Nov 4, 2011 | Landscape Photography
I broke my mold and put a person in the landscape. Photography has brought me many blessings, way too many to ever count. One of those has to be the day this gracious man answered my email and said he’d love to join me on a venture known as DLWS. I have learned much from Joe, some are the obvious things like flash. But most are those things salts like ourselves have in common and can share from surviving on the road with a camera for three decades. Our last evening together at DLWS, true to form as repeated many times in the past, we were seated for dinner away from the rest of the patrons, out where we could be loud and laugh and celebrate the joys only the click can bring. For all the times from our past and for all those yet to come, I have no words except Thanks!
Nov 4, 2011 | Landscape Photography
I have been asked what are my favorite images from our recent time in Moab. I really don’t think about my images in that way, I don’t pick favorites. I do have those in which I have a personal attachment to because of the experience in making the image is special to me. That could be from a number of things. The first image was taken along Park Avenue where the recent rains left many puddles. I was shooting with my good friend Chris when I came up to him trying to make this shot. I laid down on the rock to give him a couple of ideas which is when I shot this image. If he wasn’t there working the spot, I know I would have not stopped nor lay down on the rock. Right after, McNally laid down next to me and in usual juvenal fashion, we were stupid there for all to see. That makes this image special to me.
This is another of those laying down images. After walking up into Double Arch, I laid backwards to just stretch my back and I saw this. I put the 16Fish to my eye and liked what I saw. I’m actually looking behind me in this photo. In this thumbnail, you can’t see the folks in the foreground and behind, just clear blue sky. Lots of information, lots of light so the 16Fish and a 9 images HDR handheld was the call for capture.
This photo has a whole lot wrapped up in it. Stormy clouds, long run coming to an end. Color meeting black. I have a lot of images of this nature from around the country in my files. I’ve always entertained doing something with them but I just never seem to have the right ones to tell my story. That’s because I’m still not sure what that story is. That’s the cool thing about photography and life, you might wake up each day with an idea where you want to go but that road you enter, it might take you in a totally different direction. So my “favorites” from the week don’t have anything to do with incredible imagery but the moment that went into the click. Life is a marvelous thing, I always feel fortunate I get to experience with a camera in hand.
Nov 4, 2011 | Landscape Photography
Cisco is this really cool place that I’ve blogged about many times. In fact, one of the residents said, “Yeah, photographers seem to come here all the time now. Someone blogged about it and now they all come.” Opps! If you blink while driving by Cisco, you will miss it. There simply isn’t much to it. There are so many ways to approach shooting at Cisco, this time I decided to go with the one lens approach. I wanted to find subjects that fit my perception of Cisco, a lonely place once a thriving community full of dreams. The lens I went with was the 50f1.4AFS, a wickedly sharp lens. I shot the entire time at f1.4, that narrow DOF bringing in the loneliness of Cisco. I found only 13 subjects that fit my quest and of those, these three I really like. I was with the gang when I saw the bottom image, definitely my favorite. I bent over to get the perspective you see here. I must have looked really funny because everyone stopped and asked, “What does he see?” Now they know.
Photos captured by D3s, 50f1.4AFS on Lexar UDMA digital film
Nov 3, 2011 | Landscape Photography
That sky is real, it’s not a B&W version attached to a color foreground! That’s just amazingly powerful and I love it! These four blog postings came in about 20min of great photography because as you might expect, it started to rain. Wow, really sweet!
Nov 3, 2011 | Landscape Photography
I was thinking B&W the whole time I was shooting. I even explained to the gang how the Structure Slider in Silver Efex Pro would really pull out amazing detail from the clouds. But then I processed the images and I saw that color didn’t suck either. The red landscape of UT is gorgeous, and it worked!
Photos captured by D3x, 24-70AFS on Lexar UDMA digital film
Nov 3, 2011 | Landscape Photography
One set of clouds out, another coming in. That’s how weather goes and most times you’re left holding the bag. Not today!
