In the Throes of Love
Landscape Photography as a way of deepening my experience with nature.
by Shane Davila | April 2022
A desolate place in Oregon's Owyhee expanse Image Title: In the Throes of Love - IMG 0800
I often ponder why I love to photograph nature and her great landscapes. I've written about the sensational feelings I have while in nature; we've all had these. It's more than just feeling good because of the beauty and fresh air surrounding me. It's the moments when light fades and shadows emerge from hiding as they slink over the land reclaiming the night. A mental shift as the artist becomes aware of the moments to come, the transition from reality to spirituality.
Gently gliding clouds enter this spiritual realm as ever-changing hues and tones shift from bright to dark to filled with color. This color is never the same from one second to the next, unique moment by moment. It’s unique not just this time, but never having occurred before; a heavenly fingerprint. I watch as she changes, flows across the landscape and into me. This lover, again stealing my heart, captivates my soul.
My camera is now controlled by my heart rather than my brain. It's been so long since I've felt her loving touch. The caress of her whispering rivers, her fragrance, now driving me mad with passion. Watching, feeling, smelling, I gaze upon elegant curves and see her unclothed body stretched out before me. The lovemaking begins as I measure the light and examine which parts of her to include and in what way. How can I capture this romantic moment so that I can live it forever?
Now her bold mountains, kissed by departing light, heave to the sky. The harmonious transition of fading light, brilliant color, and long shadows reveal more of my lover, now in the throes of lovemaking. Finally, her climax, and with it, the intoxication I've been gripped with begins to fade as the realization that she is now gone arrives. Now only a whisper over the horizon as her last kiss disappears into darkness. This is why I go back. I must find her again and again. For I am never quenched of this thirst for her and what she does with me, to me.
To me, landscape photography is more than taking pretty pictures of nature. It is a deepening connection to nature and being present with heightened senses and blazing emotions. Photography is my medium of self-expression—creating and capturing meaningful moments while in nature. I am never on the hunt just to take a picture.
My camera records light in degrees of intensity onto digital photocells as pixels of data, lacking the spiritual and emotional details I experience with her. I later examine these pixels, searching for her, longing for her return. What was it about her that made me fall hopelessly back in love? I search for aspects of the scene, my lovemaking, the image's soul. I slowly work the pixels into a clearer representation of that spiritual moment. It is my reality in those moments of the cosmic timeline. Reality? Mine is different from yours. I record and shape these moments. I preserve them so that I may revisit them to recall all that I was, saw, discovered, felt, and became while in the throes of love.
— Shane Davila
