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on May 29, 2019 in Landscape Photography

White Makes the Red, Redder

At the moment, there are at least 445 named shades of red. Yikes! Red is one of the most powerful colors when it comes to grabbing our attention, fast! That’s why Stop signs are red. But what color is the word, STOP? It’s white and why, because red and white is the most powerful color combo to grab our vision. When you’re shooting a landscape like the Grand Canyon or Bryce, anytime you have snow, the red looks better. The same holds true for sunrises and sunsets but finding white at those moments is really challenging. How can we “introduce” white into our sunrises and sunsets to make the red, redder? There are actually lots of ways when you think about it. A person in a white shirt or dress popped by a flash in one way. A white building or vehicle is another. And here you see another way I like to do it. It starts with a white lighthouse but it’s pretty small in the frame so...

on May 8, 2019 in Landscape Photography

Point It Up!

It’s that time of year when summer thunderstorms float by overhead like some giant ocean flotilla of naval ships. I love this time of year because with little or no effort very romantic landscape shots can be created by just pointing up. There are only two things you need to think about, the light and the foreground. The light needs to be moody which tends to naturally occur in the late afternoon when the thunderheads form. The foreground, just a sliver is all you have to have to give the clouds a greater feeling of height. After that, just need the weather to work its...

on Apr 23, 2019 in Landscape Photography

Processing Mark?

The East Face & Mt Tom were simply gorgeous this morning! It was truly hard to keep my eyes on the road as the sun rose over the Whites lighting up the face. In fact, the pressure got to me so I stopped to shoot. With the drama in the light and the romance of the scene, going B&W was a given so that meant shooting with the Z6 as it does B&W so amazingly and then added to that, the razor sharp. Z24-70f2.8. But that wasn’t the real dilemma, including that one element was. Or was it? If look really, really closely in the lower photograph in the upper right corner, you’ll see the moon. While standing there it was obvious but as soon as the eye goes to the viewfinder, it appears like what we called in film days, a processing mark. It was really simple for me, the upper photo shows off the drama in the early light so going wide to include the moon wasn’t...

on Apr 11, 2019 in Landscape Photography

Better Left Unshot?

I’m shown a lot of sunrise/sunset photos and when asked what I think, well, I think to myself, “it would have been better-left unshot.” Here’s an example of what I’m talking about, one of my own photos. Saw this real purdy sunset when I was not prepared, so I went inside, grabbed the Z7 / Z24-70 (killer landscape rig), and walked back out to shoot the gorgeous sunset. The problem is, it was no longer gorgeous, just purdy. Those elements which made it gorgeous had faded yet, I went click anyways. And the photo just doesn’t make it. But because I had that memory and I had that photo, heck, it’s gotta be good, right? Actually, the memory is much better and it’s a great example of a photo that was better left...

on Mar 27, 2019 in Landscape Photography

Embrace the Curve

As Columbus pointed out, the earth is round. That curve though is often the bane of our photography as we work to square everything up perfectly. Embracing the curve not only requires seeing and thinking about it but having the right lens at the right time to make it all come to life in the viewfinder. What I have here is a real simple example of what I’m talking about. The bluff on Flaming Gorge Reservoir screamed to curve. So in grabbing the Z7 / 8-15Fish first set to 15mm (top photo) and them 8mm (bottom photo), I brought in the earth’s curve. Doesn’t work with every subject, but by having the 8-15Fish in your bag, you can embrace the...

on Mar 26, 2019 in Landscape Photography

Look for the Shadows

There are times I just wanna take photos but the light, well the light just sucks! When this occurs the first thing I tend to look for are dramatic shadows because that’s what hard light is really great at creating. When I find those shadows I look at what is creating them (other than the sun) and then see if there is a story to be had creating the photograph. That how it was when we ventured down into Flaming Gorge. What we found was not what I was thinking! The Flaming Gorge Bridge isn’t huge but the span it bridges is deep. There are all sorts of signs saying don’t walk (or dive) on the bridge. But the light, the hard light, and its shadow were perfect. There were two cracks, almost perfectly symmetrical on the road leading up to the bridge. Grabbing the Z6 / 8-15Fish, I got right up to those cracks and made an easy, simply click. The storytelling and shadows encouraged me to become...

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