Yet that’s exactly what landscape pho-
tographer Ted Gore is doing. He makes
images that are impressively refined and
aesthetically unique, traveling to the
far corners of the globe to photograph
places both famous and unknown. The
images here include mountain peaks
from California’s Sierras to the Cana-
dian Rockies, Hawaii’s Na Pali Coast to
the Italian Dolomites. Gore will travel toalmost any length in order to create truly
notable landscape imagery. This goes for
the locations he chooses as well as the
methods he employs.ORIGIN OF AN ARTIST
Years ago, before a family trip up the
California coast, Gore’s father handed
him a point-and-shoot digital camera. In
the hands of the young outdoorsman, this
immediately sparked an interest.
“I remember showing my dad a picture
I had taken,” Gore says, “and he imparted
some words that have always stuck with
me. It was something to the effect of,
‘That looks great, but remember it’s easy
to take beautiful pictures of beautiful
things. Try taking beautiful pictures of
not-beautiful things.’ It really struck me
and revealed one of the core foundations
of good photography: finding beauty in
the unexpected and obscure.”
Gore was studying to be a chemical
engineer when, during his senior year at
Georgia Tech, he discovered a love for
video, filmmaking and motion graph-
ics. That led him on a new path, even-
tually landing in Los Angeles, where he
works as a motion graphic designer on
high-profile film and television projects.
The visual sophistication and process-
ing techniques he has honed there have
helped shape the aesthetic that makes his
landscapes so unique.
“My career has definitely been related,”
he says, “and I think it has given me spe-
cific knowledge and tools that have made
my adoption of landscape photography
somewhat easy. I already knew Pho-
toshop, and my knowledge of graphic
design really helped me in understanding
how to compose and arrange elements in
a scene to flow more pleasingly to the
eye. Studying color theory really brought
an interesting perspective to landscapeMorning Brush. Winter in the
Eastern Sierra reveals a colorful
array of foliage that’s a highlight
of the area and provides the best
photographic opportunities. The
Owens River meanders on for miles
through the Owens River Valley along
the base of the impressive High
Sierra mountains.outdoorphotographer.com December 2019 41