Oct 3, 2014 | B&W Photography, Landscape Photography
Again today, one of the folks with us, Tony, found a really cool subject. And again today, they shared it with the rest of us. And again today we started with their original concept and refined it to what you see here. The “refines” were no more than to not shoot at eyelevel and to finish the photo as a black and white. Shooting still with the D750 and 20f1.8AFS, I had the luxury of simply popping open the LCD monitor, turn on the LiveView and put the camera on the ground and shoot. I so love that feature! And by going low, we were able to bring in the moon that even though small, will look cool in a big print. That took care of changing the angle of view.
The going to black and white was easy and in fact, even better than before. That’s because I’m using the new OnOne Perfect Suite 9 B&W! All I can say about it, is, freakin WOW! Just look at the gradation of that sky, it’s just gorgeous. The best part if simply how simple it is to do with 9 and if you are not really comfortable with B&W, well Suite 9 takes care of that too! So even though we didn’t have clouds, we had a great day at the Canyon and a great day of shooting. Can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings!
Mar 28, 2014 | B&W Photography
Back from a AMAZING trip on the OR Coast. Finishing some of the images and thought I’d share my basic thoughts through my Behance to help with your weekend projects. Enjoy!
Mar 21, 2014 | B&W Photography, Landscape Photography
at least the way you planned the night before, you punt! In this case, there were no clouds, no fog, no color so when working the romance of the shore, you do B&W. Now, I tend to go B&W at the shore alot in any case, but this morning I was actually wanting color. It’s OK, it was a gorgeous place to get skunked!
Shooting the D4s / 24-70AFS (top image) along with the Big Stopper (using one no longer manufactured) 18-35AFS (bottom image), the images were processed in ACR and then processed additionally in Silver Efex Pro. Dodging waves, watching birds and looking for the “silver” in the sand was a great way to spend the morning!
Mar 11, 2014 | B&W Photography
My bumper sticker states it simply: I Brake for Light! And I mean literally! We came over the rise and I saw the light on the spire and hit the brakes! Cruising up Hwy 163 towards Monument Vly, you can’t help but be inspired by the play of light on the landscape. I grabbed the D4 / 80-400 and shooting at 105mm, took what you see here. Everything about the photo is pretty straight forward except you might be wondering why I left the power pole in the photo. There are many reasons, scale, man encroachment on the landscape, detail, take your pick. It might disappear with time, literally and in my photo but for right now, it was a marvelous start to what I know will be a great adventure in this beautiful land, even if I don’t another click.
Mar 10, 2014 | B&W Photography
I knew that cloud would do that but it’s so small. What the hay, makes me smile.
Feb 19, 2014 | B&W Photography, Landscape Photography
What does Costner’s Wyatt Earp, City Slickers, 310 to Yuma and Cowboys & Aliens all have in common? They were all shot in part at Plaza Blanka. I’ve seen those white rock cliffs and often wondered if the location was only good for Hollywood. So finding that Plaza Blanca is not far from Santa Fe, we decided to see if we could find it and check it out for ourselves. Now, it is not easy to find unless you know the key, and that’s to find the pizzeria on 284 where you make the turn into the hills. The first day we went looking for it, we ended up in Taos which turned out great. But not wanting to fail, we looked for it the second day and had success finding it.
We arrived at the cliffs a bit early for the light but just at the right time for B&W photography. What’s the difference? Well, the light was still a little on the hard side. That’s to say the shadows were still pretty black. Now I honestly thought the white rock would bounce a whole more light around than they did. But not an issue, I just went into B&W mode. That’s using the contrast to bring out more texture, character in the rock. Now you might recognize this as the final fight scene from Cowboys & Aliens except the space ship is missing.
Keep in mind, we were all just cruising, photography was just a fun side note to the laughs and wonders we were enjoying. So I went on the walk light with just the Df / 18-35AFS and no filters. One of the amazing things was, there was literally no sign Hollywood had ever been on location here. We traveled extensively through Alabama Hills where you can finds signs of Hollywood 50yrs after the film was shot, but not a thing here. In fact, we had the place all to ourselves except for the Ravens that were performing overhead for us.
Key to making this all work is understanding that the highlights would be really bright, the shadows really dark and you arrange the elements in the frame accordingly. If there were NO clouds, there would have been NO photography. But such was not the case so they could be incorporated into the photos. With this understanding, shooting with the Df with its six stop range, the finishing was pretty simple. In ACR, the Shadow slider went to the right, the Highlight slider to the left and the White slider either way depending on the image. Because of the texture in the cliffs, I used Clarity a little more than I normally do. Then in Photoshop, I use Nik Silver Efex for the B&W conversion. It was a great start and as the light headed into the west, it just got better. mtc
