Jul 5, 2012 | Landscape Photography
It’s my favorite time of the year in the Eastern Sierra, monsoon season! Monsoon moisture down in the Gull of California brings the moisture and the heat of the Owens Valley makes the afternoon clouds. In the mid afternoon, we can have down pours that literally create creeks where hours before was dirt. Other than the lightning hitting a very dry forest possibly causing fires, this summer event is something I always look forward to. Why? The clouds have such drama that you can almost shoot anything with them and you have a great photo. It takes no talent, just some time.
There are many ways to photograph these massive towers of moisture but chasing them at sunset it one of the most rewarding. The challenge is finding the spot to make your stand. That’s because as the sun sets, the thunderheads loose their main power source and as such, loose their energy and dissipate. They also loose their energy as they drop their moisture (known as rain). These factors make the clouds fall apart really fast. I’ve chased these giants many times only to have them turn into nothing in minutes. See the peaks in the foreground in there photos? They are there not only because of scale but also because they keep sending up jets of energy which keeps the clouds around as long as possible. If you look at my big cloud photos, you almost will always see peaks in the foreground, that’s my trick.
Photographically, remember two things, you need a split grad and need to switch WB to Cloudy. The tops of the thunderheads can be thousands of feet above their base which means they still have sun when the bases do not. You don’t want that white at the top taking the eye up and away. Use the split grad to pull them tops back down. Switch to Cloudy WB not because you’re shooting clouds but for the reds. AWB just never captures the reds like Cloudy and your want the reds. After that, just have fun and enjoy the show. It’s one of Mother Nature’s best!
Jun 29, 2012 | Landscape Photography
Those who know me know I love history and my bud Kevin knows this really well. So we got in the car and headed up to Abilene and the Eisenhower Presidential Library. The adventure turned out to be a double header because at the Library is the Smithsonian traveling exhibit Elvis at 21. This is an exhibit from 8 days of photography of Elvis by 28yrs old photographer Alfred Wertheimer (AW) in the days of film with available light. The smallest print was 30×40 and they were all stunning! What a killer start.
A native Abilene, it was easy to understand quickly many of the decisions Eisenhower made first as a general in WWII and than president. The top photo is of his and Mamie’s resting place. Next is a photo of the home where Eisenhower grew up, the informal parlor looking into the formal parlor. If the rooms look small, they are! It was pointed out a number of times the home was on the wrong side of the tracks, the family of 8 lived in a small home but it was a happy home with simple, basic old fashion values. The Eisenhower’s raised very successful kids with Dwight being the top of the list. The bottom photo is the home itself. The home & museum took us hours to walk through, see and learn, great place to spend an afternoon.
All three of these photos are five image HDR, shot with the D800 with MB-D12 and 24f1.4 AFS with the HDR being done in CS6 using Nik HDR Pro. Looking at these images, you might be wondering why I used HDR. At least, I think you should be wondering why and at the same time thinking, “They don’t look like HDR.” The top image, the exposure range from stain glass windows to the marble floor was too great for one click. The middle image, I wanted those green shrubs to come through the drapes and the light that falls off through the room to come through. That couldn’t be done with one click. And the bottom image, why HDR there? See that deep shadow of the tree on the right, I didn’t want to loose that detail and with one click, you’d see a white bldg and that’s it. I wanted the warm summer day to come through. It was another great day learning about our own history with some good photography added for good measure. Life is good!
Jun 28, 2012 | Landscape Photography
The Great Hall at the Nat’l Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum is simply amazing! The huge murals, one in each corner are simply spectacular! This one of lower Yellowstone Falls is one I would love to have in my house, if it was the size of s football field. After asking a museum volunteer if I could shoot in the room and being told it was OK (a big function was going on), I started thinking. I wanted to show that size in the photo, how do you do that? Gotta have something for scale and there is nothing better than a person. Going to the other side of the room, I shot with the 50f1.4AFS to keep lines as straight as possible. Then I had Sharon stand as you see her with a gesture saying one thing about viewing these gorgeous paintings.
Then we had Chris stand as you see him here with a totally different body gesture making a totally different statement. I really like them both, each saying differently about the impact these paintings can have on an individual. The photos taken with the D800 at ISO 1600 are simple clicks right out of the camera. I stood there looking at this mural for a long time, could stand there looking at them for a whole lot longer. I strongly urge you to go there, stand, and take them in for a long time as well!
Jun 28, 2012 | Landscape Photography
If you are a lover of light, if you want to improve your landscape photography, it you want to be transported back to a different time, you must go to the Nat’l Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, OK. My good bud Kevin took us there while we were in Wichita and I’m so glad he did! This is a marvelous place we spent four hours touring, taking in our heritage and the art celebrating it!
Being partly a art museum, there are places where you can’t take pictures and that’s the way it should be. You should take hours just looking at the landscapes and the way they paint the light falling on it. Some of my favorite paintings are hanging on these walls, the originals that you can just stand there and take in. There are oils, watercolors, pencil, bronze, just a marvelous collection to get lost in. Then there is the western native American art section which is spectacular (you see here). Then you wonder into the western movie section, history section and on and on. It’s just marvelous!
Then there is the western town they’ve built inside for you to explore. You see here a ISO 1600, 5 frame HDR from the D800. The town is lit as if midnight and being display lighting, HDR was called for (no tripod, handheld). This is a museum for the senses that you just have to get to, I can’t recommend it enough! Oh yeah…shot with the 50f1.4AFS at ISO 1600 the whole time, love that lens!
Jun 7, 2012 | Landscape Photography
How do you express scale in a photograph? I could include a dime, what we do in wildlife photography but I just have this feeling you might not even see it. That’s when I start messing with your mind as I think about it, story telling is a nicer and more common way to think about it. The subject, what you’ve always have to establish in your photograph, in this case are the clouds releasing their snow on the Mono Hills (actually extinct volcanoes). To make the clouds appear much bigger than they really are, I included those peaks far of in the distance.
The bigger the peaks seem, the bigger the storm so that’s what I focus in on. Both images were taken with the D4 and 70-200VR2 (using the D4 Landscape Profile which I’m really liken) with only two slight changes between the two photos. The top image was taken from the ground at 120mm with the cloud not fully casting a cloud on the foreground. The bottom image was taken standing on a bench at 155mm four minutes later when the foreground was in shade.
We’re talking real subtle changes in taking the two images but to me there is a big visual difference between the two images. In the top photo, those two peaks appear more like they really are in life, kinda small. The bottom frame, those two peaks look much bigger then they really are. That in combination with shooting just a tad tighter makes the clouds, the subject, appear much more menacing and that’s the story telling. Both images were finished the same in ACR and then Nik’s Color Efex Pro 4 > Detail Enhancer on just the clouds. So the moral of all of this is take the extra second and use those simple put important elements to give your landscape scale and the visual impact will be much greater!
Jun 6, 2012 | Landscape Photography
That’s all that’s needed to communicate in a landscape photo you’ve got big clouds. Here’s an example. This is Mono Lake a couple of weeks ago when a storm blew through. The clouds are the subject and I want to say they fill the sky. The slope around Mono Lake to the south has a real slant to it and with the light falling the way it was, it is really dark. The lake itself though is a silver sliver. These are color photographs, not B&W. So I prefer the bottom image with just a sliver of lake and then the slope supporting the rest of the photo. I’ve got some more examples of what I’m talking about I’ll post later.
