Feb 23, 2015 | Landscape Photography
The Oregon coastline has some amazing natural features and one of them is Thor’s Well. You could kinda think of it as a blowhole in reverse. The big show is as the water drains back through the hole after a wave washes in. Seen some amazing photos of it so when on the coast last weekend with our dear friends Scott & Kalebra, we went to check it out. Now this wasn’t a photographic weekend, we were just goofin so in that spirit, we did no homework that normally goes into making one of those classic photos. In fact, we didn’t even really know exactly where Thor’s Well was (a turn out on the highway). Well, luck was with us.
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So here’s the deal. You want to be at Thor’s Well when sunset and high tide are at about the same time. This would be ideal for getting the cool sky (if you’re not cursed with the OR Coast marine layer) and the best flow through the hole. With this, it is a given you are going to get wet! In fact, in a big tide action or during a storm, it might be really dangerous going after this shot! Well, we were there while the tide was still rising at sunset which for us, worked out. There was a moment when we had a killer sunset with great God beams, but no wave action. And the wave action is really the biggie in this whole thing. I was shooting with the D750 / 18-35AFS (on a RRS tripod with rock claws) and the key I think, was the Vello Wireless Shutterboss.
So you’re standing there watching the waves. Not everyone performs, in fact, few ever really do the “biggie” that floods 360 around the hole giving you the great blurred water feel. You can see in the series above just about every version of blur but the perfect one. I never got it. You can see the great sunset, but how little the water performed. And then there is the timing. I varied shutter speed from 2-8sec and this was because often, you only could get one click in per wave. You have to guess how much water is going to come up, overflow and then slip back down. If your timing is off or, shutter speed too slow, you don’t get “the” shot. The single image you see above is my favorite, but not the best. Don’t get me wrong, standing out there with Scott was great fun! Seeing his face when that last, big wave hit just when he said, “Just one more” is something I’ll never forget. It’s a gorgeous part of our wild heritage that I’m so glad we got to enjoy with friends!
Feb 19, 2015 | Landscape Photography
I love clouds! When we were in Costa Rica, we had some killer mornings when we hit the beach. We would often see the lightning from the Lodge before heading down (ya, it was dark when we started our day) so knew there were thunderstorms out over the Pacific. We had already been treated to some great skies earlier in the week so was anxious to get down to the sand. While our goal was to work the lagoon, you just can’t pass up a magical sunrise!
I hit the beach with the walkin around bird rig, D4s / 800AFS but had along with me of course my faithful friend, Nikon 1 V3. This amazing little camera just does a killer job with subjects like this. As you can see, as the storm broke up, it created amazing shapes tapping into the rising sun. So, shooting in Cloudy WB, I worked the columns of color. I shot it many ways but it’s these two images that have caught me imagination. Now if all the clouds were the color of the color columns, the photo simply wouldn’t work. But since they rose higher in the sky and caught the sun before the base, we lucked out. Oh, what a gorgeous way to start the day!
Feb 17, 2015 | Landscape Photography
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“Moose, you use to do so many panos. Don’t do them anymore?” This question comes in, alot! The short answer is, ya, I do lots of panos still, never stopped. But with the ease of assembling them now, I simply don’t talk about it much. Back in the day, assembling a pano especially a Ultra Wide Pano was hours and hours of work. Now, it can be done in a matter of seconds and look one helluva a lot better. Like this one above shot on the Costa Rican coast, all it took were two clicks of a Nikon 1 V3 / 10-30 and two clicks in post and you have a pano. If you have an iPhone, you don’t even have to do that much work to capture the splendor our world offers. Now with that all said, the number of panos I’m asked to look at that should never been taken has vastly increased as well. So while it is easier the photographic technique remains the same. So for me personally, if more than half of the pano can’t stand by themselves as individual photos, together they don’t make a pano.
Feb 12, 2015 | Landscape Photography
Part of telling a story in landscape photography at times requires knowing the size of the landscape. In macro photography, we can for example place a dime by something and we all would know instantly the approximate size of the subject. Put a dime in a landscape though and you’ll need a metal detector to find it. So a common object we use as a scale reference are people. We can get a general idea from them the grandeur of the scene, we can understand distance and a feel for size. But even with this simple element, we can take it even further by manipulating scale.
Are two images taken really just minutes apart to illustrate my point. Taken with Df / 80-400 at 400mm, can you tell what is different between the two changing the sense of overall size? Really, can you tell because I’m not going to say. You’re going to have to look at these images to figure it out. Then, if you like it, you need to go out and do it for yourself so then when you need the technique, you have it in your bag of tricks. Moving our feet can really change a photograph, especially when manipulating scale.
Feb 3, 2015 | Landscape Photography
While many parts of the country are receiving snow, some much more than the rest, here in the Sierras we are in a desperate state! We’ve had no snow of any measure this year and at the moment, we have dirt where there should be 15′ of snow. So anytime, anytime any cloud comes over the hill, I’m out doing a dance and taking photos hoping, just hoping this will be the one. And while we have no snow, we’ve had some gorgeous clouds like these shot from our deck. Shot with the D4s / 58f1.4AFS, it’s a pretty good example of what we’re experiencing without the white stuff.
Another adverse outcome of our drought it the nearly total lack of birds in our feeders. Normally in the winter, the shutter in my cameras are smoking because there is so much to photograph. Right now, luckily I have two Flickers and a Hairy Woodpecker, and that’s it! Because there is no snow cover, there is plenty of food and free water so the birds are scattered and don’t need to come to our offerings. That sucks!
And just so you know, Perfect Suite 9 had an update. This photo was simply processed in ACR and then in Perfect 9 B&W and took only a couple of clicks to finish. Now, if it would just snow!
Jan 26, 2015 | Landscape Photography
The sunrises in Costa Rica this last week were spectacular! From up at the lodge, we could look down the canyon and see in the darkness breaking over the Pacific. The heat and humidity combine to produce big, gorgeous puffies. While our goal was the wildlife, there is no way one could ignore these pillars to the heavens. So we hit the beach with gear for the sunrise and the birds. In my case, that was the 800mm and 18-35AFS on the D4s. Knowing how quickly the sunrises at the equator, the decision needs to be made just as quickly how to go. It comes down to color, depth and of course, light.
Both of these photos were taken prior to the sun coming up over the horizon. The D4s was set to minus 1 stop and WB set to Cloudy. Both photos taken east by south east with the 18mm shot at the top, the 800mm shot at the bottom. The 800mm is the lower left corner of the 18mm photo. The color and light are the key elements of both photos moving the eye around the frame. The gesture though is supplied by different elements. In one, it’s the clouds and the other, the waves. And the one very special element of this morning was, there was no wrong way, bad way, only great ways every which way you turned to shoot! It’s just another of the special aspects of the Osa Peninsula and the Costa Rican rainforest.
