Q. Your web site includes primarily pictures of national parks, such as Arches, Banff, Glacier, and Yosemite. What is it about photographing the national parks that is so special to you?

It's the spectacular beauty of those parks that draws me in. How could a person not be awe-struck by the scenery in those places? Photography has always been a way for me to capture just a tiny bit of the feeling I have while there and relive it later on. I can look at a photograph and be transported back to the moment when I took it. I guess my brilliant answer boils down to, "It's truly beautiful and I'm inspired to take pictures of the scenery." I don't get that feeling with other subjects. In fact, without that inspiration I'm a terrible photographer. You don't even want to see what happens when I try to shoot sports or people. Let's just say I'm sticking to landscape photography.

My web site is an outlet where I'm able to share those moments and landscapes with friends, family, and web surfers from around the world. It's a real joy to hear from someone that has enjoyed my photos, either as a reminder of their own trip or because the beauty of the scene captivated them.

Q. Do you have a favorite park for photographing? 

I'm going to cheat here. My favorite park to "visit" is Yosemite National Park. I feel so at peace there (that is, once I get away from the crowds) and the hiking is unparalleled. But if we are talking strictly photography, I'd have to say the parks in the Southwest. To have such diversity in scenery -- Arches, Bryce, Zion, Grand Canyon -- within a region is unbelievable.

Last light at the Grand Canyon
photo property of Kim Steinbacher

Q. You read different opinions on what it takes to get great pictures. So, is it art or is it science? 

Oh, I'm terrible with science--and even worse with the technical side of photography--so art it is! I have always felt whatever skills I exhibit as a photographer relate more to my sense of composition and appreciation of color rather than my ability to correctly set a shutter speed.

Clearly you will become a better photographer if you understand the basic mechanics of the process--the relationship between aperture and shutter speed, the effect a chosen aperture has on the depth of field, etc. But with the prevalence of auto-everything cameras I think the success of a given photograph can attributed to the artistic vision of the photographer.

Norris Geyser Basin at Yellowstone
photo property of Kim Steinbacher

Let me give you an example. In peak tourist months in Yosemite National Park, Sentinel Bridge is jammed with tripod-toting photographers, all there to capture Half Dome at sunset. Most photographers have a camera meter that will give them a pretty decent reading. The originality comes into play when the photographers decide how to compose their shots. One particular evening, when there were only a few of us photographers remaining, we took turns looking through each other's viewfinders. You know what? Every one of us had a different composition of of the scene before us.

I can't do depth of field calculations in my head nor could I ever explain it to anyone. Those lens tests is photography magazines? Greek to me. After years of photography I have a reasonable level of technical competence that simply comes with the territory. But for me it will always be more about the art of making a picture instead of the science of technical prowess.

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