One of my favorite times to be out with romantic light on the landscape is after winter storms. The landscape is blanketed in white and the clouds are busy jostling for what remains of the moisture. The scene is in total flux as the winds push it all westward. At one moment there is nothing to photograph and the next, you can’t point and shoot fast enough. And there is no more romantic medium for the chase than B&W! That’s how it was yesterday afternoon as we traveled down the Bitterroot enjoying the views. The only challenge on the icy roads was finding a place to pull over safely, fast enough to make the shot as they were happening left and right as we drove.
I was out with the Z 9 shooting B&W. The Z 6II / Z 7II do a gorgeous job with B&W right out of the camera B&W files, I wanted to experience the Z 9 B&W update and it’s gorgeous! In a heartbeat, I made quick changes to my Picture Control settings and I was off to the races. A change I made that I didn’t see coming was to the firing rate. I don’t need 40 frames of a rock so I have to get use to changing the FPS when shooting landscapes. It was fun though, the Z 9 rips!

Is the storm coming, hammering the mountain top, already pounding the mountains or about to blow out? You can tell your story in camera simply with the push of a button and turn of a dial. Exposure must equal emotion, emotion that comes from you! When you see them clouds, how do YOU respond to them? Are they good or bad, about to ruin your photographic opportunity, or do they create one? Since only you know when you depress the shutter release, you can make them whatever you want and tell your story, yours!

In this case, they were bringing snow to the Chugach Mountains and causing me to hike out earlier than I planned. The storm while not a big one was causing me a big change in my plans. With that, I underexposed -1 stops to say the storm was incoming and bigger than it really was. Shooting B&W was a natural for the moment, underexposing for telling the story I was feeling. That’s what writing with light is all about, reaching down to your emotions and using the tools of photography to tell them. That brings out the power in the photograph as the storm rolls in.

From a mile away we saw that “white spot” on the black sands of the Oregon Beach. We knew instantly it was a Great Pyrenees which we have a huge soft spot for so we headed over. On the way, I had to make a click as they seemed very much alone. By the time we had walked up to Sheba, we could see she is old and we go on to learn she’s 13, really old for a Pyrenees. Its owner said we could greet Sheba and she felt old as well. We found out she’s on her last days and her owner wanted the last few to be the best possible. It seemed Sheba loves the beach, this quiet section so it’s where she’s spending her last moments. We took in Sheba’s view, made a couple of clicks and then said goodbye. I like Sheba’s beach!

In the perfect world, all could venture to the same locale that inspires us and take in the wonders we are so fortunate to do with our hearts and cameras. The next best thing is to invite those we share our images with to step into that moment with us through our photographs. When it comes to landscape photography the B&W screams that love affair we had. It permits to make the most of black to hide certain elements while including them. It permits us to speak in visual depth. And most importantly, it permits us to communicate with the power of light to the viewer that, “they need to be there!” Straight out of the camera, B&W is also very simple to bring home. Great memories and photographs, the romance of B&W!

The winds were howling in Hawthorne, NV as we pulled over on the shore of Walker Lake. The clouds we’d seen long before arriving at the lake were already in NY by the time we parked. The scene was charging that fast so my original thought about an image had changed many times. I stepped out of the truck at first with the Z70-200 but by the time I turned, I knew I needed wide. Grabbed the Z14-24f2.8 and put the camera to my eye and knew that wasn’t wide enough either. I love shooting at 14mm but as you can see here, a bunch of drama was not in the viewfinder. That’s when I knew I had to take a two image pano to bring in the all the drama. It’s so easy to do today! In ACR, bring in both images, click on making a pano, and done. The morale of the story, when working with a fleeting scene and you need to do wide, a two image pano can be faster than changing lenses!