With the unknown perfect picnicking location looming above our heads, we decided to explore instead of having an old fashioned evening. Personally, I would have preferred a picnic. Things like that lend to serenity and peacefulness rather than rushing around trying to find something interesting to keep our minds occupied. That's one of the reasons I like landscape photography so much, you get to look upon views that the rest of the population generally are too busy to admire. Even more so when you are looking for that perfect landscape. To get it, you must take in all the beauty, not just what's directly in front of you.
Taking a landscape photo is more complicated than one might think. Yes, it is about photographing the thing in front of you, but there is a lot of preparations that go into it. The first and most obvious is the weather. To get that perfect sunset or sunrise, you need more than just a sun half nestled in the horizon. The beauty of the shot is rarely the sun. What makes that shot beautiful is the context.
The end of a day; the sun making its nightly exit known to all. Its colors are the last grasp with the exclamation that it will return. It's rays folding through the trees, over the fields and bringing the depth of what is real to a warm and loving close. Just like that sentence is dramatic and profound (although not my best poetic dissertation) a landscape must evoke feelings that rival, if not overshadow, any book that was ever written or poem that has ever been penned.