Dec 20, 2010 | Landscape Photography
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_BMP62041.swf, 585, 473 [/swf]
I’m very fortunate to have a whole bunch of new friends and followers to the blog because of Captured. I received a cute email from one of my new followers asking, “Do you live where there’s snow?” Of course those of you who know me probably get a giggle from this as well. The answer is, affirmative!
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_BMP62191.swf, 585, 473 [/swf]
We’ve had a storm blowing for 72hrs now and at this writing, we’ve received about five vertical feet of new snow. What you see here is our good neighbor who happens to have a plow business. It’s late at night and he’s taking time to clear his own driveway. If you notice in the upper photo, the snow bank is so tall, the loader hides behind it as it goes down the drive.
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_BMP62931.swf, 585, 473 [/swf]
The moving and more importantly, the storage of snow can be a fulltime job during these kinds of storms. You might think that this kind of snow paralyzes life but it’s quite the opposite. FedEx & UPS delivered Saturday (holiday special), our Night of Light celebration still happened, and we, well we kept the drive clear so we could get out if we wanted to, but we didn’t want to. I’ve got four cool projects in the works so I spend the weekend doing some homework and making some plans next to a warm fire, movie playing drinking coffee. Mountain life isn’t for everyone but we sure do love it on days like these.
Photo captured by D3s (ISO 3200), 24-120VR2 on Lexar UDMA digital film
Dec 17, 2010 | Landscape Photography
It’s winter again, there’s snow on the ground which brings with it that yearly onslaught of snow exposure questions. I’ve answered those many times on the site. The question I typically ask back for folks though is, what’s the emotion you wanna communicate in your snow photograph?
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/DLCCNKP0036.swf, 585, 473 [/swf]
With all the white in the scene (what we call snow), you can totally influence the emotion and feeling the viewer feels in your photograph. You want the viewer to feel that same -10 nip in the air you felt when you made the click? Then have a preponderance of blue in the scene. How do you introduce blue? You can change the AWB and take it to the blue end of the graph, that’s the quickest and easiest. Doing it in camera rather then post might keep noise from building up in the image.
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/Mammoth Mtn 0668.swf, 585, 473 [/swf]
There’s nothing better then being out on a snowy day and finding the warmth of the sun and letting it heat you up. How do you do bring out that warmth? First, you have to have an element that will show that warmth, in this case a really old, wind sculpted Jeffrey Pine. Then take your AWB to the warm end of the graph and go click. Hopefully this winter when you have snow in your photograph you’ll think more about communicating emotion then exposure detail. It might just bring life to that white stuff.
Dec 17, 2010 | Landscape Photography
“When do you include the sun in your photo?” “Do you do something special to get that starburts, like a filter or something?” “How do you deal with metering when the same is in the frame?” These are some common questions of late about this basic element we see everyday, the sun. Here’s some of my thoughts on the matter.
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/Benton Crossing Road 1220.swf, 585, 473 [/swf]
I can only speak for myself, but I include the sun when I feel it is in the right location in the photograph where I want to pull the viewers eye in the frame. At the same time the other elements in the frame have to connect with the sun so the eye can venture through the frame, coming back to the sun and then venture back through the frame. So with that basic formula, being able to include the sun doesn’t happen every outing.
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/Alabama Hills 0753.swf, 585, 473 [/swf]
I really like this photo from the Alabama Hills except for all the little floating UFOs. They are caused because I forgot the one rule when shooting the sun. Have a clean front element! Those little UFOs are caused by dust on the front element diffracting the sun, scattering the light. I do have a final image where I spent way too much time cleaning them up in PS, but simply cleaning the front element in the beginning would have save me a whole bunch of time.
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/Alabama Hills 0888.swf, 585, 473 [/swf]
When it comes to exposure, you have a couple of options these days. The top and bottom frame are HDR images. I went with this option because I wanted information in the shadow portions of the photograph. The middle image is a single click using a 3 stop Split Grad (a dirty split grad). When looking at the LCD for the top and bottom frames, the blinkie was pretty small especially compared to the middle image where nearly the whole top right corner was a flashing neon light. The starburst is real simple, just close the lens down to its smallest aperture. The more aperture blades, the better the pattern. These were taken with the 24PC-E, 70-200VR2 and 16Fish. My suggestion to you is, if a thought comes across your mind to include the sun in the frame, just do it.
Dec 16, 2010 | Landscape Photography
It was a well spent 20min in the flats. Our home which is up in those clouds dead center was getting a few snow flakes as we took these shots of the last light of day. There is no doubt we are very fortunate to live in paradise!
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/DLCMCMF0700.swf, 585, 473 [/swf]
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/DLCMCMF0732.swf, 585, 473 [/swf]
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/DLCMCMF0748.swf, 585, 473 [/swf]
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/DLCMCMF0757.swf, 585, 473 [/swf]
Yeap, the last two shots are my favorites. Amazing what you can do with your photography in just 20min in the right spot, right gear and passion!
Photos captured by D3x, 24-120VR2 on Lexar UDMA digital film
Dec 16, 2010 | Landscape Photography
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/DLCMCMF0612.swf, 585, 473 [/swf]
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/DLCMCMF0620.swf, 585, 473 [/swf]
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/DLCMCMF0642.swf, 585, 473 [/swf]
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/DLCMCMF0659.swf, 585, 473 [/swf]
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/DLCMCMF0684.swf, 585, 473 [/swf]
Just 10min later things had changed. I was committed to where I was standing because it would take to long to reposition. What would the next 10min bring?
Photos captured by D3x, 24-120VR2 on Lexar UDMA digital film
Dec 16, 2010 | Landscape Photography
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/DLCMCMF0563.swf, 585, 473 [/swf]
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/DLCMCMF0578.swf, 585, 473 [/swf]
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/DLCMCMF0588.swf, 585, 473 [/swf]
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/DLCMCMF0604.swf, 585, 473 [/swf]
Jake & I had cabin fever so with the small front moving through, we headed to the flats to make some quick clicks. We shot for just 20min, this is what I captured when I first walked to the edge of the ponds. Camera set to Vivid, AWB 0, underexposed -1, 2 stop Split Grad, what you see is straight out of the camera.
Photo captured by D3x, 24-120VR2 on Lexar UDMA digital filim
