Oct 28, 2015 | Landscape Photography
The breeze is cool, the ground is moist and the clouds have rolled in. You’re standing on the rim of Bryce Canyon and what you see above is what your eyes and senses are delivering to you mind and heart …
You insert your best settings into the camera and go click and the camera’s LCD delivers you what you see above. What went wrong? Actually, nothing! The image you see above came directly from the image below and the image below is exactly what I wanted to capture. Shot with the D750 / 24-70AFS, it’s kinda a simple click (processed ACR / Nik). One of the keys to photography in the digital age is understanding all our cameras can and cannot do, capture, communicate. At the same time, understand all our digital darkroom, can and cannot do, translate and communicate. You start with understanding that there is a computer we’re working with and computers like data. Our cameras have the biggest sample base in collecting data with the computer only able to work with the data the camera delivers. If what you see above is a mystery or is not what your photography is delivering, understand you can do it too you just need to explore, learn and share and you’ll find it!
Oct 22, 2015 | Landscape Photography
Fall color has a mental, emotional, romantic value to it that centers around color. This comes from the combination of the color of the leaves and the color of the light in fall. Personally, I love the quality of the light in the fall of all light during the year. So when you go to take your fall color, often the “fall” value of the light is not considered in the fall color photograph. Light is considered but not the natural warmth the light has as the sun heads north.
I put these images up to illustrate my thought. The top photo uses the WB the camera assigned to the photo. This is what it says the WB was using AWB, the camera assigning 4265k to the scene. You can see the blue content in the photo making the trunks whiter and colors colder. The bottom photo was shot with the WB in the camera set to Cloudy, or 6000k. You can now see the fall light warmth in the photo that we saw as we stood there and shot it. Why would I set the camera to Cloudy in this scene, especially since there was no red sky in the photo? We were at 10,000 in altitude and we had bald skies. That combo I knew there was an over abundance of blue and Cloudy was the only WB that would accurately record the scene. Some would ask, why bother doing this in the camera, just “fix” it in post. There’s a book in answering that question but for me, it still comes down to camera craft. Knowing our camera, knowing our scene, knowing our storytelling and knowing that we want the ultimate quality in the end is why we do it in the camera. If you don’t understand all of this, take your camera outside and start testing. You can teach yourself to see light, feel light and when you do, the viewers of your photographs will feel it too!
Oct 21, 2015 | Wildlife Photography
Moose are a funny critter (you can associate that with the 2 & 4 legged ones). I’ve always found their biology quite fascinating. For example, them long legs, they’re for getting through the deep brush and snow they live in. They have an amazing high step but when running from a predator, it turns into this fast yet funny shuffle. Then there are those big racks, the antlers that us photographers love to photograph. As you can see in these 2-3yr olds, they ain’t got them yet but that doesn’t prevent them from playing with them.
They do serve a purpose but it’s not exactly what you might think. At this stage of life, they are just getting use to them being there. They do shed them in January after just a couple of months of wearing them and a short period of really putting them to use. At this age, these bulls will just have pushing fun, not real battles because they are not ready to become part of the mating pool. They have to figure out how to turn their head to first make a push against their opponent and then figure out how to turn their head to block a thrust. Since there are no nerves or muscles in the antlers, it’s all from the head. It’s a skill to say the least they have a short time to develop.
And believe it or not, that’s not what turns the ladies on! It’s not the battling, it’s the noise but more about that in another post. Getting the shot requires that first, you get to where they are at and that means hiking. Next is the right time of year and that depends on the region but fall, October, is the general time. Then is finding the action and that requires more than one moose. And finally, the gear. Personally, for battles the further away I can be the better so they can do their thing unimpeded. I shot this with the D4s / 200-400VR2 with TC-14eIII which put me about 40-60 yards away from the action. The final outcome of this pushing match? They headed for the hills when the big boys showed up so these youngsters know their place. Now in 3-4yrs, these kids will be the big boys and then we’ll really know how well they learned.
Oct 19, 2015 | Landscape Photography
Reflections, there is this thing with reflections and photographers that they just have to incorporate them even if the photo still sucks. Yes, I said sucks. Reflections are beautiful but that knowledge doesn’t make a photograph with reflections automatically beautifully. I’m not suggesting what you see here as beautiful or as suckie, but rather just photographs to talk about a couple of points. For the record, I like this reflection, both versions.
