Category: Journal

My personal journal of the Photographer as an Artist

High Dynamic Range Processing

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.

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Bryce Canyon Reflections 1

The trip to Southern Utah is starting to yield some results.  And while this is still preliminary (that is to say, it hasn’t been proofed yet), this one is a favorite.  And, it was just about the first shot I took.

Sunrise at Sunrise Point
Sunrise at Sunrise Point

There are no comments to add at this point, just the soft glow of a beautiful morning.

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New Shooting Technique

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.

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Shooting in Southern Utah

It was a week ago today that I arrived home from a week of shooting in Southern Utah.  As wonderful as California is with its beaches, mountains and deserts, Utah has to be one of the most exciting places on earth.  The air is clear and the vistas, breathtaking.  I remember the first experience with the Grand Staircase part of Utah when I was much younger thinking this was the real West, the likes of which you saw in early Westerns.  And for good reason as a lot of early Westerns were shot in Utah.

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Inspiring Quotes – William H. Johnson

When I start out for a day, I usually have something in mind, but I don’t fixate on it.  Finding subject matter is the process of narrowing down the possibilities.  I’m always open to whatever nature provides me.  I can be driving in the middle of nowhere and see something that attracts my eye, something that makes it special, and I have to listen – even if it’s not on my list.

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Even More on It Just Takes One

The investigation of the Shulman Grove Visitor Center fire is complete but the results have not yet been released.  Here’s a recent post.  http://www.ksrw.sierrawave.net/site/content/view/1304/48/

This month marks the 50th anniversary of the designation of the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest.  The celebration in the Schulman Grove will continue as planned on September 20.  Also, the Methuselah Trail that was closed for a while after the fire has been reopened.  The Methuselah Trail winds its way through the oldest trees in the forest including the Methuselah tree whose age is determined to be 4,700 years old.  However, the tree is not identified.  Here’s the post from the Inyo National Forest regarding the celebration.  http://www.fs.fed.us/r5/inyo/recreation/bristlecone/index.shtml

Other postings announcing the celebration include:

http://www.inyoregister.com/content/view/117328/27/

http://yubanet.com/california/Celebration-of-50th-Anniversary-of-Ancient-Bristlecone-Pine-Forest-September-20th_printer.php

Following the John Christiana angle of the story, Christiana pleaded not guilty to felony charges of auto theft, grand theft and receiving stolen property.  Sheriff’s investigators have enough hard evidence to link him to the rash of vandalisms that occurred in recent weeks in the Big Pine Creek and Bishop Creek areas.  The Inyo Register reports the following…

http://www.inyoregister.com/content/view/116920/27/

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The Politics of the Nature Photographer

Two weeks of political conventions have left me feeling a bit nauseous.  But, as a nature photographer, some things political have become clearer.

Instead of drilling for more domestic oil, why can’t our country embark on the environmental equivalent to the Manhattan project or the Apollo mission to develop alternative energy sources?  Instead of weaning ourselves from foreign oil why don’t we wean ourselves from oil in general at least to the maximum extent possible (haven’t seen a solar powered 747 yet).  If we can put a man on the moon in ten years is there any reason our great country can’t lead the world to alternative energy?  If we don’t, we’ll be giving up leadership to some other country.  Wouldn’t it be hilarious if that country was China.

One last thought – can you imaging the nature photographer overlooking a grand vista at sunset in Utah and exclaiming, “Oh man, this is amazing!  Won’t this make a stunning strip mine?”  One thing about the natural beauty we so enjoy is that it takes constant vigilance to preserve it.  One lapsed moment to greed and it’s gone forever.

Thoughts from a self-confessed tree hugger.

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Ink Jet Papers – Red River

One thing I haven’t done at all really is play around with different ink jet papers.  My thinking is simple – there is so much to master in all the tools I use – Photoshop, Lightroom, etc. – and so many techniques to learn that adding one more variable is something I just wasn’t interested in doing.

I made the decision right at the start to go with matte papers.  The paper I chose was Epson Enhanced Matte, now renamed to Premium Presentation Paper – Matte.  The decision was based on my desire to produce photographs that look more like paintings.  A glossy or even luster surface shouts “photograph!”  But people don’t expect to see photographs on matte surfaces.  At shows, people frequently ask if my works are paintings.

So Epson Enhanced Matte paper has worked out very well for me and I still stand by my original decision.  It’s my paper of choice.  But I had no idea what I was getting into.

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Inspiring Quotes – Ansel Adams

No man has the right to dictate what other men should perceive, create or produce, but all should be encouraged to reveal themselves, their perceptions and emotions, and to build confidence in the creative spirit.

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Inspiring Quotes – Jim Brandenburg

Like Thoreau, who had gone to the woods because he “wished to live deliberately, to front only essential facts of life” and to “transact some private business with the fewest obstacles,” I embraced this endeavor, with some trepidation, to see if I could find what had drawn me so long ago to my art, and to see if I had become as perceptive of nature as I hoped.  “To anticipate, not the sunrise and the dawn merely, but, if possible, Nature herself,” wrote Thoreau.

Nature cannot be twisted to our whims, not even for the purpose of capturing her beauty on film.  She must be approached on a level at once aware of both her charms and her harshness.  Hers is not a world solely of “calendar” scenes,,, but one also of mystery and hardness, built of the timeless recycling of energy as creatures and plants die and are reborn.  Thoreau’s “sunrise” is the calendar photograph that comprises what for some is their sole understanding of nature.  My hope was that I would be able to cajole from her something deeper.

{Written as the introduction to Jim’s wonderful book “Chased by the Light” in which he undertakes to expose one frame of file a day for 90 consecutive days from the autumnal equinox to the winter solstice in the north woods of Minnesota.  To see the photograph referenced by ‘Thoreau’s “Sunrise”‘ go to Day 10 – Boundary Waters Loons.}

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