2 Lenses, Endless Landscapes
Drew Peden’s Tamron 17-28mm F2.8 ultra-wide-angle and 35-150mm F2-2.8 lenses help him show off the beauty of nature around the world and close to home.
Author: Jenn Gidman
Images: Drew Peden
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Drew Peden’s Tamron 17-28mm F2.8 ultra-wide-angle and 35-150mm F2-2.8 lenses help him show off the beauty of nature around the world and close to home.
Becoming a landscape and travel photographer wasn’t a terribly big swerve for Drew Peden. “Growing up, I spent most of my days in the mountains of North Carolina, so I have a deep appreciation for just how truly beautiful nature is,” he says. “For me, there’s no other feeling quite like being away from a city and fully immersing myself in the landscapes around me. My style of photography in this vein is very simple, but impactful. I don’t do a crazy amount of editing—I try to keep things as natural as possible and let the landscapes speak for themselves.”
For a recent series of photos taken in Iceland, Yosemite National Park, and closer to home in the Tar Heel State’s Blue Ridge Mountains, Drew’s goal was to challenge his creativity one landscape photo at a time. To help him accomplish that goal, Drew made sure to pack his trusted Tamron 17-28mm F/2.8 Di III RXD ultra-wide-angle zoom and 35-150mm F/2-2.8 Di III VXD all-in-one zoom lenses.
“For me, these two lenses work perfectly hand in hand for landscape and travel photography,” he says. “The 17-28mm F2.8 is perfect for achieving extremely wide-angle shots of mountain ranges or waterfalls, while the 35-150mm F2-2.8 is perfect for capturing tighter detail photos. Shooting that latter lens at 150mm offers me nice compression in my landscape photos and makes for some epic layered shots. The sharpness can’t be beat, and the wide apertures on both lenses ensure I can shoot in all kinds of lighting conditions.”
As a busy husband and dad of two, Drew doesn’t always have the ability to take off for distant locales to indulge his photographic passion. “I had to change the way that I think about landscape photography and learn to get creative in areas closer to home,” he says. “No matter where I am in the world, though, I know my Tamron lenses will help me get the photos I want.”
Read on for some of Drew’s favorite landscape photography tips, in your own backyard or across the globe.
DREW’S QUICK TIPS
Use nature’s elements to help set up your shot.
The Rutshellir Cave, one of the largest man-made caves in Iceland, was once used as a storehouse by the farmer who owned the land. Now it’s a popular spot to stop and snap a few photos. I loved being able to use all the leading lines of the stone path leading to the cave, as well as the scale of the rock face behind it, to add a special feel to the image. The only thing I had to avoid while taking this picture was being chased by resident sheep.
Incorporate layers.
As someone who grew up in North Carolina and still lives in the area, I often frequent the Blue Ridge Mountains, one of the oldest mountain ranges in the world. My main goal for a photo like the one you see here is to capture those mesmerizing mountain layers and show off how underrated North Carolina landscapes are. There’s no better way to add depth to a landscape image than adding layers.
Show off the vastness of Mother Nature.
The Yosemite Valley, a glacial valley in California’s Yosemite National Park, needs no introduction—it’s one of the most spectacular views in the park, if not in the whole country. Using the versatility of the Tamron 35-150mm F2-2.8 lens, I captured these two images with the goal of showing off just how truly beautiful the park is, how vital and important it is to protect our national parks, and just how deep the valley is. The staggering mountain peaks that tower over you while you’re in that valley make you realize how small we are as humans compared to this amazing planet.
Hang tight for that perfect moment.
You may have to exercise a certain amount of patience to get the shot you want. The only issue in taking the Yosemite photos mentioned previously was avoiding the crowds of people all looking to get the same exact picture. The same with the photo here of the Seljalandsfoss waterfall in Iceland, the first stop on my Iceland road trip with my wife. I had to wait until all the people moving around in the foreground and background stopped moving around. I was blown away by the true scale of the waterfall, which the Tamron 17-28mm F2.8 helped me capture beautifully.
To see more of Drew Peden’s work, check out his website and Instagram.