Snowy Landscape

From Mount Ranier National Park:

In a national park full of mountains and flowers and bears (oh my!), it's tempting for photographers to fill up their images with millions of details, like a puzzle in a children's magazine: can you spot the marmot? the lupine? the climbers on the distant ridge? And yet the best photographs often result from intentional decluttering -- looking for simple shapes and patterns, tones and colors, among the complexity. Winter, with its landscape-burying snowpack, can help, and this photo is a great example. Absent are peaks and valleys disappearing into the distance, or meadows strewn with plants. Instead, a simple geometric shape; a shadow; a patch of blue sky; a few ice-bound treetops. The simplicity is restful, but also compelling. The eye looks for detail, and finds it in subtle wind-blown ripples on the snow, and almost imperceptible clouds in the sky. Light shades the frozen terrain in subtle tones. What at first appears plain is actually full of nuance, full of beauty. ~klb

Photo: Snowy landscape, by hikingqueen, December 24, 2013, flickr.com/groups/MountRainierNPS, used with attribution under a Creative Commons license.