Nearly a decade ago, I somehow ended up meeting and contacting a guy from back east on Facebook about a programming issue. He was someone I had met somewhere related to tech- in a forum or some such thing.

He was a kind fellow, and sought to assist me as he could from afar.

That connect led to one of those hallowed events on the platform- a Friending occured, and in time, our shared interests in writing and good books brought us a little closer, us acquaintances across the U.S.

Time rolled on, and a few years later I ended up connecting with his wife as well, and we all became neighbors through the internet.

Well, at some point a few years ago, a Christmas gift exchange was added to our interactions, which really was a swap of books we had enjoyed during the year, or had wanted the other(s) to know about.

The formula dissolved a little the last two years, and this year, Derek and his wife Kelli sent me, among other gifts, a book that was more a manual than literature, and that was fine with me, because the gift hit the sweet spot with me.

It was a book on landscape photography.

And contrary to my usual approach to such books- which is to pick it up randomly one day, read a few pages in it on some topic that I wanted/needed to learn about, and then look at the pictures for a few, and then shelve it until that urge to briefly pick it up again returned another day- I decided I was going to read it straight through.

And it has been valuable for me to approach it in this way (surprise, surprise).

I am about through about a quarter of the book, though, and in these early chapters, the author has asked a few very important and good things of me which I know I should do as a photographer, but that I don’t.

In short, the key to taking stunning landscape photography, he asserts, is to get out and find vantage points in scenic locations that you can photograph at dawn, and at dusk.

Which are suggestions I am very familiar with already, but which I do not often heed at this point in my practice.

And when I asked myself about my hesitations to adapt these suggestions that he and others have recommended, I paused for a moment, and then I understood the main source of my reticence.

My eyes are bad.

I don’t see well in the dark- even with glasses on.

And that deficiency in my vision affects my perceptions, my reaction time, and my balance.

Which makes the prospect of wandering up or down a trail in the dark intimidating.

But, then, when I reopen this book I am reading and see summit photos across a forest at dawn, I feel a desire inside to find and take some shots like those.

I guess that is the deal with landscape photography.

To do it, good eyes or not, you gotta go out.