Very interesting, I will go back to my photos, old and recent, to see what I've chosen and if it evolved somehow naturally with practice Thanks for the detailed explanations!

Such an amazing video. I enjoyed a lot the "expedition notebook" format. But the most important part, as of photography to me, is the pechakucha part. This was really precious, like a book with audio comments from the author. Great photographs!

Vilken bra video, gillar verkligen hur du resonerar!

Thank you Jonas, very thought provoking. Generally, I agree with you. As I reflect on landscape photographs that have provoked a story in my head (rather than just an emotion), invariably they have some additional context around them (a title, some explanatory text, etc). So my question for you - can a series of landscape photos, even without any accompanying text, tell a story?

Perhaps the biggest mistake is to fill your brain to bursting point with rules, things you MUST do, things you MUST NOT do, gear you MUST have, gear you MUST NOT have, as preached on countless YT channels, to the point that you are so stressed, anxious and insecure that you don't enjoy 1 second of your photography...

Great presentation. Kidding - how many souls do you need to sell to get access there? Is it highly regulated?

Wow, stunning images Jonas ‼️

Wow that really is Epic - beautifully done . Top work !

Wow, I am blown away by your photography, film, thoughts, and presentation of your work and experience. Your goal to leave a lasting impression is crystal clear to me in these photos.

Stunning Jonas, I love your narration and the story, fantastic images.

That's how I love edit landscapes! Heading Svalbard in a few days, this is inspiring: thank you.

What a fabulous video and such beautiful images. You are so brave to go alone. Why so few views and subs, I do not know. You deserve much, much, more. ❤❤❤❤

Beautiful shots at the end. As I watched them go by, with your narration underneath, I thought that these were the kind of shots we used to see in magazines about parts of the Western US (my home) and Canada not so long ago. A few decades, I guess. Of course, the landscapes are still there, but they are no longer remote or untrammeled. For that you have to go to Greenland, or some other far-off place. It's a bit sad. I hope we never completely run out of such places.

In my opinion the bigger lesson in this video is that sometimes, in spite of all of our preparations, wildlife photography doesn't go the way we hope. No matter our skill, experience, talent, gear and preparation if the wildlife doesn't cooperate it can all come to naught. I still don't have a bull moose photograph and my last trip to capture bald eagles fishing also came to naught, though I got eagle photos I didn't get the one I setup the trip to capture. It just happens. It does make those photos sweeter when you finally get them though. Great content, please keep it up!

Brilliant video, I don't know why I haven't found your content before now but I will be following and watching more, love the honesty and the common sense. Yes, get out and create!

Interesting, but I think towards the end you start equating images that raise questions with images that "tell stories". Raising questions might lead to extrapolating into hypothetical projections, but not stories. A story is a narrative, a sequence of events. I do not much agree that a still image, any still image, can contain a narrative. It's not what still images are for.

Wow, how liberating this thought is! I have struggled with my own photography trying to fit a story into a natural scene and coming up short believing that I somehow missed the mark. I did feel emotional, but there was no story. Awesome content to make one really think about what it is we are doing. Thank you for taking a position here that challenges the status quo…. Please keep thinking and snapping!

Introduced me to 4x5 for portrait mode. I love it, thanks!

I have not seen your channel before. Found this video to be very interesting, and I am in agreement with what you say. Photos of nature alone tend to impart feelings in me, but photos with people, or animals, or buildings and such ten to create questions in my mind about what is going on, who the people are, and so forth. Though I think sometimes there can be photos of created objects, cityscapes, say, that operate almost like landscapes for me. In these images the built objects tend to be more abstract, and so seem to be almost like mountains or trees. Anyway, this is quite an interesting and thought-provoking presentation. Thanks for posting it.

I thought...yes! at last someone telling us that still photographs do not tell a story.....but you only limit the view that photographs don't telli a story to landscapes. For me, photographs do not tell stories...period. Books tell stories, films tell stories and even video from a camera will tell a story....but a snapshot in time of whatever subject you choose does not tell a story. The images you showed that supposedly told a story where famous images where people already knew what the story was from other input. Show me any photo that you or anyone else has taken and is not a well known image and I'll tell you that nobody knows what the story is because it is just a snapshot in time. We can speculate. or ask questions or guess at what is going on - but nobody knows just from an image what a story is. Photography is about creating images from compositions of whatever genre is your thing. This "telling a story" is a new fad that everyone seems to be jumping on to without being able to explain HOW the image tells a story or what indeed that story is.....there isn't one - it's just a snapshot in time. Enjoyed the vidow though!! I like the way you articulate your points

I’m so inspired - thank you. Can you please share the exact books and cover you got from Galen?

