When you think of landscape photography, what do you typically think of first? For many it might be lush green meadows with a babbling brook running through it. For others, it could be the rugged outline of a mountain range in the background of a vast woodland scene. This kind of photography is so vast that to place a definition on it, might just be impossible. Because the world in which we live is so expansive with many areas of it even recently being brought to the public eye, it is a playground for those behind the lens looking to capture just a sliver of its beauty.

When this passion of mine first began, I was stationed at Fort Wainwright in Alaska as a combat medic. Though my mind was on training, missions, schools, unit tasks, deployments, and time with my fellow comrades, I couldn’t ignore the place where all this was happening. I found myself gazing in awe at the seemingly endless Alaska Range which loomed in the distance overlooking the small city of Fairbanks next to where the post resided. Although I had seen similar sights growing up in Southern California in the Sierras and the San Bernardino Mountains, my soul felt gripped to capture this place. So after some extensive research (I don’t make decisions quickly), I decided to purchase my first DSLR and get out into the field capturing some of the locales that I had previously been in military convoys and training exercises, and discovering new areas as well.

My first shots were during the summertime in Alaska which is an amazing experience as the summer solstice gives way to literal endless days of sunlight. I would visit some of the local mountain ranges, rivers, woodland areas, and even dabbled in a bit of urban photography. But my heart always landed in the backcountry, the less-traveled areas of the interior of a state so massive that it could swallow Texas. As the long, bright days of the summer gave way to almost endless, dark nights, I was reminded of something… I lived in one of the best places to capture the Northern Lights, the Aurora Borealis.

After seeing it for the first time a year and a half prior, I set out on the “aurora hunting” trail. My perspective of landscape photography drastically shifted as my head and eyes were canted toward the heavens more times than I could count that first winter. One night, a friend of mine and I had gone up to a region of the White Mountains north of Fairbanks. As we parked and began pulling out our camera gear, the sky lit up with rivers of greens, teals, and hints of violet. Though I had seen a similar sight before in the city and on post, being out away from the light pollution of that area allowed for us to see much greater detail to this miracle of nature.

My heart and soul was stirred within me as I was drawn immediately to the One I knew deep down had set up this glorious display in the heavens, just for us to see. I vividly remember uttering to my friend, “There must be a God…” I received a scoffing chuckle from him but I knew I was being pulled to the One who miraculously created this display in the heavens for us to see. David wrote in Psalm 19:1-4a, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims His handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.” In the Hebrew, the words sky above can be translated as expanse. Not only has He created endless landscapes here on land, and in the sea, but also in the heavens. Here we see a vast display of what He can do through His creative power expressed in nature.

In Colossians 1:17, it says, “And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.” He was there, before time, with Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, and through Him we have our life and are able to enjoy this expansive world that He created. So what is landscape photography to me? It is an act of worship toward my Creator, where I get to pause and take in His wonderful works, maybe even bowing my knee into the dust and water He spoke into existence, to get an ever better angle to capture of His landscapes of grace.