Jul 14, 2009 | Landscape Photography
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_BMP0622.swf, 396, 600 [/swf]
It’s a daily ritual with me when I’m home. Checking the day’s weather forecast, both what the weatherman predicts and what I predict looking at the radar and other stats. The forecast for today was for a sunny, clear, cloudless day. Looking at the numbers though, I had a gut feeling that thunderheads could form late in the afternoon over the valley. By dinner, dark clouds covered the valley. With Jake on alert in case we needed to run to chase the light, I kept watch on the deck. Then the light broke, breaking right over my head!
What you see here in this Gallery are just 36 of the 249 images I took in 38mins of great light. It was gorgeous!The photography was pretty straight forward. The WB was set to cloudy, wanted that warmth. Exposure Comp varied from -1 to -1 1/2. Other than walking up and down the length of the deck and getting a stiff neck from shooting up, I just simply enjoyed the show. Image processing: none, these are Jpegs right out of the camera. The Sierra, the Range of Light, produces amazing skies, great show for finishing up the day and a glass or Merlot!
Photos captured by D3x, 45PC-E on Lexar UDMA digital film
Jul 6, 2009 | Landscape Photography
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_BMP9318.swf, 500, 402 [/swf]
We hope you had a marvelous 4th, I know we did. Our dear and long time friends Roger & his family were up to celebrate the 4th with us Sierra style. Our small town parade, firehouse open house, streets closed off and talking with friends, it’s just a great time. It’s capped off with a really outstanding firework display at the lake. Thousands come to the lake to watch the show, from the shore and from the water. We head out early and put out a complete spread of Deeeelicous food and margaritas and enjoy the afternoon simply watching the clouds float by. It’s simply great fun.
Of course the camera went to capture the big moment. I’ve done fireworks all sorts of ways over the years, almost all centering around freezing the display. This year I wanted to bring back the memory and not the reality of the rocket explosion. I decided to not go with my normal 2sec explosion and push it to 8sec, f5.6. Here’s a couple of my favorites from the night. I hit the shutter release when the skies were clear, that meant waiting for bursts to completely burn out before taking the next shot. If you look closely at one of the bursts, you’ll see a sunburst from the shell exploding. That’s kinda cool! That was all, I kinda like the effect and is something I’m going to explore more in the future.
Photos captured by D3x, 24-70AFS on Lexar UDMA digital film
Jul 3, 2009 | Landscape Photography
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_BMP8965.swf, 500, 402 [/swf]
So there we are on day three of our PT and we’re heading to the mecca of landscape photography, the Tufas of Mono Lake. In the last 30yrs, you could say I’ve been to the shoreline a couple of times. As we got our gear out at the parking lot, the clouds were on the horizon pretty darn thick, the color was just one little spot of glow. I had already decided even before arriving at the lake I was going to head down with the 600VR and click some birds. Knowing also how fast things can change, I grabbed my fanny pack with a couple of wide angles.
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_BMP9041.swf, 500, 402 [/swf]
As we walked down the path, the clouds started to dissipate, they were leftover from the evenings thunderstorms and the sun was drying them up. My pace down the path quickened as it looked like magic was going to happen. I hit the beach and made the turn and the skies opened up and the God beams flooded in. With the 600VR on the tripod over my shoulder, I quickly put it down, put on the 14-24AFS and made the top click. I then boogied down to the shoreline and with the pirate ship in front of me, saw what you see here. There is no way the photo could be made with one click, huge exposure range. I had no tripod for doing short lens work, so I made a handheld, 5 frame HDR, praying the whole time. Glad I can hold still (and didn’t need a bush).
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_BMP8974.swf, 500, 402 [/swf]
It might have been leftover from the day before, but I was feeling a little artsy fartsy. I walked the shoreline looking for, well, what you see here. I took only one image, this one and it worked. It’s always fun taking landscapes lugging around a 600VR on your shoulder. But it does demonstrate how important solid handholding technique is.
Photos captured by D3x, 14-24AFS on Lexar UDMA digital film
Jul 2, 2009 | Landscape Photography
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_BMP8946.swf, 396, 600 [/swf]
I don’t know that these plants are called (don’t really care though) but I love what they do with light. The funny thing is, I thought I would be going B&W with this but when I looked at it further, I decided the shades of green were just too intriguing to blow away. This is a photo we’d put in the artsy fartsy category.
Photo captured by D3x, 45PC-E on Lexar UDMA digital film
Jul 2, 2009 | Landscape Photography
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_BMP8869.swf, 500, 402 [/swf]
The clock is pushing me hard this week. Still working with our PT on landscape photography. Headed up to a 9000′ to Lake George and the quite one can find up there. There wasn’t a whisper of wind so the reflections stretched on and on. We lucked out and the jet stream brought in a few wisps that finished off the view. All that was left was do the dance, excluding unwanted elements while including wanted elements.
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_BMP8901.swf, 500, 402 [/swf]
This image looses something being this small. The drama you see in the clouds in the reflection is what caught my eye. Those whites against the underlying rock in the water is a cool pattern that is sadly is lost here.
Photos captured by D3x, 24PC-E on Lexar UDMA digital film
Jun 30, 2009 | Landscape Photography
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_BMP8667.swf, 500, 402 [/swf]
The art of the landscape, that’s the mission with the multiple day PT we’re conducting right now. My mission today kinda made me think of this video.The challenge is to help a new landscape photographer see the landscape, feel the landscape, so you can through his images.
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_BMP8657.swf, 500, 402 [/swf]
The challenge is even greater for the PT who has to avoid becoming frustrated as he looks so hard for images that for me are easy to find or dismiss. That time thing, time behind the viewfinder, time at the computer, it catches up with you in time.
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_BMP8706.swf, 500, 402 [/swf]
What am I talking about, time catches up with you? The more you put in, time, the less time it takes to make the image. Landscape photography, which I’m not an expert at just very comfortable with, is this romance which while it needs technical support, it comes to life only when wooed.
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_BMP8803.swf, 500, 402 [/swf]
Take these four images, only the top one do I think much of. It has some character in the light, ripples and tonality. The next one is an HDR experiment which, well, I’ll leave it at that. Then there is that reflection thing. I dunno, it was purty when I looked at it. Lastly is another HDR experiment, wanted to see what would happen doing a water blur with blown out highlights. We’ll mark that down as a work in progress.
And my student, continues putting in the time behind the camera so he can put in the time behind the computer so he can go out behind the camera and move one more notch up the ladder to where he thinks I am and he wants to be. It’s that photography thing.
Photos captured by D3x, 14-24AFS/45PC-E/70-300VR/24PC-E on Lexar UDMA digital film
PS…I’m very foruntate, this is our backyard
