Jul 14, 2015 | Landscape Photography
The paint is still sitting in the garage, sandpaper in its wrapper as I wait for the rains to go by. Lord knows we need the rain, it’s knocked down our fire danger and that’s a blessing. But nine days later, no painting. But that doesn’t mean I’m not watching the skies for other opportunities.
I have the Df / 24-120VR on the counter because each night as the sun sets, it’s a little bit different. Most nights it’s been just gray until it’s dark. But a couple of nights, there has been some color but just not in the right place at the right time. But the camera sits there just in case.
Then last night, while the color was brief before the clouds closed back in again, there was the addition of a rainbow. Na, none of these are great photos when it comes to the sharing category, but they are when put under the memories category. I think at times, photographers confuse these two categories and delete photos that should be kept in the memories category and share images that should stay in memories. All the photos you take are special, don’t forget that. It’s the category you place them that you need to think twice about.
Jul 9, 2015 | Landscape Photography
How big is that cloud? Often when we photograph clouds, it’s with a wide angle with just a sliver of landscape. At least, that’s one of my favorite ways on incorporating them. While this works really well and brings a whole other level of drama to a photo, the actual size of those clouds gets lost. Not that’s important, but there are times when how high the clouds soar is the story, not just that they are pretty. When the opportunity affords itself, I love to show the size of the heavens. Shooting with the 80-400VR3 on the D4s, I waited for the sliver of light I saw racing for the ridge line to go click. The down pour was centered by design, the light, it was a prayer. And by standing, waiting imagining, the click came to be. And you can now tell visually how big that could is.
Jul 9, 2015 | Landscape Photography
There we were, partially up Hidden Lake Trail, Glacier Nat’l Park. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s behind the visitor center at Logan Pass. It’s a gorgeous walk up to some spectacular scenery that always has a critter or two. On this trip, the snow hadn’t melted yet so the trail was for the adventurous and I wasn’t felling, adventurous. When going after landscape images, I tend to either go wide or long so when I walked partially up the trail, I had the 18-35AFS in my pocket and 80-400VR3 on the D4s. The clouds were racing across the heavens and as such, constantly changing the landscape with light and shadow. It’s one of the most beautiful ways to see our wild heritage in person, letting our imaginations run with the light over the land.
So I’m watching this living painting in front of me and saw the light bring out the unique topography up slope. As I scanned it with my imagination, I saw two climbers up on the slope. The first thing I thought was if they were to walk to the right spot they would be perfect to show scale. I zoomed out to 400mm and gave them a gander, they were walking in the right direction! I put the lens down and watched them and the light, the idea in my head was slowly coming to life on the slope. Then, they got to the right spot as the light hit it. Then, oh, be still my heart, they stopped exactly in the spot. I put my camera to my eye and shot. Then I just started laughing. These two adventurous souls walked all the way up there to take in the gorgeous view, only to record it on a iPad! So, I got scale with an iPad!
Jul 1, 2015 | Landscape Photography
I’ve gone past this house on the ridge for decades and not once, have I stopped to photograph it. Oh, I’ve looked at it but it’s never caught my attention, until this time. The storm was passing pretty quickly and as it did so, the light would paint the landscape and that’s what caught my attention. Shooting with the D4s / 80-400VR3, I walked up to the fence line and waited. The first thing I know many of you will say is, “That bright pole on the right bugs me.” OK, I like it and in fact, that was central to the way I set up the frame, obviously since that’s what you see. The subject though, the house, you can’t help but see EVEN with that pole. So, that pole isn’t that big a deal, just a matter of taste. But if you cover up that pole with your hand, the photo looses it’s sense of depth and place. Now if the rest of the telephone poles had light on them, if the foreground weren’t black, then we’d have a big issue. But such is not the case. So when you’re chasing that light, keep the light in mind and use the elements given to give that light a stage making your subject the star. You might love the results.
Jun 26, 2015 | Landscape Photography
Left the house at 01:30 for the airport. Finally arrived to catch a different flight at 12:40. Then flight out of DEN was delayed cause of storms. So at 20:40 we lifted off and in avoiding the storm to the north and our destination, we went east then northwest and it took us into an amazing show. These are four clicks taken with the D750 / 14-24AFS out the window as we zoomed about. It was spectacular, simply glory on high!
Jun 17, 2015 | Landscape Photography
Feeling and Seeing the final photo when the camera is pressed against your eye is important. One thing we talk about a lot when we’re out shooting on our workshops is “How will you finish the photo.” There are times that part of that conversation is removing the “touch of man” and a very common removal are wires. This morning at a favorite pond of mine, we were shooting sunrise. Shooting with the D4s / 18-35AFS at 20mm, the two wires stretching across the pond were very obvious. These are actually incredibly easy to remove!
To remove the wire, you need your Spot Healing Brush tool. Make sure its Soft Edge and that you’re Sampling All layers. I prefer doing this in a Empty Layer. Click on one end of the wire you want to remove. Then move down to the other end of the wire. Hold down the Shift Key and click again. You’ll see Photoshop draw a line between the two click and the wire disappear. That simple! One other finishing tip to add here. Photographing a reflection in water, water “sucks” up a stop of light so it’s exposure and color is richer than reality, in this case the sky. So in ACR, a Split Grad is used, dialed down -1 and saturation brought up to 25. This evens out the exposure top and bottom. So knowing these tools when you go click at the camera makes going click at the computer quick and easy.
