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.
Feb 24, 2014 | Landscape Photography
This is a very simple technique I’ve done forever to make a more intense sunburst from the sun. The basics of creating a sunburst or starburst is the point light source (the sun) and closing the lens to its smallest aperture. While not essential, it really helps to have a clean from element / filter as well (to avoid UFOs). Not having anything like clouds between you and the sun is important. And the best starburst comes from lenses with the most number of aperture blades producing the smallest holes. And with that, you’re good to go.
Now in this technique, you take the basics one step further by giving the sun a little squeeze. “The Squeeze” or pinch makes the size of the sun smaller by clipping it by an element in the scene. In this case, the sides of arches at Arches Nat’l Park. By moving physically ever so slightly, the sun is just barely peaking around the edge of the arch. You’re handholding and constantly moving ever so much as the earth rotates exposing more sun. I’m shooting with the Df / 18-35AFS / 16Fish and they give you two different lookin starbursts for comparison. It’s a simple enhancement that can bring that little extra zing to your landscape photos.
Feb 24, 2014 | Landscape Photography
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Click on first image to launch gallery
After spending some time at Plaza Blanca, the earth spun, some clouds came in and the light and color came back in the viewfinder. With these two additional and essential elements, I then switched back to color photography from black and white. Why? There are two main additions to the already very cool scene, blue and yellow. The colors blue and yellow when added to white and gray are dynamic colors permitting us to lead the eye through the scene to take in the shapes and texture. Still shooting with the Df / 18-35AFS, I shot with zero exposure comp and simply let the light and color take over. Now if I did everything correctly in creating the gallery, you should be seeing the image progress through the afternoon as you click through the gallery. You can see the evolution of the light and therefore my composition. I think this is important because it was the last couple of images that I like the best of the late afternoon shooting. Finishing of all these photos was simply done in ACR 8.4 (which is now available to download!). What you might want to be taking from our afternoon outing is: shooting with dear friends is great and, the light no matter hard or soft can be used successfully photographically if you think subject, story and romance.
Feb 21, 2014 | Landscape Photography
Arches Nat’l Park is simply an amazing place, truly hard to grasp nature created it. But rocks being rocks, they tend to look pretty much the same decade after decade no matter how grand they are. This means whether photographed by others or yourself in the past, unless you push your photography, odds are the photographs will look the same click after click. And just being different for the sake of being different doesn’t make it unique. You’ve gotta feel outside the box to make the common, uncommon. That brings us to this morning and our explorations of The North Window. You have many options in which to head towards the uncommon, the first being having a person in the window. If you’ve ever been to the North Window, hearing a photographer scream “Get out of the window” can be common. Many feel that either, the photo is all theirs so don’t get in it or, people distract from it. The truth is, the Window belongs to everyone and having a person in the photo for “scale” is one of the simplest ways of making the photo, uncommon.
At our K&M Adventures, this is in part what we share during the week. Another method to go “uncommon” is to place yourself in a place others typically won’t go with a lens that tells more visually than most tell. In this case, heading to the “backside” of the window and shooting wide. I went with my current favorite of Nikon Df with 18-35AFS shooting at 18mm. This does many things, the first is bring to life the drama of the light of the rising sun. Next, it takes in more than the window itself giving it place. Lastly, it brings a whole new shape to the window while at the same time a slope to the rock it calls home. Now none of this is radical stuff, none of this is really earth shattering but it does start taking the common to uncommon and that’s important. When you put some of your heart into your landscapes with a touch of storytelling, you’re on the right track to taking different to unique.
