Jul 9, 2019 | B&W Photography, Landscape Photography
When you put your camera up to your eye, how do you arrange the elements? How do you expose? And most importantly, how do you tell the story of your subject, your find? These are very common questions that either goes unasked in the picture making process or, if asked, stump the photographer. Perhaps putting the photograph into simple terms might help in this quest.
Been up in Montana shooting, such a gorgeous place with a great history. How do you put that into a photo? You might by summing it up with three thoughts: big sky, the west, romance. With those thoughts, you might go wide rather than long. You might find a subject that looks old and western and you might tie that all up in black and white. For me, this meant shooting with the Z7 / Z14-30 and putting it into B&W mode which then turned the whole process to a basic, “point and shoot.” That’s simple and with that simplicity, fun! It starts in the mind, runs through the heart and ends up in the camera.
Jun 21, 2019 | Landscape Photography
Summer means afternoon thunderstorms in the Eastern Sierra (so carry your Miops lightning trigger, always!). The normal process is traces of clouds at sunrise and by late afternoon … kabommmm! Well, the wx pattern has set up so we have no thunderstorms for the next two weeks. Clouds are forming over the crest in the afternoon so it’s not totally bald skies. You wanna find a location that is going to have good afternoon light and think B&W. This shot taken a week ago at Rock Creek Lake with the Z7 / Z24-70f2.8 is a morning shot. It was a gorgeous morning but our last thunderstorm day. This kind of morning shot might be possible now, briefly, just as the sun rises at 04:30. Otherwise, you gotta scrap for clouds. It’s still gorgeous but the extra drama just isn’t happening at the moment.
Jun 11, 2019 | Landscape Photography
When you first lay down in the sand, a chill instantly runs through you! At 6700′, the below freezing night temps put a chill on the sand that is only replaced when you look up. Cause that’s the only way you want to photograph the Sand Tufas, with your cheek (you decide which one I’m referring to), down in that sand with the camera pointing up. I first ventured to the Sand Tufas in 1959 and I’m just as hooked and intrigued by them today as I was then. These features are no more than four feet tall take on fairy tale shapes and SciFi mystery when you meet them at their level.
The hardest part of making the shot (besides getting up from the sand and not coating your gear with sand) is walking around and thinking what the photo would look like from a crickets point of view. The key is remembering the photo is all about texture which requires shadows to bring it out. Shooting the Z7 / Z14-30 made it easier because one, it goes so low with its small size and two, the flip out monitor. The Sand Tufas are fragile so once you get down, fining tuning your camera placement (ie your body) requires slow movements so as to not break anything. The shooting period is short as the sun raises fast but in a short period of an hour, it’s easy to have lots of fun photos full of imagination. And yet, when you leave, them sands are still cold.
May 29, 2019 | Landscape Photography
Battery Point Lighthouse
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 to bring in more white, I brought in a light beam (here’s how you do that). If you look at both photos back and forth, you can see how the mind’s eye sees a deeper red in the light beam photo than the none. It’s such a little and simple thing but it can make a big impact. White makes the red, redder.
May 8, 2019 | Landscape Photography
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 magic!
Apr 23, 2019 | Landscape Photography
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 an option. But many include that moon because, well, I don’t know why. If I didn’t point it out, you probably wouldn’t see it. So including it diminishes the drama that being together brings. It’s just something to think about when the moon is out but real tiny in the frame, appearing like a processing mark.
