May 28, 2013 | Landscape Photography
We’re up in the spectacular north, Churchill, Manitoba Canada. K&M Adventure is here I know for birds, but one lesson I learned long ago in Churchill, when you see cool ice, SHOOT IT! That’s because the wind can completely change it in a matter of minutes. This is the defrosting Hudson Bay and the blue is the fresh water that has melted and and pooled on its surface. I simply love the pattern it makes. I shot with the D4 & 80-400 (top frame) and than switched to the 800mm (bottom two) to get tighter on the pattern. And sure enough, a few hours after these were taken and it had all changed. But is was our first stop for the day and a great start to the week up north.
May 24, 2013 | Landscape Photography
Click Here to Zoom In
There is one thing in this world I’m the best at, and that’s sitting on a rock staring at a hole in the ground for 18hrs to get the photo. Well, today I started a new pursuit, all the same thing except looking at a nest at the top of a tree. Other than the pointed rock pushing my underwear in a place it ought not be, it was a great, great perch to watch life! I started working a Red-tailed Hawk nest this week not too far from our home. I’ve not photographed a raptor nest in detail for its duration ever in my career and I’m very excited this just might be the year. And to say it’s a challenge and one I’m already really liking is an understatement!
photo taken by iPhone
The first challenge is reaching my perch to see into their perch. As you can see in the photo, I’ve gotta hike up the road and than climb up the hill to be able to get this great view right into the nest which is at the top of a gorgeous Jeffrey Pine. I climb with all the gear set up to go. Perched on top of the Gitzo 5561SGT w/ Wimberley Head(w/ RRS Quick Release mount attached) is the Nikon 800f5.6 AFS (w/TC-25e) and Nikon D4. Why climb with all that on my shoulder? Because climbing with a photopack and tripod and than trying to set it all up on a hillside scares the crap out of me! Once in place on my rock perch, I sat, watched and thought. I’m about 200′ from the nest once I’m at my rock ledge. The best part about nest photography is the time not shooting when life forces me to just watch. And that’s what I did for hours, watch three 10-14day old chicks sleep and defecate. Life gets no better!
photo taken by iPhone
I am often asked why I use the Gitzo 5561SGT which is an expensive 12′ tripod when I’m only 6′. This is a perfect example why. I need to shoot at eyelevel even when on the side of the hill. By extending the two legs down slope an extra leg section, I can stand behind the tripod and not be all bent over. When you’re working a situations like this for hours and hours, being bent over is simply back breaking. At the same time, stability of the whole rig is sacrificed when you’re bent over. It was already windy, the tree swaying. But when you zoom in (using the link above), you’ll see that the Gitzo provided the 800mm w/TC.25e (1000mm!) a very stable platform so it could deliver its blistering sharp quality. So I watched, shot video and photographed the nest and the adult coming in and feeding the kids a snake. I’ve had a great beginning and can’t wait until the next time I’m there and finishing up this fun project. mtc
May 21, 2013 | Landscape Photography
I had a w h o l e bunch of emails asking about star bursts from yesterday’s blog. The questions are two part, how do you create them and how do you know where to place them. The creation is pretty simple, just close your lens down all the way and shoot. Now you want clear skies and a clean front element / filter. You can increase the star burst effect by “squeezing” the sun like just letting it peek around the edge of a limp or rock. But the biggest thing is your lens, or rather its aperture. The best thing to do is simply step out of the home and shoot the sun with your lenses and look at the star burst pattern they create. I saw the star burst created by the Canon 16-35 and it’s schweet! Right now, my favorite in my bag is with the 18-35AFS
When it comes to placement in the frame, I have no formula to really offer you. Keep in mind that being the lightest/brightest in the frame, the mind’s eye will be stuck on the star burst big time. The rest of the elements in the frame will take a back seat to it. Also keep in mind, you’re shooting into the sun, that means everything else in the frame will be for the most part backlit, in silhouette. If that’s the case, how come these Tufas aren’t all black? Shooting with the D4 and its six stop dynamic range, I simply used the Shadow Slider in ACR 8.1 and pulled the shadows back (you can do this with most bodies these days with tons of success). The bottom photo, there were two other photographers with their tripods in the scene when I took it. This image, it’s the cloud in the top right that were important. So I took the prime frame even though the two photographers were in the frame. Once they left I took the second shot just for the parts of the Tufa they blocked. I processed both files in ACR at the same time and then layered the two frames and painted in the Tufa where the photographers stood. Now they’re gone. So the bottomline answer to the question is, just gotta thing a little and the rest is really simple!
