“Landscape photography” seems a rather simple problem: You go out and make photographs of land and sky, water and shore, trees and fields … the environment in which we live, a complex network of energy flows, water cycles and interrelationship between species. What could be easier? The ever-changing world outside our door beckons us with its beauty daily. 

But as anyone knows who’s had the experience of photographing a beautiful sunset only to be disappointed with the end result, making a truly memorable landscape photograph is not easy.

Brunswick photographer James McCarthy will share in this workshop 10 ways of exploring nature with a camera — exercises to open up one’s mind and heart — that have worked for him in almost 40 years of working with cameras of all shapes and sizes. For the past eight years he’s been exploring the Cathance River Nature Preserve in all seasons, types of weather and times of day with a digital Nikon camera.

“I invite anyone who has an interest in photographing nature, whether a beginner or a serious amateur, to join me in this Sunday morning workshop in which we’ll hike down to the river, follow it for awhile and return through a mixed forest of birches, beeches, pines,” McCarthy says. “The camera is a great tool for exploring our world: A way of seeing, for sure, but also a means of discovering and exploring our feelings about the places, people and things that are important to us.”

McCarthy will provide a handout sharing “10 ways of looking at the landscape” that he hopes will encourage workshop participants to continue spending time in a favorite place, observing closely what’s going on, thinking about it and using the camera to make images expressing their feelings about whatever they’ve chosen to photograph. If time allows, participants will be asked to share something about an image they made during the walk that “combines both heart and mind, with some intuition thrown in to make things interesting.”

A former editor of The Times Record, McCarthy’s photographs have appeared in the Cleveland Museum of Arts annual juried May Show four times, as well as in solo and group exhibitions in Maine.

This program is free, but REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED. Please call (207-331-3202, ext. 0) or email () to register.

This program is offered as part of the Great Maine Outdoor Weekend and is funded in part by a grant from the Elmina B. Sewall Foundation.