Dec 3, 2010 | Landscape Photography
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_bmp3537.swf, 585, 473 [/swf]
It’s been a great day. Woke to a giant 16wheeler in the drive making a delivery of a beautiful, brand spankin new 4900. Then we hit the road north to be at our son’s Brent graduation from college. A fine day indeed!
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Our drive was great because we have another winter storm moving through. This always brings drama in the sky as the clouds and the wind do battle to see who get’s east first. We topped Conway summit and looked south towards home and had to make a couple of clicks. These are simple clicks finished with Silver Efex Pro.
Photos captured by D3x, 24-120AFS on Lexar UDMA digital film
Nov 20, 2010 | B&W Photography, Landscape Photography
Sharon and I needed to get over to Stockton for a presentation tonight (can’t wait, talking bird tales) so we decided since The Pass was open (Tioga Pass) we’d take the shortcut over the Sierra. The drive is only 4hrs rather then 8.5hrs. The “shortcut” takes us through Yosemite Nat’l Park and as you might imagine, I had the camera out.
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We opened The Pass this year and we closed it since it closed behind us by the winter storm you see pictured starting here. It was as always a gorgeous drive and a great start to winter at home.
Photos captured by D3x, 24-120AFS on Lexar UDMA digital film.
Nov 12, 2010 | Landscape Photography
How can anyone pass up that amazing golden, age wood?! I sure couldn’t, the light and reflected light just made it glow even if it were only 9degrees! Just gotta love it.
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_bmp0760.swf, 585, 473, [/swf]
There was a pretty cool sky in the background and normally I would have jumped through hoops to bring it out. But this time I wanted the “brightness” of the scene, the snow, shacks and the barn to be center stage. So I went to +.5 exp comp to pump up the light and sacrificed the sky. I really like how it turned out.
Photo captured by D3x, 24-120AFS on Lexar UDMA digital film
Nov 7, 2010 | Landscape Photography
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_bmp9962.swf, 402, 600 [/swf]
We did our work so then we played. Jake had been to this very cool “ghost town” (folks still live there) called Elkhorn State Park. Being fascinated with history and old buildings, we made the drive to see it. It’s a cool place but choose to sum it all up with the experience with just the masons lodge. The exterior itself is quite interesting and I could have spent an hour with it but choose instead to head inside. The light was very interesting outside, it had to be moody inside.
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_BMP0026.swf, 585, 473, [/swf]
Here’s the upstairs dance hall inside the mason lodge. The light coming in was gorgeous! Just because I could, I did a 5 image handheld HDR just to show you all the information that was in this room. And while there was great light, great color and mood and had a technique that worked wonders, I didn’t have a photograph. To me, this is no more then a “I was here photo” which really doesn’t work.
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_bmp0062.swf, 585, 473, [/swf]
In the room were two chairs, this is one of them and it’s right and how I found it. Now I’ve got a subject for this cool light. All that color and detail really didn’t fascinate me, the light did. So I switched lenses to the 24f1.4AFS and shot at f1.4 and made the click that for me, summed up the ghost town, the hall, the light and the experience. In reality, it’s just a simple click.
Photos captured by D3x, 24-120AFS/24 f1.4 AFS on Lexar UDMA digital film
Nov 5, 2010 | Landscape Photography
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_BMP9436bw.swf, 585, 473, [/swf]
Ah, we’re back up in a favorite part of the country of ours enjoying beautiful landscapes and great friends. We left fall color down in the flats and went up into the pines for a little R&R shooting. This stuff is like shooting fish in a barrel for me, it’s a matter of form, texture and shades.
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_BMP9467bw.swf, 585, 473, [/swf]
Shooting in “flat” light shades of green and gray, the pieces fill into place for me when shooting black and white. This might be something your are really struggling with. Many write me saying they just can’t “see” B&W. I highly recommend if this is your case, that you download the trial version of Silver Efex Pro, select a whole bunch of images and just look at those images using just the Structure slider in Silver Efex Pro. You’d be surprised at just how fast you too can pick it all up!
Photos captured by D3x, 24-120VR2 on Lexar UDMA digital film
Nov 4, 2010 | Landscape Photography
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/DMLARMD0864.swf, 585, 473, [/swf]
With the big storm we had about a week ago that moved out nearly all the stragglers, Jake & I figured it got the Mule Deer moving to their winter grounds. Since we were having zero luck with birds, this morning we headed down south in the search of Bambi. Now with signs like this, wouldn’t you think you’d find a deer or two? (The pole has a warp to it from snow load.)
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Now we weren’t looking for Bambi, but its dad. No such luck, the bucks weren’t to be found. But we did find this small doe group prior to sunrise. I’ll be real honest with you, it wasn’t a rock or a tree so I was going to shoot!!!! It was still dark, I was shooting at 1/20, f4 ISO 100 handheld but made the clicks. There was a lonely spike on the otherside of us and I knew being rut that the does would keep an eye on this horny kid. I also knew the season’s fawns would always be looking to mom for reassurance hence this photo.
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And two seconds later the sun came over the White Mtns and kissed the little band. At the same time a noise sounded backstage and so the doe’s right ear cocked to register it. The ears are everything so this moment in my book sucked, I hate that right ear. The movement though was so slight that even shooting at 1/45, it didn’t blur.
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/DMLARMD0900.swf, 585, 473, [/swf]
Finally, the stupid young buck made a move and just a heartbeat before the band walked away, I got one, somewhat pleasing click off. No, they aren’t award winning photos and in fact, it’s what Jake & I refer to as cheap blog material. I’m not going to delete them, I can use them as teaching material but more importantly are the simple lesson learned and reinforced. We learned the big boys haven’t migrated down slope this far yet. We learned it was a good year for Mule Deer since we say a lot of spring young. We found where there seemed to like to congregate (can’t miss their droppings). I practiced handholding and got sharp images at 1/20, saw how a touch of light makes a huge difference and most importantly, found something to photograph. You just can loose anytime you go out shooting even if you get skunked. Today, we got a small reward for once again getting up early. It was a good day! And yes, the first image prior to sunrise is my favorite from the moment.
Photos captured by D3x, 200-400VR2 on Lexar UDMA digital film
