Often when we are asking "why", we should be asking "how".  Our deductive reasoning nature drives the who, what, when, where, how, why in us all. Science asks "how", whereas religions ask, seek, and configure "why", when a reason neither exists nor is necessary. 

At its best, photographing in nature is being in a place and time while understanding that it is changing before our eyes. Although we don't stay long enough to register that change, realizing that what we are seeing right now has, in reality, already passed is thrilling and assuring. 

By moving past the bucket list/epic approach to landscapes, we can then realize what the allure, the inner call, really is. We are connecting, we are immersing ourselves in that place and in that moment. This is why the most powerful experiences, at least for me, are when I am alone photographing a place that has completely enthralled. The ensuing image is a shadow of that experience, an experience that lives on and can never be taken away. In that moment, the camera is secondary, almost superfluous, except that it could be the reason I got there!

The immersion of photographing that moment transforms into a unifying experience. There is no "why", and "how" fades into the background of now.

The landscape simply is, I simply am, and, for a blissful moment, it is being at one.