The Shooters - Pemaquid Point Lighthouse, Pemaquid, Maine

I usually don't include people in my landscape photos unless I am trying to accentuate scale or some other element. I am not sure why I don't include the human element, as plenty of other photographers do so quite successfully. I accidentally learned about my tendency not to include people in my photos very early on during my life-long photography journey. It was in the early 1980's and I had gone with a co-worker to shoot some gardens outside Philadelphia. When we had the film developed, we were showing our photos to others in the office. One person asked if we had shot in the same location. I was a bit puzzled by the question and asked why did he think we didn't. His response was that there were no people in any of my photos and there were lots of people in my co-worker's photos.

Even today, I have this unconscious tendency. For this photo, I overcame it to show the scale of the cliffs around Pemaquid Point Lighthouse. To the left of me is John Bishop, who was one of the few of our group that climbed down the rocks. Up at the lighthouse level are a few members of our group that seem to be mere specks in the scene.