I have been looking for journaling inspiration for such a long time - your video really resonates with me. Thank you!

Length and not lenght 😮

Tack! Det här var precis vad jag tänkt många gånger när jag stött på det påståendet. Det blir liksom påhittat när enbart ett landskap ska berätta en story förutsatt att det enbart är en vacker vy. Fotograferar du samma vy under ett kraftigt åskväder med massor av blixtar, en tornado, efter en naturkatastof tex jordbävning eller som nu under pågående vulkanutbrott på island så blir ju genast den tidigare statiska vyn en pågående story i det landskapet. Translation Thanks! This is exactly what I have thought many times when I came across that statement. It seems to be invented when a landscape alone has to tell a story, provided that it is only a beautiful view. If you photograph the same view during a severe thunderstorm with lots of lightning, a tornado, after a natural disaster such as an earthquake or as now during an ongoing volcanic eruption in Iceland, the previous static view immediately becomes an ongoing story in that landscape.

Good video. The images of the polar bears with the mountains is a masterwork. My compliments. You do NOT need the music underneath. Your information and knowledge is enough. The music is a distraction in my view. Takk.

Thank you so much for this. It helps me more than you know. And I must say your images are simply amazing. So beautiful.

I takes at least 30-40 minutes on a location for me to calm down, to focus, to get in the zone. That is, after taking the first-impresssion-shots, and getting something under the triggerfinger. Also, I want it all. both longlens shots, panos, closeups, wide angles, and decide after, what works. not during. But it's easy to agree to just take shots once you're on location and not look for the perfect compositions or subject. it's more important to just begin. because that is what get's you those shots you talk about for a long time. and not to forget; the fun learning experiences.

Great stuff, but a question. I'm retired so semi-fixed income. Took up photography again 5 years ago to augment my watercolor painting so I didn't dive too deep into gear. That said I use a Nikon 7000 16 mega pixel camera and 5 of the typical lenses. Painting is going ok and that's ok, but some of my photo's are a hit. Looked at your pano video and now this, so I may need some gear upgrades. Speaking of which my photo prints make me gringe, because of resolution and possibly lens softness, yes I pixel peep, but I have standards. Not buying a Nikon Z but maybe I can sell a kidney, but just speaking of mega pixels what should I be looking at for prints 18 to 24 inches wide? That also seems to be where photo customer interest is.

Liking jazz and photography, it worked for me. Enjoyed the video. Thanks for doing it .

Excellent Tips! Ones I now use, but still good to reinforce. I never thought I would let the camera choose ISO, but am so glad I finally learned to stop forcing decisions around ISO 64!

Thanks for the tips and the music!

Olá, Jonas! Adorei seus ensinamentos contidos neste vídeo! Parabéns!

Just recently, up in the Eastern Sierras, I took a photograph with some beautiful blooming wildflowers in the foreground, some withered trees in the mid ground, and some barren hills blue with haze in the background. No animals, structures, or humans in the shot, yet my mind had put it together based on its perception of the contrast of those differing states of life and the story they told. Similarly, several years ago I had taken a photo of a tree blossom in my back yard with an out-of-focus setting sun in the background, the implication being to me that while the flower was gone in a week and the sun had billions of years left to it, both were equally impermanent. Now, you could say that my mind in both cases was simply imposing order via a narrative on those two situations, as minds tend to do; but what is the difference between that and the scenarios your mind concocted for that herd of wildebeests? It seems to me that some great landscape photos imply a story, and others don’t. Which I guess means that I don’t entirely agree with your thesis, as well-expressed and interesting as I thought it was.

Interesting to hear what jazz is on your radar . Glad you are recovering too .

Fascinating and it makes me think about my Dad's landscape photography, he is no longer with us but he was able to pursue his dream. I am just starting out with photography and a few of the photos I have taken were ones I felt pulled to take once I saw them, like an internal oh wow! So this topic is intriguing to me . I love being outside in nature so that is where I go for photos.

This is a great video.

thank you. This came at a good time for me as I have been reevaluating my photography. To create photographs that share transcendence in nature to help people connect and preserve.

