dip in whenever it serves you. But read in order and the sequence has a logic: fundamentals first, then seeing, then conditions, then everything that happens after the shutter fires.
Looking out of the park and across the Coachella Valley towards San Jacinto Peak (10,834 ft / 3,302 m) from Eureka Peak (5,521 ft / 1,683 m) | © 2024 Jon Norris
What I’d Like From You (if you’d be so kind)
Three things.
First, hit reply and tell me the one topic you want covered first. I have a calendar — histograms open the series on Saturday — but your replies can reorder it. I’d rather write about what you’re stuck on this weekend than what I scheduled for April.
Second, January launches the Same Place, Four Seasons project. Pick a location within easy reach of home, plan to return to it across the year, and share your progress. I’ll be doing it alongside you — proximity, it turns out, teaches more than novelty. Watch for details when the post lands in early January.
Third, keep sending your questions and problem exposures. Several upcoming posts — will feature reader-submitted images. Anonymously if you prefer; I promise to be kind but honest, because kindness without honesty never made anyone a better photographer.
Many People Look But Only A Few See, Pennine Way (UK) | © 2019 Jon Norris
Starting Saturday
Everything I know about exposure in one place: histograms, the blinkies, and why that image on your rear screen is probably lying to you. It’s the post I’d send to every beginner if I could only send one.
Pour yourself a coffee (or a steaming mug of tea). The road ahead is going to be good.
Thanks for being part of my photography community. I appreciate you!
Until next time go explore, experience, and enjoy our wildlands responsibly, and create some fantastic images.
Bye for now - Jon
