I have taken to shooting specific scenes of nature purposely soft. That is to say I make the capture in the camera purposely out of focus and I do not achieve this softness via a Photoshop post-process. This is an important distinction, and it speaks to intention, rather than a post-process “after effect”. These soft focus studies are a dedicated commitment at the point of creation.

My reason for this interest in soft focus capture is the over population of traditional nature/ landscape photographs and the resulting banality of the genre that that entails. In other words, there are just too damn many of the them. This deluge of scenic photography forces me to think different, how can I differentiate my artistic voice from the masses of other scenic images and photographers? The answer for me is this unrecoverable technique and its commitment to be something other than “normal”.

The resulting series and this image have an illustrative painterly quality that I enjoy. The soft focus is supported by soft hues of color. The slightest indication of a road brings a touch of reality to the altered state of focus.

This image satisfies my commitment toward a personal voice in photography, one that hopefully is uniquely mine.