Mar 4, 2014 | Landscape Photography
Sharon and I have been into Rock Art for a long time. In many ways, it’s the beginning of photography, visually storytelling to relate and preserve what mattered to the artist at that moment. Where we live in the Sierras, there are lots of examples, panels as they are called, telling the stories of hunts, good times and bad. Just outside Moab on Hwy 279 is the Hwy 279 Rock Art panels. We visited them last week again to look, read and photograph.
There are many ways to photograph Rock Art. My preference for the last decade is to photograph it as rock … art, art that uses rock as its medium. There was a time I photographed just the individual symbols because they are way cool and I was collecting for a researcher. But now, I treat them as an element on that rock face, staring out from a time gone by of a people who lived and loved this land. What always amazes me when looking at the Rock Art is that they never seemed to hit a spot where as they were scratching away, the whole rock face fell awat. My luck if I tried it, I would just about be done with my drawing and the whole cliff face would peal away!
Me preferred method of photographing the Rock Art is around highnoon when we have contrast, shadows to help bring out the texture of the rock. They created their art in the desert tarnish, the darker rock, using contrast to make their art pop so I want to photograph it with the same idea. Shooting with the Nikon Df & 58f1.4AFS still using the Nikon 67mm Circular Polarizer, I wanted to shoot straight on to avoid any angular distortion. Other than the polarizer being used to remove the blue sky reflection and Clarity in ACR in finishing, these are simple clicks.
Mar 3, 2014 | Landscape Photography
There was a tree right under where the climbers where launching up the wall. The tree was really cool, still having its fall leaves but slightly drier and wilted appearance. Against the red wall, it was really cool especially with its shape. So I simply took my vertically oriented camera from shooting the climbers and shot the tree. I then went back on photographing the climbers. But the shot of the tree hung in my mind. It’s a great tree for February!
Well I came back to the tree because the vertical didn’t work. As you can see, I turned the camera and went horizontal. Now the camera is not plumb to the earth, but rather to the sweet shape of the tree. The shape of the tree along with its shadow (which is key) really took life in the horizontal format. A simply click with Nikon Df & 58f1.4AFS still using the Nikon 67mm Circular Polarizer, it took only seconds from shooting the climbers. I simply love finding subject like this that really require no thinking. Thinking hurts sometimes!
Mar 3, 2014 | Landscape Photography
There is some amazing climbing images out there like from Dave Black and Lucas Gilman. These photogs are up on the wall with the climber working their craft producing killer images. You’re never going to get me up on that wall, but I would really love to get some of those images. Well on our K&M Adventure to Moab, we hit the Hwy 279 wall where lots and lots of climbers scale the faces. The really cool thing, you can shoot them from the ground and they are still right in front of you! This is climbing I can relate too!
Shooting nearly at the same level as the climbers is the unique perspective that is unique. Just how close are you? I shot with the Nikon Df & 58f1.4AFS. Some in the group shot with 70-200 or 80-400 which worked as well, but I went short for a reason. I wanted to make it appear that these guys were scaling massive cliffs (and make it appear I had done some climbing … huh!) Shooting with the 58mm, I got the critical sharpness making the face come to life while getting the size for scale.
Now I shot vertical also to give the feeling of height. The road where they start their climb is literally at the bottom of the frame, just out of the frame. But you don’t know that just looking at the photo. I also used a polarizer to remove the massive blue reflection of the sky to bring the color of the rock to life. We spent a long time on the rocks shooting, shooting from the safety of the ground. My hats still off to Black / Gilman for physically getting up with their subject. Me, I’m keeping my feet on the ground!
Feb 27, 2014 | Landscape Photography
It’s a natural, when you’re in the desert and it’s night, to look up and be amazed by the heavens. And when you’re a photographer, you just gotta photograph them. What I term heavenly body photography, using the quality and connivence of our digital cameras it’s pretty easy to make stunning photos. So while in Arches, I went about doing just that. The process I use is pretty simple. First I go for the baseline exposure for just the stars. You see that above. The bright spot which one might think is the moon coming up is an oil well way off in the distance.
Then I turned the camera so now the lights of Moab are off in the distance on the left. It’s at this point I brought out the 2mil light. Now I have to admit I’d not light painted in years and years and while I use to do it alot back in the day, I’m about as rusty as can be now. But I do like the story being told in the photo which is a combination of star light, city light and flashlight.
But the main photo I wanted this evening was that of Balanced Rock. Shooting with the Df, 24f1.4AFS and triggering the system with the Vello CAMERA REMOTE, I went to work painting. Now I wish, really wish I could tell you that what you see is from one photo, but it’s not. The star field is one photo but Balanced Rock is a combination of three lighting painting attempts. What I did was to not follow one of my own precepts, practice! In this case, my painting was just to linear and not painterly enough to create the effect I was after. Just blasting with the light isn’t the goal, neither is what I did. That’s why you practice. But I can tell you that simply spending ours under these skies even if not one photo was created is more than worth the time!
Feb 26, 2014 | Landscape Photography
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Click on First image to view Slideshow Gallery
I first ventured to Mesa Arch in 2003. I had seen photos of it and from it for a long time prior to my getting there but was not prepared for what I would find. Mesa “Arch” while an arch, it does not have a arch shape. Rather, it’s somewhat flat structure slopping to the west. Many of the arches in Arches Nat’l Park have the same basic shape so Mesa Arch isn’t all the different. But I wanted my photos to say “Arch” so I needed to put a curve into the arch. This was accomplished originally with the 10Fish and now with the 16Fish. With that came the mastering the light of early morning at the arch. That started back in the day of two photos combined in post then evolving to HDR and now simply a single click in ACR. The photos here represent a number of different months of the year with February being my favorite month to shoot the arch. So what you see here are a number of years at Mesa Arch represented in my files and represents pretty well that with time, photos can get better. Open mind, open heart and lots of time, we all get better!
Feb 25, 2014 | Landscape Photography
I’ve been driving past Dewey Bridge for decades always saying, “I should stop.” Well on our K&M Moab Adventure we finally did and I’m really glad we did. This bridge built back in the early 1900’s was once the main artery from UT to CO. Before it was built, there was a ferry taking commerce across the Colorado River. Now we speed across a modern bridge but this once marvel of construction could take a maximum of 6 horses and 3 wagon carrying 9000lbs and promoted as state of the art. Now just a skeleton of what it once was, it was restored to its current condition to preserve a small slice of our history. Simply cool!
Now the photo of the bridge aren’t any stoppers, at least until you take the gloves off and start telling its story. This was an amazing early example of a suspension bridge and at the time of its construction the second longest of its kind! Well, what is a suspension bridge? Its a series of cables strung to take and transfer the load. So with this, I went to those cables to tell there story.
Shooting with the Df and ever amazing 24f/1.4G AFS (and Nikon 77mm Circular Polarizer II Filter)I got physically right under the cables to the point where they were basically resting on the lens shade. I then shot them at f/1.4 for the results you see. I wanted much of the cable and bridge structure to be a hint to force the eye to just see the twist in the cable, what gives it the strength to support weight. Now I show it at f/8 just so you can see the difference and power of f/1.4 in telling a story because that’s what I was after. It’s no secret I’m a history buff and I find it very challenging at times to tell its story in a single click. Using the right tools is a big part of that and for me for this subject and story, the 24f1.4 did a great job.
