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!
Apr 16, 2013 | Landscape Photography
Love the light, color, leading line and the small detail tying it all together. Simple 80-400 click.
Apr 16, 2013 | Landscape Photography
Sharon & I had NO idea that Gas Town was part of Vancouver or just how cool it is! This is a building they called the “Flat Iron” which I have no idea is related in any way to the Flat Iron bldg in NYC, but it’s really cool. I didn’t have as much time here at the square as I would have liked. There is a whole photo essay to be shot here over time which I would love to have the opportunity to do. Then there are the people of Gas Town. These two girls were a hoot! Sitting inside grabbing a bite, I saw them as we passed and knew I had to make a click. Shooting with the 18-35AFS, I walked up to the outside of the window, smiled, pointed to my lens and then to them and made the body gesture if OK. They smiled and shook their heads so I asked to put their head together and made the click. The folks were so darn friendly and jovial, it was just a great time!
