Follow along in the making of a photograph as we go from kneeling in the mud to the final print on paper.
It all started with kneeling in the mud.
I was with David Muench, Jerry Dodrill and twelve other eager photographers on a Mountain Light Gallery workshop in May. We lined up along the bank of the pond just outside Bishop, California and aimed our cameras at magnificent Mt Tom, the dominant peak in the Eastern Sierra crest in this area.
I’d like to take you through the process of making a photograph from the images I captured that morning.
Read about the pros and cons of point and shoot and digital SLR cameras.
Good news! Summer is here! And we’re thinking “Vacation Time.” Now, you don’t have to be a professional photographer to figure out that you’re going to take a camera. So the question becomes, are you going to take your camera that has been sitting around for umpteen years or use your upcoming vacation as an excuse to buy a new one. (When it comes to buying camera gear, any excuse will do, at least for some of us.)
The backup strategy I’ve been developing over the past year got put to the test. And it worked.
Backing up our photos is something we put off doing because it can be a lot of work and expensive. And we think it’s something we’ll never need.
I got motivated to come up with a backup scheme about a year ago when I thought I had lost all my photograph files from 2010. I had several days of panic and was able to recover most of them from a hodgepodge of backups scattered randomly here and there. I didn’t have anything systematic in place and fortunately they weren’t my portfolio files, the ones I sell. (After it was all over I discovered all the files had inadvertently been moved to another folder. They hadn’t been deleted after all.)
It took a while to come up with the backup strategy that I shared with you in a post last month. Here’s a link to that post. Check it out. I received some valuable comments with some good ideas from others.
I spent the past couple of weeks making almost fifteen large prints for a client. Image sizes were 13X20 and 16X24. Boy, it was fun. I’ve worked with these images over the years. They were all 10X15. But kicking them up even just one notch takes them into an entirely different realm.
Royal Succession (2005)
Even what seems like a modest step from 10X15 to 13X20 makes a huge difference. There’s more to it than just the impact of a larger image. Subtle details emerge that are are not readily apparent at the smaller size. Colors seem a little more vibrant. The image feels more spacious. And there are a lot more impressions that are difficult to put in words.
It’s difficult to really get the true impact of some images when they are small. Granted, some images work best when they’re small. But others beg to be large.
So if you haven’t done so yet, take a couple of your images and blow them up. If you have a printer that can print larger sizes, do so. If you don’t have a large enough printer or use a lab, go ahead and get a 16X20 if you have done this before. You’ll be really glad you did.
I have a couple of Lee graduated neutral density filters in my camera bag. I don’t use them very much because I’m kind of an HDR guy. But the past couple of mornings we’ve had some very clear sunrises and given the location of our home in the Southern California foothills this turned out to be a good opportunity to play around with my grad ND filters.
I discovered a few very interesting things. I’m just going to provide a checklist here without any illustrations. Hopefully it will make sense.
I have a good friend who is a very fine photographer who hates Photoshop. Not me. I love it and will spend days and weeks on a single image. But my friend hates Photoshop and wants to get done with it as quickly as possible.
So I showed him a simple two-step approach to Photoshop that gets you a long ways toward a great looking photograph. And I’d like to share it with you now.
There’s a lot of talk amongst photographers about shooting in the golden hours – around sunrise and sunset. There’s no disagreement that the light is wonderful at those times of the day. The low angle gives excitingly long shadows and the fact that the sunlight has to travel through more of our atmosphere means it’s a bit softer and a lot warmer.
So you often find a lot of photographers lining up for sunset shoots at iconic locations. The bridge over the Virgin River in Zion is a perfect example. I’ve got to admit, I love to shoot sunsets from the bridge myself. Most photographers will arrive early and stay about 20 minutes after the sun disappears below the horizon at which time the pack up and head off to dinner.
I like to stay till I can’t shoot any more. The light show isn’t over by any means when the glow on the clouds fades. It’s just a lot more subtle. As the light fades exposure times increase and when you get up to 30 seconds then ISO starts to bump up.
Why do I like this light so much? Well, because there is so much going on. Many complex and intricate things are going on in the sky above. You end up getting a delicate play of warm and cool light. Everything is enveloped in a quiet, soft luminance. It can be a magic unlike any other time of day.
I was shooting on that famous bridge in Zion back in November. If it hadn’t been for my two friends shooting with me I would have been the only one on the bridge. Everyone else had long gone. I was shooting HDR, 5 bracketed shots, something I’ve found to be very effective (don’t forget, the sky stays bright long after the sun disappears). Each shot was varied by 1 1/3 stop. Post processing consisted of Photomatix and a little Light Room. Here’s what I got. (You can click on these images to enlarge them.)
Watchman at Twilight
A few weeks before I took this Zion twilight shot I found myself in Death Valley on the Mesquite Flats Dunes, again at sunset. I set up on this one composition and shot it for about an hour and a half. Many people like the stark contrast created by the sun playing on the undulating surfaces of the dunes. I like it too.
Mesquite Dunes Sunset
But a while later comes the real show, at least for my money. The play of colors becomes outrageous with reds, magentas, purples, oranges, yellows and blues. And I love the forms and textures of the sand. It’s truly amazing.
Mesquite Dunes Twilight
So for my money, you’ll see me out there (usually by myself) until I can’t shoot any more. Hey, why don’t you join me and see for yourself.
Then and only then I’ll pack up my gear and head off for dinner.
Note: All of the above photographs are HDR, not just Zion.
High Dynamic Range or HDR has become a standard and often used tool when I’m in the field. For example, a few weeks ago when I was shooting sunrises in Bryce Canyon we would arrive well before sunrise. Generally I would start shooting when it was light enough to get a good exposure at 30 second, ISO 100 and f/16. That’s a good 20 to 30 minutes before the sun peeks over the horizon. In that wonderful pre-sunrise light the dynamic range is very low, maybe a total of four or five stops. There is no need for HDR because under those circumstances I can get a good 8 and if I want 9 stops of dynamic range from my sensor.
But as soon as the sun is above the horizon all that changes. The dynamic range jumps to at least 8 stops, probably more. (I don’t take the time to scintifically measure the dynamic range because things happen so fast in those first few minutes.) I don’t want to take any chances with that incredible light so I switch to HDR, just for insurance if nothing else.
Like many photographers, I use a remote release when shooting landscape photography. Why? So that I don’t jiggle the camera when I push the shutter button. (The camera is on a sturdy tripod of course.) However, I found a better way to keep the camera steady.
The download and installation (re-installation) of DxO is complete. It took the better part of an afternoon however. The DxO technologies site is (in)famous for slow downloads. It literally took a couple of hours to download the 500 MB file. But it’s done, DxO is installed and I had a brief opportunity to use it.
