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Casara Butler
@casaramoon
Best of the week 45 at #nomadict 2022
Growing up on the California coast and then moving to the Pacific Northwest I have been lucky to be surrounded by natural beauty my whole life. Yet, my love for travel started a while before my love for photography.
I moved to Italy when I was 17 as an exchange student for my last year of high school which sparked my curiosity about the world and comfort with solo travel. From then on, every time I got on a plane I had this feeling of pure happiness that I hadn’t felt before. Fast forward 5 years and 25 countries later I graduated from university and moved to Seattle. A friend took me on a hike close to home, and it was the first time I had ever seen an alpine lake with a snow-capped mountain. I had that same feeling that flights always gave me, and I was hooked. I started hiking every weekend, first with just my iPhone, and after about 6 months of posting on Instagram for friends, I realized I wanted to be able to capture those moments even better. So I bought my first camera in January 2019, and everything changed. I found a community that inspired me daily and real-life friends with the same hobbies. Photography has brought me some incredible experiences and enabled me to perfectly capture those memories.
The diverse landscapes are just incredible and I learned going at sunrise creates a magical soft light that I fell in love with and wanted to capture and emulate within my photos. I started noticing the little things when I was out hiking and always aim to capture the “perfect moment” but then use editing to bring back the life and color to those photos, making it my own perfect fairytale in each image. I want to show how I remember the moment vs including all the little imperfections.
Then, in July 2020, I had just bought the first outdoorsy car I could take camping, so I took myself on a road trip to Oregon. I camped out at Trillium lake and wandered to the lake’s shore for sunrise. I was still in the early stages of learning how to take photos, but I had seen a photo on Instagram of a foggy lake with a canoe, and for a year I had wanted to capture my own version. This morning was perfect. The low fog was thick but constantly moving so the fisherman would drift in and out of view in front of the trees. Seeing this scene in person was just incredible, and looking back at the photos later I was just over the moon. I had finally captured the image I had pictured in my mind.
"Then, when editing my main focus is on enhancing the image to make a more magical and vivid display of what I already saw in real life."
So for example I never add fake skies or change key elements of a photo, but I will give fog a whiter glow, and a sunrise a brighter orange, and also remove signs or trash distracting within a photo. So with this photo specifically, the colors of the sunrise were already so stunning in person. I just wanted to bring those back out in editing, while also bridging in some more intense contrast between the boat and the darker trees in the background and the light fog drifting through the scene.
In general, the two things I focus on the most are color balance and proper contrast. Having warmer tones in the highlights and cooler tones in the shadows really brings balance to the image.
I think the number one ingredient for a great landscape photo is a clear subject that draws the viewer’s eyes in. Natural landscapes can be busy and almost messy when you initially take a photo, but using shadows and light, and focusing on one main subject, can really create something magical. Next, I would say the other three main ingredients are; shooting around sunrise or sunset when light is best, being patient and waiting for the right moment, and visualizing the desired end result while both shooting and editing.
For the future, I plan to keep pushing in the direction of working more remotely, with passive income, so I can constantly pursue travel and photography as much as possible and live the life I dream. Every year so far has just gotten better and better, so I am excited to see where the future leads. My main mantra is that everything is my responsibility and only I can create my own happiness, so I always keep pushing for what I want and know that setbacks will come. But I will find a way around setbacks, stay positive, and prioritize things that bring me joy!
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