American BeautyRoyce Nowlin uses the Tamron SP 70-300mm VC lens to make his mark as he explores the people and places of the continental Northwest. |
Article By Jennifer Gidman Images by Royce Nowlin |
Royce Nowlin only started shooting three years ago, but the Idaho resident, who runs his own landscaping business, has quickly discovered his true calling. "I love photography," he says. "It's become my personal quest to discover all I can about it - I've become friends with photographers all over the U.S. and Canada, and I'm setting up a gallery in my hometown, selling prints at art shows, and doing some event photography, as well as working with local charities." |
Nowlin just completed a home studio in which he's able to take more formal photos, but his real love is the great outdoors and landscape photography. "I enjoy going out and finding the moments and places that reflect the beauty that nature shows all of us," he says. "For so many years, I never saw it. Now, with practice and time, my eye seems to look for elements in a shot - including foreground, distances, light features and good subjects - that make me want to share it. I look for that Ansel Adams moment or Norman Rockwell 'feel,' but I'm also trying to develop my own style." |
The Tamron SP 70-300mm VC lens gives him the versatility and speed he needs to capture the beauty of the scenes that surround him. "I can shoot such a variety of images with that lens," he explains. "Getting to know a piece of equipment takes time. The way I do it is to shoot lots of different things in all kinds of situations, and the 70-300 is one of the best lenses I've ever used for that. Portrait work and landscape shots are very clear and bright, even in low-light situations. Plus, it's a well-constructed lens that's not too heavy and has a good, balanced feel on my camera. The lens has become a staple in my gear bag." |
Nowlin appreciates the 70-300's Vibration Compensation (VC) feature, which is smoother and quieter than with other lenses he's used. "The VC allows me to get shots on the fly without the use of a tripod," he says. "A lot of times in nature, you don't get the luxury of setting up a shot - it finds you, and there's no time to make a lot of changes to equipment. With the 70-300, I can keep one lens on the camera that will do almost anything." |
Up and Adam to Harness Mother Nature |
Before he sets out on his landscape expeditions, Nowlin scouts out the weather reports so he can plan what to wear and what equipment to bring. "I always do my homework first," he says. "When I go out to shoot, usually with my family, we normally make a day of it. I like to know what we may see in a certain area, its particular points of interest, and what time the light will lend a certain look or softness to my images." |
That sometimes requires that Nowlin rise very early to head out on the road. "I've nudged my wife at 4:30 a.m. and said, 'OK, time to go!'" he laughs. "She's usually pretty good about that kind of thing." |
The quality of the 70-300 shines through in Nowlin's photography, from every grizzled line in the characters he meets during his travels to the details in the landscape scenes before his lens. "There was one image I took in Hells Canyon with all of these gorgeous clouds in the shot," he says. "I shot it at F/22, and I was curious to see where the lens started dropping off. As you can tell from the photo, it never really drops off at all. The clarity and detail is stunning." |
The versatility of the 70-300 lets Nowlin pull off the road for spontaneous shooting, whether it's to capture a fiery sunset or a daytime moon in Jump Creek. "My wife and I were driving around Owyhee Canyon Reservoir," he says. "This place was settled by the Hawaii Indians after they migrated from the islands to the high deserts of Idaho, and it goes on for miles and miles. The roads aren't marked, and we got lost. When I pulled over to take a drink of water while we figured out how to get out of there, I saw that moon in the blue sky and was able to photograph it." |
The 70-300 also allows Nowlin to capture a little bit of Americana during his photographic journeys. His image of Hunter's Inn in Cambridge, Idaho, at the gateway to Hells Canyon, won a state award, and a chance encounter at a coffee shop in Joseph, Oregon, led him to a farm stocked with vintage tractors. |
"I met this farmer in the coffee shop, and he invited me out to his farm, where he had all of these tractors from the 1800s up until today," Nowlin says. "He's driven all across the U.S. and Canada to get these tractors and actually pays someone to come once a week to start them all up so they keep running. I followed him around and got his story and lots of pictures of the tractors, including this one turn-of-the-century hay-burning tractor with the vibrant blue sky in the background." |
Using HDR helps Nowlin to subtly enhance the beauty of his images. "HDR is so cool," he says. "It gives such depth and detail to my images. It can be overdone, though, so I've been learning to temper a shot in post-processing and keep it more natural-looking. I really love the detail of fusing bracketed shots, getting the highs and lows that a normal shot would have. The range of color it brings to the table is amazing." |
Nowlin plans on totally trading the landscaping world for the landscape photography world soon. "My images are like my children - they've grown and evolved over the last few years, and they're getting better the more I learn," he says. "I hope my love and passion for each project shows through. I hope to bring that feeling to others. I want the person looking at my images to understand and get the same feeling I got when I first saw it. I want to find the 'wow' factor in something and then share it with everybody." |
To see more of Royce Nowlin's work, check out his Flickr and Facebook pages |