The Art of Resilience
After the loss of his wife, Greg Piazza finds solace in his landscape photography.
Author: Jenn Gidman
Images: Greg Piazza
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After the loss of his wife, Greg Piazza finds solace in his landscape photography.
Greg Piazza first turned to art two decades ago to help him grieve the loss of his brother. Inspired by the black-and-white landscape photos of Ansel Adams and under the mentorship of Alan Ross, Adams’ longtime assistant, Greg has honed his skill in reading shifting light and shadows in his environment to create photos with the mood he intends to impress upon the viewer. Occasionally he will even veer into the abstract.
His photography has also served once more as a measure of solace for him amid personal tragedy. In June 2023, Greg lost his wife, Jennifer, to cancer, and he’s since been trying to rediscover himself, camera in hand. “I have to try to figure out what my life is going to look like again,” he says. “Part of that is simply continuing to keep doing what I was doing before, which is exploring the landscapes in front of me and documenting them in relation to my life.”
Whether he’s photographing the textures of winter in the Italian Alps or Grand Tetons, exploring the spring blooms in Arkansas, or gazing upon the misty mountain ranges of New Mexico, Greg relies on his two go-to lenses from Tamron: the SP 24-70mm F/2.8 Di VC USD G2 standard zoom and the SP 70-200mm F/2.8 Di VC USD G2 telephoto lens. “I have each of these lenses attached to a separate camera body, so I have the full focal-length range of what I’m looking to shoot without ever having to swap lenses,” he says. “When I’m just out for a hike, I’ll usually take the 24-70mm F2.8 VC G2 with me. If I’m in a place where I know I’ll need a slightly longer reach, I’ll pack the 70-200mm F2.8 VC G2 as well.”
The versatility of these two lenses, along with their maximum F2.8 aperture and Vibration Compensation (VC) technology to tamp down on camera shake, allows Greg to shoot handheld even in challenging conditions, like the frigid temps he endured in Wyoming’s Jackson Hole, where it was negative 30 degrees Fahrenheit during his visit. “It was brutal,” he says. “I’ve never experienced cold like that. But my Tamron lenses were up to the challenge.”
GREG’S QUICK TIPS
Expose correctly.
When photographing winter landscapes, exposure can be tricky due to the intense reflectivity of the snow and bright light conditions. In locations like Italy’s Aosta Valley, where snow-covered mountains meet clear skies, it’s important to compensate for the camera’s tendency to overexpose in snowy settings. To maintain detail in both the snow’s texture and distant landscapes, underexposing a bit can help preserve those fine textures without washing out the snow.
Layer up.
Creating layers, as I did here in the “Morning Skies” photo taken in New Mexico, can add depth and visual interest to your images. Mountains often get washed out in places like this, especially when it’s a hazy morning, but by shooting it in black and white to accentuate the varying textures of the foreground shrubbery, the mountains themselves, and that dramatic, stormy sky, I was able to add much more dimension to the picture. The same applied for “Shine Down,” which shows a fog-enshrouded mountain in the Grand Tetons.
Add a splash of color.
Despite my Ansel Adams leanings, sometimes I’ll feel that a scene calls for some color, especially in bleak winter landscapes. When I spotted this stand of snow-covered trees in Wyoming’s Jackson Hole, in the Grand Tetons, with the mountains obscured by clouds and fog, the dark blue of the mountains contrasted so nicely with the warmer sky touched by the sun. When I flipped it to black and white during the editing process, it didn’t have the same impact as the color version.
Same for the dogwood trees I captured in Hot Springs, Arkansas, with the beginnings of the spring bloom on their branches. Most of the trees were still bare, but to me, those soft pops of yellow from the flowers resonated with me during this transition phase of my life—new life blooming above my head, with light shining down through it.
Break from the norm.
My wife was from Kansas, and her favorite flower was the sunflower. I spotted this sunflower field on the drive to my Airbnb near Alessandria, Italy. I was amazed at how huge the flowers were. I see a lot of sunflower pics where people are up on ladders or stools so they can shoot down and capture the entire field. I wanted to approach them from a lower perspective, shooting up at them so that you could see the storm gathering in the sky behind them.
Although people usually shoot sunflower photos in color to show off the vibrant yellows, I chose to show this shot in black and white. I wanted to emphasize the details and textures in the flowers and leaves. I did add a warm tone to the final print, which I have hanging in my home now.
To see more of Greg Piazza’s work, check out his website and Instagram.