The Grandeur Gap: Why We Hide From Each Other in Epic Places
The wind is whipping at 25 miles per hour across the ridge, a sharp, biting cold that makes the skin on the back of my neck prickle. To the left, the jagged teeth of the mountains cut into a sky that looks like a bruised plum. To the right, there is a drop that would take a good 145 seconds to tumble down. In the center of this majestic, terrifying frame, two people are standing 5 feet apart. They have driven 255 minutes to reach this specific trailhead. They have hiked for another 75 minutes to reach this specific overlook. And yet, as the sun begins its slow, orange bleed toward the horizon, they are both staring at the glowing rectangles in their palms, checking the cellular signal that doesn’t exist at 8005 feet.
I am watching them from the shadows of a weathered hemlock. It occurs to me that the sheer scale of the landscape is being used as a structural support for a relationship that has lost its own weight-bearing capacity. There is a specific kind of silence that happens in the wild. Sometimes it is the silence of reverence, but more often, it is the silence of two people who have run out of things to say and have decided to let the topography do the talking for them. We have become obsessed with the ‘epic’ backdrop, convinced that if the scenery is breathtaking enough, we won’t notice that we are actually struggling to breathe in the presence of the person standing right next to us.
I spent 15 years pronouncing the word ‘epitome’ as ‘epi-tome,’ like a large book about bees. I said it in meetings. I said it to my mother. I said it with the confidence of a person who believes they are holding a map when they are actually holding a restaurant menu. This realization hit me recently, a sudden, sharp embarrassment that made me question every other certainty I carry. It is the same feeling I get when I look at these grand, sweeping landscape photos. We think the mountain is the epitome of the moment, but we are just misreading the language of the entire experience.
The Micro-Movements Over the Macro-View
We over-index on the geography because the geography is easy. A mountain does not require you to be vulnerable. A canyon does not ask you why you have been distant since last Tuesday. A waterfall does not point out that you haven’t looked into your partner’s eyes for more than 5 seconds at a time in the last 45 days. The landscape is a magnificent distraction. It is a way to fill the void with granite and pine needles so we don’t have to acknowledge the echoing space between two sets of shoulders.
The Visual Lie: The Stiff vs. The Intimate
Couples spend fortunes chasing the vast, untamed look, but the image often lacks true gravitational pull.
Gravitational Lean
Shared Focus
I’ve watched couples spend $855 on gear, drive across 5 state lines, and wake up at 4:45 in the morning just to stand in front of a vista. They want the ‘epic’ shot. They want the world to see them as part of something vast and untamed. But look closer at the photos. Often, the bodies are stiff. The hands are tucked into pockets. There is a lack of lean, a lack of the gravitational pull that happens when two people are truly intertwined. They are two separate entities placed in front of a giant rock. The rock is doing every bit of the emotional heavy lifting. If you took the mountain away and put those same two people in a beige hallway, the image would be devastatingly lonely.
This is where the artistry of someone like
becomes so vital. It isn’t just about knowing which 35mm lens to use or how to time the golden hour so the light hits the 25 peaks in the distance. It is about the terrifyingly difficult task of forcing the subjects to actually look at each other. It is about stripping away the crutch of the scenery and finding the small, jagged, beautiful truths that exist in the space between two humans. A great photographer knows that a mountain is just a mountain, but a shared glance is a universe.
[the scenery is a witness, not a participant]
I remember a session I witnessed near a lake. The water was a perfect, glassy blue, reflecting 15 different shades of the sky. The couple was beautiful, dressed in clothes that cost more than my first 5 cars combined. But they were brittle. You could feel the tension vibrating off them like heat from a radiator. They kept looking at the camera, then at the horizon, then at their feet. They never looked at each other. Every time the photographer asked them to move closer, they moved 5 millimeters, as if they were repelling magnets. The landscape was stunning, but the photo was a lie. It was a document of two people who had traveled 555 miles to avoid talking about why they felt like strangers.
We use the epic as a mask. If we are standing in front of something grand, we must be grand, right? If the background is adventurous, we must be an adventurous couple. It is a form of branding that replaces being. We have traded intimacy for aesthetic. We have traded the messy, difficult work of being present for the clean, filtered achievement of being ‘there.’
The Sound of Meaning
I find myself thinking back to my ‘epi-tome’ mistake. I was so sure I knew what the word meant because I had seen it in print. I hadn’t heard the heart of the word. I hadn’t listened to the way it was supposed to sound. We do this with our lives. We see the ‘print’ of a relationship-the vacations, the backdrops, the 15-post Instagram carousels-and we assume we know the meaning. But the meaning is in the sound. It is in the 5 minutes of quiet morning coffee. It is in the way a person handles your 45th mid-life crisis of the year.
When we stop using the landscape as a shield, something uncomfortable happens. We become small. Standing in front of a 10005-foot peak makes you feel insignificant, which is actually a relief if you are trying to hide. But when you turn away from the peak and look at your partner, you are no longer small. You are the entire world for that person. That is a much heavier responsibility than just standing in front of a camera. It requires you to be seen. It requires you to acknowledge that the 155-mile drive was just a preamble to the actual journey, which is the 5 inches of distance between your heart and theirs.
The Weight of Presence
To feel insignificant before a mountain is easy camouflage. To realize you are the *entire world* for one person-that is the true, heavy responsibility that epic scenery distracts us from.
– The shift from scale to proximity.
I am not saying we should stay home. The world is too beautiful to be ignored. But perhaps we should start treating the landscape as a witness rather than a participant. A mountain should be the frame, not the subject. The subject should be the way you hold each other’s hands when the wind picks up. The subject should be the 5 seconds of genuine laughter when one of you trips over a root.
I’ve decided to stop trying to pronounce everything perfectly. I’ve decided to embrace the fact that I will probably make 155 more mistakes before the end of this month. And I’ve decided that the next time I find myself in a place that feels epic, I am going to spend at least 55 percent of my time looking at the people I am with, rather than the view. Because the mountain will still be there in 255 years, but the way the light catches my daughter’s eyelashes is a one-time-only event.
We think we are chasing the horizon, but we are actually fleeing the center. We drive 5 hours to find a backdrop because we are afraid that without it, we are just two people in a room with nothing to say. But maybe the silence isn’t something to be filled with granite. Maybe the silence is the place where the real work begins.
[closeness is the only architecture that lasts]
The Failure of the Frame
If you look at a photograph and all you see is the mountain, the photographer has failed, or the couple has. A truly great image captures the 5 degrees of warmth between two bodies. It captures the 25 years of history in a single leaning of a head. It ignores the 1005-foot waterfall in favor of the way a finger traces the line of a jaw.
The True Subject
-
✓
The 5 degrees of warmth between two bodies.
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✓
The 25 years of history in a single lean.
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✗
The 1005-foot waterfall backdrop.
So, go to the mountains. Drive the 185 miles. Hike the 55 minutes to the secret spot. But when you get there, don’t just stand 5 feet apart and look at your phones. Turn around. Look at the person who shared the 255-minute car ride with you. Notice the 5 new grey hairs at their temples. Acknowledge the 15 ways they annoyed you this morning and the 5 ways they made you feel safe. That is the real view. Everything else is just rocks and dirt.