Reflections obvious reflect some object. In this discussion we have reality and perceptions, reality is the object and perceptions are the reflections. The most common question I ask when I see reflection photos is, “which has the better exposure, the reality or the perception?” Typically its the perception because water, what creates the reflection, automatically sucks up one stop of light. That generally gives the perception the better exposure. The better exposure brings out better colors and blacks. So, in this scenario as I was being lazy, I used a split grad in post to make the exposure for reality match that of the perception.
Now in perfecting the lines, we were out on a floating dock. The required shooting handheld and not on a tripod. In this case, I was shooting with the Df / 24-70AFS and NOT a polarizer. Why not a polarizer? Many ask if they are needed when shooting reflections. They are only if you want to REMOVE the reflection which is their purpose. Since the lines of the trunks in the water is what drew my attention to the reflection, the use of a polarizer would have minimized if not removed most of them. With that being the case, a polarizer in this case wasn’t the right tool. While the straight lines were so cool, with a little wiggle of the dock we were on, we could had a zag to those lines and I kinda liked that as well. So when working reflections, make sure you’re photo is really a photo and not just a neat personal experience and then use to the tools so the perception is better than reality.
Oct 15, 2015 | Landscape Photography
When in the Rockies a week back, at Cripple Creek, we decided to take a road trip to St Elmo, CO. It’s a “ghost town” that’s nearly 10,000 feet in altitude. We’d never been there but long on the bucket list of locales to explore with our camera. The key was to be there in fall when the valley it’s nestled in comes to life with color. After the two hour ride, we arrived and I can honestly say, it did not disappoint!
As you can see from the photos, we hit the fall color at the exact right time. That was huge as it really made every turn a great photo opp. St Elmo has a very free and western lifestyle which translates to everyone is friendly until you cross the line. We had a grand time walking the streets with all the other tourists who venture up into the hills to see the sites. The General Store which is the heart of the tourism closed the next day so we made the most of it all with camera in hand. What a grand day!
I cruised the town with the Df / 24-70AFS with a Polarizer attached. Why that combo? Look at the skies … their are bald, bald, bald!
What does the skies have to do with using a Polarizer? Well, you can watch this class on shooting fall color which will help but on the short, the polarizer removed reflections, the reflections of the blue skies! I’m not using the Polarizer for “blue” skies but to remove that blue reflection from the leaves so their color blazes through (you want blue skies, use the Luminance Panel in ACR). With that blaze of color, it set the scene for the rest of St Elmo which made the photography a slam dunk. Oh, one other detail that I think is kinda big. I shot in Cloudy White Balance the whole time. Why? The Kelvin temp was around 9800. How do I know that number? I set the WB manually to 10k and that image looked like what I was seeing. So with Auto WB stopping at 8k, to get the correct color I set the camera to Cloudy. This clear as mud to you? Do some testing and teach yourself. You’ll find you’re a great teacher!
Oct 14, 2015 | Wildlife Photography
It is obvious, I really enjoy spending time with Moose, especially those in Alaska. Being the biggest of our four subspecies, watching them going about daily life is fascinating. Many forget they are just an over grown deer but those long legs and nose are highly specialized for the world they live in. All you have to do is walk literally in their hooves and you quickly appreciate just how well adapted those long legs are to the Alaska world they call home. This bull, he really intrigued me because he has an infliction which is not really that uncommon and that makes photographing this common Moose, uncommon.
If you look closely at his antlers, you’ll see they look like weathered wood and in some spots, he still has his velvet. CWD affects very few and is only the second time I’ve seen it all these years which is why I focused in on this bull for five hours. I shot with the D4s / 200-400VR2 with the TC-14eIII at times depending on where he was and what he was doing. Where I stood in relation to the bull all depended on the light since the story is the disease. My goal was to show off that CWD by using the light to bring to life the “deformity.” Now this particular bull we only saw this one afternoon, never saw again during the week. That’s in part because he is not part of the breeding pool. Those antlers couldn’t withstand the impacts of the rut. Will he be around next year? The last bull I saw like this I was with a noted Moose biologist who said it’s 50/50. And that is the way of life for the Moose. Keep in mind the most fit bull, the one who breeds with the most females might not be either. They have a hard life and I was honored to have spent this time with this icon of the Alaskan wilderness!
