About
Hello, my name is George Labaria, a wilderness landscape photographer based in California. I specialize in capturing stunning images of the Sierra Nevada mountains and other wild and remote places.
My passion for the outdoors and photography naturally lead to my specialization in wilderness landscape photography. Capturing images from deep in the wilderness provides me with an opportunity to record Nature’s most wild and rugged landscapes, which relatively few people get to see. I tremendously enjoy the physical and technical challenges that are inherent to wilderness landscape photography.
I am committed to preserving the natural beauty and integrity of the places I photograph. I follow the Leave No Trace principles during my adventures and encourage others to do the same while exploring the outdoors. I believe that we have a responsibility to protect these fragile lands for future generations.
Please take a look at my portfolio to see some of my favorite images. If you are interested in working with me or buying a print, feel free to contact me anytime. You can also follow me on Instagram to see more of my adventures and behind-the-scenes stories.
I hope you enjoy my work and thank you for visiting my website.
Philosophy
I like to capture wilderness landscapes in their most natural and purest state. My philosophy is to try to photograph the wilderness and recreate the beauty that I see before me. Compared to our eyes, cameras see a relatively narrow band of dynamic range. A photographer thus chooses how to convey the scene by choosing his or her exposure settings. I try to convey the scenes as closely as possible to the way I see them, and how I want to viewer to emotionally connect with the image. In accordance with trying to preserve the natural scenery, I refrain from heavily editing my photos. Although, I use Lightroom and Photoshop to process nearly all of my photographs, I will never add data to the photo that was not already present in the original capture.
For example, I might take a sunset shot with a beautiful alpine lake and towering mountain in the background. In order to bring out the color that I saw with my own eyes and to try to transfer the “grandness” feeling of the landscape to the viewer, I might perhaps bring out the natural red and orange tones that are present in the sunset in post-processing. In this situation, the data for the red and orange tones were already captured in the image, and I chose to bring those out by saturating them. It would be out of my editing philosophy to say, take a picture of the same location under less-than-ideal conditions (e.g., on a heavily overcast day so that the red and orange tones are washed out) and replace the sky with one where red and orange tones were present. In this example, data was added to the image by replacing the gray overcast sky with a sunset one. I believe, like the landscape before us, landscape photographers must also be at the mercy of Nature and make do with what is available.
I do bend this personal rule slightly, however. In high dynamic range scenes, I often times take multiple exposures of the same scene and blend the best parts of those exposures to create one composite image. This is to effectively increase the dynamic range of the camera sensor and bring it closer to what the human eye can see. In this situation, each frame that contributes to the composite image was edited in accordance to my philosophy above. In a sense, the data was added together to create the composite image, but no data was added that originally was not there in any of the used exposures.
To quote Glen Randall, a wilderness landscape photographer whose work I greatly admire and draw a lot of inspiration from,
“landscape photographers must have a brain of an engineer and the heart of a hopeless romantic.”
In order to have the greatest chance at producing a landscape photograph that evokes a strong emotion in a viewer, landscape photographers must plan out their shots in advance. I would typically pick out potential shots by closely studying a topographic map of an area of interest. Then I would use apps such as the Photographer’s Ephemeris to get the azimuth of the sun during sunset or sunrise. From the topographic map, I can then start to visualize how the warm sunrise or sunset light might hit the landscape. Hence, having a brain of an engineer. Of course, after all of that planning, Nature may have other things in store. It may rain, snow, etc on the day you set out to take a picture, foiling all plans for a great photo. Hence having the heart of a hopeless romantic. To find happiness in such a pursuit, one must do it for the experience and not for the goal of obtaining a good photograph. Of course, that just makes capturing a 5-star photo all the more memorable.
An example of an image that was the result of a blend of multiple exposures to combat the dynamic range problem. Even here, no data was added to the scene– only added together from multiple shots.
Here, an approaching storm obscured the sunset in the west, which prevented the sun from lighting the clouds above the Cathedral Rocks as I anticipated. If I were to replace the sky, or artificially color the clouds in the red and orange sunset hues, that would be against my editing philosophy.
Portrait and Climbing Photography
Although I am most versed in wilderness landscape photography, I also enjoy portrait photography and climbing photography. Both genres present their unique challenges. I find portrait photography interesting and rewarding because of the human element to it. Often times, people want their photographs taken for a multitude of reasons: to build up their own portfolio, record special moments, or to have a professional head-shot. I enjoy working with people to help them achieve their creative visions.
People rock climb for a variety of different reasons. Often times, these reasons are deeply personal. The state of mind that the body plunges into when pulling off technical moves thousands of feet off the deck is indescribable. Often times, people climb to explore and experience exciting places with a climbing partner. The bond between climbing partners is unique and very difficult to describe. In rock climbing photography, I am deeply motivated by capturing these special moments.
Climbing photography presents very unique challenges that are not often found in other genres. Learning the technical craft of rock climbing is imperative to taking pictures safely, as one often has to work in very exposed and dangerous places. Another challenge is purely logistical. It is often hard to ascend vertical, technical rock with just rock climbing equipment, let alone with photography gear. And of course, the artistic challenges are found in any genre–it is not different for rock climbing photography. Most rock climbing photos are taken from either immediately below or above the climber, as this is the typical position of a cameraperson in a rope team. However, usually the most aesthetic angles of the climber are from the side or out at an angle from the wall. Getting these unique angles on technical rock faces is not easy, and I enjoy the challenges inherent in this genre.
I am very passionate about photography. I take a great deal of time and energy in producing each photograph. I hope that you enjoy my photographs as much as I enjoy creating them.