Broaden your technical and creative skills. Unleash the artist within you.
First the alpenglow transforms the towering granite into soft contours and delicate shades. Then the first rays of the sun transmute the ethereal rock into bright, chiseled gold. Look quickly or you will miss it.
(984)
Mt Whitney is the grandest and tallest peak in the Sierra Nevada and the lower 48. At 14,497 feet it’s a challenge to climb, even if there is a trail that takes you to the top. I recall the first time I climbed it at the age of 14. It was one of the most difficult things I had ever done.
But photographing it at dawn last week was one of the most thrilling things I have ever photographed. We were treated to a magnificent alpenglow the likes of which I have never seen before. It looked like the mountain was glowing with a warm light from within. It stood tall and powerful against the still-dark sky.
I’m working on an image taken probably 15 minutes later when the sun first touched the peak. I’ll share that one with you tomorrow.
For more of my fine art photographs visit my website. http://RalphNordstromPhotography.com.
(656)
The workshop is ‘in the can.’ We finished up yesterday with a Mono Lake South Tufa sunrise followed by the rest of the morning in Bodie.
There weren’t any clouds but the sunrise was bright red (“Red sky in morning….” but it didn’t pan out). Still, South Tufa is always fascinating. We explored some new places and found some new compositions. We also found a place where an underwater spring was welling up. The tufa building process continues. There were clouds of brine shrimp and alkali flies (in their respective environments). And amazingly, the flies were not a bother. They swarmed on the tufa right at the water’s edge and only flew when you disturbed them by moving too close. Discovering an active site was really very thrilling.
Unfortunately, the water level continues to drop as the drought continues. I’d estimate the water level is down a couple of feet from the time I first started shooting there about two and a half years ago. But the potentially good news is that yesterday the National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center issued a forecast that an el nino is building and will last through next winter. We could use five years of el nino in California to replenish our nearly exhausted water reserves.
Bodiewas fascinating as usual. And although we were photographing in late morning light the subjects are still very interesting and the photography, exciting. There’s a temptation to rush around in an attempt to cover it all. But I prefer to slow down and absorb the spirit of the area. Oh, and we ran into David Muench and his workshop.
We were so busy the last days of the workshop that there wasn’t any time to even review our pictures much less get any ready to post. But that will come and soon. So stay tuned for more images.
You can check out my other photos on my website – http://RalphNordstromPhotography.com
(504)
The single lens reflex camera (SLR), whether film or digital, allows the photographer to change lenses. And the selection of one lens or another can have a powerful impact on the message of a photograph. It’s more than wide angles giving you the grand picture and telephotos getting you up close and personal. There are other effects that lenses have on the final photograph.
(4947)
When I do art festivals and street fairs, many people enter my booth and ask me if I’m the photographer. I answer, “Yes I am.” Very rarely does someone ask me if I’m the artist.
It seems there is not a strong connection in many peoples’ minds between photography and art. That is further evidenced by another question I get a lot – “Do you manipulate that photographs?” My answer to that is, “Of course.” That’s the short answer. The longer answer is, “I approach photography from the mind set of a painter. I reserve for myself all the creative and artistic freedom a painter has.” To this they usually respond, “Oh, I get it. You’re an artist.”
Continue reading “Art and Photography”
(216)
The second entry into the Orange County Fair this year is one that I planned for well over a year – Bristlecone Moon. The bristlecone pine are the oldest living trees on the planet. The oldest of these is over 4,800 years old. Imagine, not only will it outlive you and I, not only has it outlived our ancestors, but it has outlived whole civilizations.
Continue reading “OC Fair Entry #2”
(721)
When I first got my Epson 4800 printer I was tackling so many learning curves all at once that I really didn’t spend any time experimenting with papers. I was learning the virtually unlimited possibilities with Photoshop, getting used to the vast field of color management, Lightroom came along and that presented a new learning curve, HDR with PhotoMatix, LightZone, Photokit Sharpener, Imaginomics Noiseware Pro and more. Plus I was focusing on composition, light, post processing, soft proofing, etc.
It’s no wonder that paper was not high on my list of things that needed my complete focus and attention. I settled on Epson Enhanced Matte, a paper that gave me the effect I was looking for; that is, photographs that looked like paintings. And given the number of artist’s proofs I had to print before I got a print that I was satisfied with, it didn’t hurt that it was a fairly inexpensive paper.
