Our great friend Jeff Cable is here in Mammoth for the holidays so we decided to get out today and make a couple of clicks. He brought his son along so we headed to Laws to play with the trains. Laws is located down the hill and I knew the light would be hard since they don’t open until 10am. So I went knowing I was going to play with the light of High Noon. This is one of the images I came back with that I really like.
Now playing with High Noon in my mind is using the contrasty light, the shadows and making them as much of the photo as the subject themselves. In this case, the milk cans on the platform are just part of the image. It is their shadow (which is enhanced in post) leading up to the cans that I liked just as much. It was a fun couple of hours which produced some fun results. I’ll post a couple more and a video tomorrow.
Photo captured by D3s, 50f1.4AFS on Lexar UDMA digital film
Finally, I’m home for a snow storm and it happens on the first day of winter. How perfect is that! I have this grove of trees that we can see from our living room that I just love to photograph. It’s a moody grove, a mood that changes with the light and the weather.
In the past I’ve photographed it with the 70-180macro (great lens), 200VR (wicked sharp) but this year I went our armed with the 70-200VR2. It’s weird but I found that standing in my normal spot that 190mm was just right. The 70-200VR2 is wicked sharp and fun to shoot so it made for a great mini shoot. What is it about the grove that I like so much? One, it’s so darn close. Next, it just works so well as a B&W image (using my usual B&W technique). Lastly, the way the trees have grown, I find it works perfectly for having the two trunks far left, farther than normal but because of their diameter and texture. I’m just drawn to them, all year long.
Photo captured by D3s, 70-200VR2 on Lexar UDMA digital film
Nikon just put out an announcement that NASA purchased 11 D3s & 14-24AFS to go into space. I was cruising around looking for trivia on past flights from the announcement and found a bunch of Nikon in Space photos and liked this one the best. Check out that hand holding technique! Now that’s a type of air to air photography I would love to do!
Back in the office and in front of the DD, I’ve spent the day getting caught up which means moving all the images from last week’s Bosque Base Camp to the network. I kinda love that process because I get to relive the week all over again as I see the images moves from the external drive to the network. I came back with a whole lot of images, not sure of the count yet other than I have 167 D3s video clips to edit and create a final video. Oh, I need Santa to put some time under the tree for me. Honest, I’ve been good.
Northern Harriers are a cool bird. There were a lot of them at Bosque this year affording a whole lot of photo opps. This particular female (males are silver, females brown in case you were wondering) hung out a lot on this one perch on the Farm Loop. This particular time we found her in gorgeous light and with no one else around to scare her off. How long is long? Well, in reality it was just a heartbeat but it was long enough. Here’s a brief D3s video clip from a prior attempt with her that, well, was even briefer.
While the truck was turned off, the wind was buffeting us pretty darn good which you can see in the video. I was basically handholding the rig so it’s not the steadiest of images. I have though learned a better way to post the video so the quality from that perspective is better. Small improvements each day, I can live with that.
Photo / video captured by D3s, 600VR w/TC-17e on Lexar UDMA digital film
The light just became too incredible for me to just shoot as I drove so I finally pulled over. I found a spot, not the safest, to pull the truck over and parked in a snow bank. Our local sheriff went by and just waved, you could say my truck is known around here (that’s another story and not what you think). I had driven all the way from Reno with the D3x in the seat next to me so I just threw the truck into park and ran out.
These are Mono Cones, three extinct volcanoes that are just south of Mono Lake. It’s said that a geologist saw steam coming from the middle one in 1924. The drama in the clouds over the cones just got better and better. I didn’t have time to do it right in camera but knew I could finish the photo in post. Other than the B&W process, I used Nik Color Efex Pro Split grad to darken the top 1/3 of the photo.
Turning to the west, the light over Bloody Canyon was spectacular! That in combination with the fresh snow made the image a slam dunk with really little skill on my part. I finished the image the same way as above. You might wonder about the really blown out highlight. That’s where the sun was trying to shine through and for someone who leaves in snow country, that’s a very welcomed sign after a storm. Capturing detail in that highlight would have taken away from its meaning so I let some pixels die.
Photos captured by D3x, 24-70AFS on Lexar UDMA digital film
You’ve might have heard the rumor that I shoot while driving. Well, it’s true because I shoot all the time. Driving home from the airport the breaking storm painted the Sierra in incredible light so I had no choice but shoot. The problem with driving at the break of a storm is there is no place to pullover and shoot, there is no side of the road, it’s all snow. So I had no choice but shoot while I drove. At least I wasn’t text messaging!