You make a good point about “telling a story” not being a good general guideline. There are indeed configurations where storytelling can be irrelevant. But I tend to disagree with you about what those configurations are. I don’t think it depends on the subject matter - like you described when talking about landscape photography with or without humans and human-made objects - but rather that it depends on authorial intent. Do you intend to tell a specific story with this photograph or series, or do you not? Both are fine, and will produce different work. The way that you categorized subjects in this video doesn’t work as a general rule. It’s an interesting exploration, and using subtraction (cutting some elements from images) is a great way to explore how we relate to those different subjects. But it’s just not generally true that any specific subject matter, like “a natural landscape without visible human intervention”, is inherently devoid of stories. What might be true is that you relate to those subject matters with those categories and associations in mind, and that can guide your own photographic work. Whether we tell ourselves a story when viewing a photograph depends on our own culture, knowledge and personality. Someone who likes geology may see many stories in a mountain never touched by the human hand. A shot of an empty parking lot may be devoid of stories for some, and full of stories for others. This multiplicity and partial randomness in the reception of the work raises new objections to the “you should tell a story” guideline: faced with this multiplicity, isn’t storytelling hopeless? If you intend to tell a story, should your storytelling captured be in the photograph, expressed around the photograph, or a combination of both? If you intend to tell no story, how are you accounting for the stories that will be generated by viewers anyway? And so on.

This is really important stuff 🎉

Hi Jonas. For as long as I've been selling my work, I learned people connect with images either through a memory from visiting the featured location or because it makes them feel a certain way. For example, a dentist bought 6 pieces of mine showcasing the Utah desert. He says it's a place that is calming to him, and the images make him feel calm. When I look at those same images, they make me think of the story of when I was there making them.

It's a bit anthropocentric to say stories have to be about humans. There's geological, topological, biological, etc stories. There's also the obvious environmental stories but that only a small part and often used as a crutch. The problem is also in thinking that stories are 'word' based. Stories can be abstract and felt without being just single emotions. And then there is metaphor that can be used - there are so many different ways an image can act as a metaphor for something that it's pointless coming up with examples. Pareidolia also triggers ideas and thoughts that can become stories. The problem with landscape photography and stories isn't to do with landscape photography, it's to do with our limited definition of "story"

Strong points and views that are important to remember. Its now days too easy to compare yourself with the whole world, that's not fair.

Thanks for putting that out there - I’ll follow along . Oh, I like to shoot : )

Love it..easy to follow and very informative..I love how you use your beautiful work to illustrate your choice of aspect ratio!

I agree with you !00% , land scape photography for the most part is about the awe and amazement of the natural beauty , this is what we get attracted to and its what we want to show , there is no story , except perhaps if u had a stormy whether or u place a human or wild life for perspective appreciation , so story telling while its a valid concept it really is genre specific and not ubiquitous, as such the ongoing fad of story telling in ones images is just that a fad, the genre of photography defines the purpose of the image either to evoke emotions of awe of the beauty or the lining up of certain elements like light , shadows, and patterns , or it could be story telling in other genre , consider macro photography , or food photography or abstract photography non of this has stories , so i think people should stop propagating this fad as its a must in every situation.

An interesting point, Jonas. I usually find landscapes make me ask questions, and can contain atmosphere which leads to emotion. I felt there was something missing in that first photograph. It just didn’t sit with me properly, and when you included the bottom area, it made sense, the little settlement against the enormity and remoteness of the landscape. Perspectives. Many thanks for this thought provoking subject.

Your passion for panoramas is contagious. Now I'm shopping for nodal sliders online 😅 i have an s5ii with a multi-shot high res mode and there is something addicting about getting massively detailed photos

One of the things I love about wildlife photography is that it can be immensely challenging. And when it pays off - well, there's nothing quite like it. And .....sometimes you unfortunately have to have bad times to really appreciate the good times.

Great video! I like your approach to photography and how you talk about the emotions and thoughts when looking at an image. I'm still really new to photography and I mostly shoot architecture, but I also sometimes try to sometimes try to shoot more "abstract" architectural compositions of man-made objects. In these photo's I don't intend to tell a story, instead I want to invoke emptions by creating an artistic composition. That's where your conclusion and advice really stuck with me, I need to recognize myself when taking a photograph to what degree the human elements in frame creates and therefore demands the incorporation of a story. It really makes me think about how I take photo's!

More than anything else an image tell a story about the intentions of the photographer rather than the content of the image itself. All our encounters with the world will be an interpretation rather than a simple registration of it. It doesn’t matter if we produce an interpretation by means of paint and brush or with a camera in hand. It still is just an interpretation nevertheless. And emotions is at the heart of it! Even conceptual or journalistic work are intentional interpretations with a backdrop of emotions attached to it. A landscape that lack any form of story still produces emotion, albeit not very pleasurable emotions maybe. I think a normal intention for many landscape and nature photographers is to evoke an experience of a world devoid of human inclusion. If someone wants to call that a “story”, we’ll that’s up to them. For me intention is always present even though we may not see or feel it.