Great End to a K&M Day
The view behind us and the view in front of us. This is such a gorgeous land, you can’t help but fall in love with it! Great end to a great day!
Monument Valley Screams Scale!
Well, It is a Star After All
The sun, I try to have it in every image I take. Sometimes directly but mostly indirectly. Our first stop this morning (and I want it on the record this morning, K&M started at 07:30!) was Elephant Mesa in Monument Valley. I have no doubt folks were wondering just what the hey I was seeing and thinking as I headed up the wash. Just looking at the scene with your eyes, there was no photograph. But with camera eyes, I say a very cool star burst to be made on a cool formation. Because the sun is a star after all, a star burst just makes perfect sense! What you see here is exactly what I saw with my imagination and bugged over to photograph.
Now how did I know where to walk to in order to get this star burst? Glad you asked, great question! There are a couple of things you need to make a star burst. First is the sun, then closing your lens down and in this case to f/22 and lastly clear skies. I had everything but the clear skies. So I shot over to where by looking on the ground, I could see the shadow from the mesa on the ground with the V from the sun coming through the slot. I went there because with the clouds, I wouldn’t have a clean star burst but rather, a big bright smudge. By carefully moving so the sun was just peaking over the edge of the cut in the mesa, I forced a star burst even with the clouds. The rest was done with a 5 image, hand held HDR (all this was taught to the folks with us so they could all know what I was seeing and confirming, I am nuts).
As I moved away from the mesa, you can see what the clouds do to the star burst. No setting changes were made, I just didn’t have the edge of the rock to make the sun a small light source causing it to flare. It simply doesn’t have the same impact. And this bottom image? Well that’s my favorite. This was the last shot taken when I walked way left because the earth had moved placing the sun further to the west. This permitted me to incorporate a foreground and background much more interesting. So while you’re using a technique to make a star burst, using software to combine exposures, you still have to incorporate the basics of photography to make the final image sing. This is simply just great, fun photography when the light would normally be considered, yuck. Never loose site, it is a star after all!
In the Bag
K&M Adventures – It’s How We Roll
The view from The View as K&M Adventures wakes for it’s first day in Monument Valley. It gorgeous!
I Wasn’t Going to Just Drive By Again!
I’ve driven past this sign in route to Monument Valley so many times and as I going wizing by, I mumble at myself for not stopping. Well, heading Monument Valley today on our first day of our K&M Adventures, I said I wasn’t doing to just drive by again. The clouds and light on this ’40s gas station sign was too cool to be ignored.
I have no doubt some in the van thought I was nuts for stopping, but I am nuts. Now I really like the photos, they are a part of our motoring past and mother nature has made the sign modern art as far as I’m concerned. Making the image was pretty simple. Set the camera to -1 exp comp, 5 frame hand held HDR and click. Assembled in Photomatix Pro then finish in PS with Color Efec Pro 4 > Tonal Contrast and a Levels layer. And now, I have the sign and don’t feel guilty for just driving by!
In the Bag
I Shoot Rocks
I’m the son of a rock hound. I grew up with a museum quality collection in my own home that caught my imagination from the very start. Rocks a gazillion years old, fragile ones, hard as rock ones, expensive ones, out of this world as in meteorite ones, fossil ones and even uncut gem ones, (even played with a moon rock). To this day I can still remember going through the drawers of rocks bug-eyed! The one thing that really fascinated me is looking at the collection under different light sources, seeing a whole new world revealed by simply changing the light. Is it any wonder, I shoot rocks?!
While the geology lessons I learned in the process are long forgotten, the light on the rock lessons seems to have stuck. I mean, a rock is a rock is a rock until you light it and then, it can be just about anything your imagination says it is in your photograph! Rocks have a couple of properties I like to exploit in my photographs. There is place, time, shape and texture. These concepts are not unique to just rock photography. But what’s cool about practicing on rocks is they have all the time in the world for you to get it right!
Rocks come in lots of sizes, from those you can place on your desk and light with a flashlight to big ass ones. My favorite Big Ass Rock is Mt McKinley up in AK. We have sat on the slope ten miles away just watching it and the weather it creates for hours at a time. When it comes to photographing it, my favorite lenses are long ones, 600VR or 200-400VR2. Why so long? I want to give that big ass rock place, I want to say in one click without any caption, it’s big! The trick then is not just the lens, but light and atmosphere. If you’ve ever been to Denali Nat’l Park, then you know that just seeing McKinley can be a real trick so you click when you see it because, you can see it. Getting picky might not be an option but that’s just rock photography for you!
On the flip side is a favorite rock of mine I call Split Ass Rock. When I first blogged this photo back in 2001 it got attention more because I was photographed with the brand new, nobody had D1x. Then the laughter about my name for it made it pretty well known. I still get emails asking where is Split Ass Rock in Acadia Nat’l Park on the shore of Jordan Pond? When we took DLWS participants to shoot at the pond, I was asked where the rock was and when I pointed at it, you should have seen the disappointment in folk’s faces. That’s because the rock is so damn small. By getting down in the pond, shooting with a 14-24AFS just a few inches away though, you’d never know it was small. This is just one method of setting place and time in a photo.
One thing I remember so vividly from the drawers of rocks in my mom’s collection was the texture. Each rock / mineral was unique in its texture and weight. When we’d move the black light around, you’d see not only those features but different colors as well. That’s probably why when I’m out rock shooting, I walk around rocks looking. As you walk around, the first thing you’ll notice the pattern of light changes and that either brings our or hides texture and shape (a play of highlights and shadows). A real simple exercise, find a rock and light it with a flashlight and then do a 360 around it. What makes that rock unique will come out at some point and be hidden at another. It’s all a matter of light.
I did a workshop a few years back with my good friend RC. We were at a local lake shooting when I noticed some folks shooting rocks sticking out of the water at edge of the shore. In my typical style, I just made one comment about the photograph. Dry Rocks Suck and walked away. The photographer took their foot and splashed water on the rocks and low and behold, they didn’t suck no more! This is why I often have a bucket with me, to bring life to them rocks when they are in water with water. The colors, shape, texture that pops is better than any Photoshop pluggin can produce!
Now admitting in public I shoot rocks does sound, bad. Teaching folks to shoot rocks, sounds like I’ve lost my marbles (a form of rock humor). But I have seen many a shooter of rocks totally baffled by something that never moves and is older than dirt. I think it is because we are visually trying to bring life to something that doesn’t live. What does move is the light and that’s where the challenge lies. Next comes the fact that rocks aren’t often alone, they tend to keep company with other rocks. Most photographers not wanting to hurt the rocks feelings so they include them all in the photo. But you know what they say about company, too many rocks is a crowd! I mean, how many rocks do you need in a photograph to say, it’s a rock?!
Whether alone or in a pile, rocks talk about our earth probably better than any other element because they are something everyone can relate to. The trick then photographically, is to make the uncommon photograph out of the common subject. Perhaps if you tackle this problem with this one element thinking of place, time, shape and texture using just light to speak of these attributes, you might not only come up with some cool rock photos, but improve your overall photography just by understanding light a little bit better. Don’t feel silly giving this a try either. Just remember who suggested it to you. My name is Moose, I shoot rocks!
In the Bag