May 20, 2013 | Landscape Photography
When you have that bald sky and strong sun, another subject is available to you at Mono Lake. Getting there takes understanding a little bit about what is Mono Lake. The strange sculptures we love to photograph, the Tufas, are created underwater. If you’re wanting to be able to tell the story of Mono Lake visually, then including this process is part of the storytelling.
The other part is seeing beneath the water to visually tell that story. A polarizer is your standard tool because it removed the reflections of items such as clouds so we can see beneath the surface. But when you have blad skies and strong sun, you don’t need the polarizer, yo’ve just just gotta look down. So with the 18-35AFS on the D4, I pointed down.
Wanting to bring some visual depth to the photo, I try to have three planes to the photograph, the foreground, middleground and background. In this case, the dry, above surface piece of tufa is the foreground, the detail under the water is the middleground and the reflection of the sun the background. Now this is something I’m not really great at so it takes me time to find all the elements and get them to come together in the viewfinder. But when they do like these and they work, I do like them. They help tell the Mono Lake story just a little deeper.
May 20, 2013 | Landscape Photography
It was a gorgeous weekend to be in the Eastern Sierra and we had a great group of photographers join us for our Mono Lake Weekend. And as what seems to be going with the weather this year, what should have been a stormy, moody weekend turned out to be a clear, warm weekend. Such is often the case when you plan a trip a year in advance but you’ve gotta make the most of what Mother Nature hands you. So, we worked the Tufas of Mono Lake with the bald skies.
How to you make the most of bald skies? That’s one damn good question. The first is, get over the fact you have bald skie. It can be a real mental bummer so you gotta get over it. Next, you need to work with the light you have. In this case, there was a moment just as the sun crested the horizon that the Tufas had that magical touch of warmth. It’s just a second so you gott move fast and work with that moment. For that moment, I set the WB to cloudy A6 to warm up the light. I underexposed and used a Schenider 3 stop split grad attached to 18-35AFS on the D4. Understand, you are working to make lemonade out of lemons, so pulling out tools, techniques and experimenting is all part of the process. You have nothing to loose, right?,/p>
And then as I’ve done many times, when the light gets hard and the skies are bald, it’s time for star bursts from the sun. The 18-3AFS does a good job when closed down all the way to create a cool pattern. Now it does help if you remember to clean the front element of dust which I forgot, again, to avoid UFOs. The D4 with its 6 stop range makes these image pretty darn simple. And I like simple when I have bald skies, I’m already thinking enough trying to make the photo happen.
May 15, 2013 | B&W Photography, Landscape Photography
An over active imagination? Ya, I have one of those! My love affair with rocks is pretty well known and that’s due in part to my imagination. For example this one at Lake Tahoe, it looks like a fish monster rising its head from the depth to spit out some chewing tabaco on us dumb photographers getting up early on a bald sky morning to shoot rocks. Perhaps a little more nuts is not only seeing this but then shooting to bring it out. Getting down near water level with D800 (ya, even wanted extra detail in the head) with the spooky sharp 18-35 and then processing it in Perfect Suit 7 B&W. Of course, when I say out loud what I was seeing, I was perceived as nuts and that is probably very correct. But then getting up early on a bald sky morning, is nuts!