Epson Enhanced Matte is a really nice paper for what I wanted to do. And I’ve never looked back at the decision to go with matte. I briefly tried some glossy and luster papers and didn’t like what they did for my photographs. So I was happy to stay with a matte surface.
But I didn’t realize when I started that the low D Max would be a challenge or that there would also be some color gamut difficulties, especially in the yellow-browns. These made working with some images rather formidable. It took a while but I finally started understanding what was going on and anticipating and pretty much avoiding these problems. Then… Continue reading “Red River Paper”
(1320)
I was fortunate to visit the Racetrack Playa in Death Valley November of last year. This is where rocks mysteriously slide around, leaving tracks in their wake. Many slide for hundreds of feet and more. Some move with seeming purpose in pretty much a straight line while others meander about, changing directions on a seeming whim.
The journies of these rocks are illustrated by the following photographs.
Or consider the meanderings of these two rocks.
If you trace back the path of the rock on the right you will be amazed.
It’s a joy to wander over the playa for literally miles in search of these often whimsical rocks. However, when I was last out there I saw some very disturbing signs of greed and total disregard for others and the wonders of our earth. Scores of tracks had no rocks – at either end. People were carting them off. You might not be surprised to see one or two tracks without the rocks that made them. But to see scores was both upsetting and heart breaking. And to top it off, there were car tracks on the playa. Some idiots drove their vehicle out there for, what could only be to make off with even more rocks.
It’s callous ignorance like this that makes one feel the need even more urgently to redouble our efforts to preserve treasures like these. I’ve said in this blog before that it just takes one. You only cut a virgin forest once, build a highway through a pristine wilderness area once, wipe out a species once, remove racetrack rocks once and they are gone forever.
(1190)
If you sell fine art photography you hear this a lot, “I don’t need to buy your photographs. I’ll go there myself and take my own pictures.”
Sure, why not? We all have digital cameras these days that do a great job of producing really fine pictures – some of the time. I would never argue with a person with this attitude but even if you’re a great photographer there are good reasons for purchasing other photographer’s works.
I don’t think anyone would argue that it would be a wonder to own an Edward Weston original platinum print. But let’s look at some factors that are more down to earth.
Let’s start with capturing the best light. A landscape photograph is nothing without great light. Usually that’s early in the morning or late in the afternoon although good light can occur any time of day. Is our intrepid photographer going to be on site a half hour or more before sunrise? I know from lots of personal experience that you pretty much have a location to yourself before sunrise. It’s funny to see people just starting to show up, cameras and tripods in hand, after we’ve shot through the best light and now that it’s gone we’re ready for breakfast.
How about subject selection and composition? We all have our own personal ways of seeing and interacting with the world around us. How we choose to select a subject, isolate it and place it along with other components into a composition is a very individual process. The end result says as much about the photographer as it does about the subject, maybe more. So each work is a unique expression of an individual with his or her own very personal viewpoint. You see this very clearly at workshops when the participants gather around to share their work. The diversity is enlightening.
Then we come to post processing. This is where the photographer’s personality comes forth even more strongly and loudly. There are many decisions that come between uploading the RAW file and producing the final print. I’m plagued with false starts in which I have to go back to the RAW file and begin again from square one. There is a large variation in the techniques different photographers will apply in post processing and hence a large variation in the results.
So, why would a photographer want to by other photographers’ works? Because there is so much to learn from the photographers you admire and one good way to learn it is to have their works around you every day.
(580)
I print my fine art prints with Image Print, an excellent RIP. And I print on an Epson 4800. Image Print gives you the option of printing at 180 or 360 ppi. I’ve printed a lot of great looking, rather large photographs at 180 ppi. A lot of my friends are shocked. They say I’m compromising the quality of the print. But no matter how close I scrutinize the prints I really can’t see any difference.
Enter Genuine Fractals. Genuine Fractals really objects if you try to resize an image to 180 ppi. The smallest it is comfortable going is 240. To get it to accept 180 ppi I have to fake it out.
But the fact that it defaults ot 240 raises all sorts of questions. What if I resize at 240 ppi and print at 180 or 360? For that matter, is there a difference between 180 and 360. So the other day I was printing some 16X24 images and decided it was time to finally ran a test.
Continue reading “180 or 360 ppi?”
(1338)