VIEWFINDER

viewfinder Think Globally, Act Locally

Take advantage of photo ops, right in your own back yard EXPLORING EXOTIC CITIES and pristine wilderness is part of the allure of being a travel and nature photographer. We spend the bulk of our careers traveling and working in faraway places, building stock files that reflect a worldly vision and hoping our work will, in some small way, influence larger issues. But the appetite for global images leads some photographers to neglect their own back yards.

When Arizona Highways needs stock photos to illustrate a story, my search starts with calls to photographers who live near the story's location. Using the simple logic that those residing close to the subject must have good coverage, I contact them first. Too often the response is sheepish: "I've been meaning to add that to my stock files for years, but I never got around to it."

Others, who consider anything within 100 miles of their homes as their back yards, know well the lay of the surrounding land. I happen to be one of them. My favorite "backyard" locations can be quickly and easily accessed, and I visit them often. The Superstition Mountains, Salt River, South Mountain Park, even the little tree-lined park down the street from my home. As a result, these places are well represented in my stock files right next to my files on Japan, Scotland and Italy.

With a local approach to photography, it pays to do a little reconnaissance. Know the fastest routes to familiar places when dramatic skies or fiery sunsets suddenly appear. Living in the city makes it difficult to take advantage of these fleeting moments. Rooftops and power lines ruin a great skyscape every time, so knowing where to find interesting foregrounds in a hurry-parks, forests and lakes-will help you capture saleable images on short notice.

Taking this backyard logic a step further, another world awaits literally just outside your door. With a little bit of planning and a small amount of landscaping, a natural environment can be cultivated in an urban setting that serves as an outdoor "studio" for photographing wildlife, flowers and insects.

Planning a backyard landscape for nature photography requires some research. Find out which plants and trees will attract birds and animals, and know when they blossom and bear fruit. By choosing a variety of timely bloomers, a profusion of color is always in season. Plants native to your region will attract local wildlife that looks naturally at home when photographed in your yard.

I designed the layout of my own back yard with a photographic strategy in mind. By selecting native desert plants and trees, I created a microcosm of the Sonoran Desert that surrounds my home. The cool, shady canopy of mesquite, palo brea and ironwood trees dominates my yard, creating a riparian area around my house. A small water fountain completes the effect. The lilting melody of flowing water among the trees, shrubs and cacti invites migratory and local birds into my minioasis, and the blooms attract hummingbirds and butterflies.

Right outside your door or just beyond the city limits, get to know your "back yard." Your photography may not help preserve tropical rainforests or solve global warming, but it could pay off in strong nature images that aid a photo editor's stock search. No one needs to know that your journey to capture them didn't take you to the ends of the Earth.