And It Gets Thicker...

The second in my "Foggy Forest" grouping.  The soft transition from detailed foreground to the misty background gives it an especially watercolor-like style that I always like to see.  It's really nice to compose under these conditions because the background is so easily abstracted and free of distracting details. Walking past this spot yesterday evening, I noticed that there are quite a few wildflowers blooming now that would have been a nice accent.. too bad I was a few days early.. not likely to get this opportunity again before they are gone, at least for this year.

Thorn Bush and Fresh Snow

Six inches of fresh snow on Sunday night/Monday morning produced some beautiful winter scenery here on Mt. San Jacinto... at least for a short time.  Around here, it usually doesn't take too long for the snow on the trees to start melting and falling off, so optimal shooting time can be kind of brief after the actual storm clears out...  Huge clumps of snow falling from the trees onto your head, down your neck and all over your camera makes for messy working conditions:)
While walking in the national forest just below our house, the abstraction and contrast of this sharp, thorny bush against the soft fresh-fallen powder caught my eye.

Faerieland

Now there IS an actual area of Bryce named Fairyland Point, but this is NOT it:) I just thought the name so appropriate for this scene, taken not too long after the one in my last post... these clouds are the fringe areas of the storm seen in that shot.  I don't think you can find shapes and textures like this anywhere else in the world.  Although the colors here are fantastic, I find them almost a distraction in a heavily textured view like this, especially in mid-day light where they are much too harsh for my taste, thus the black and white treatment. For most of the day, the clouds were softening the light, making it much nicer to work in color and the rain showers really seem to intensify the red in the soil when it gets wet.
Color stuff coming up next....

The Monster

I must admit I've been back and forth on this one more than a few times. I liked it quite a lot initially, then began to feel that it was not really that interesting, now I am back to liking it again! I've said it before, but it normally takes me some months or even more to get "detached" from images to the point where I can really judge them impartially, like seeing someone else's work for the first time.  Some other photographers I've talked to say the same thing.
This shot definitely makes me think of some alien spider creature about to chop off my tripod legs for daring to take it's picture. In reality, it's the remnants of an ancient Bristlecone Pine, probably laying very still right here in this spot at 10,000 ft. elevation in California's White Mountains, for many hundreds if not thousands of years. Click the image for a larger view on this one.. the texture of the wood is amazing.
I wish the redwood decks on my house were this durable.. I am going to be spending most of the summer repairing and refinishing them:)

Feelin' Abstract

It's a rare day out that I don't spend at least part of my time focusing on abstract details.. sometimes just to kill time while waiting on the light, or sometimes because I find some genuinely interesting subjects. Much of it turns out to be junk of course, but every once in a while I snag one that looks just right somehow, at least to my eye. Very much a matter of personal taste; some people find the "picture" in this pure shape/color/texture and others don't react to it at all, but Mother Nature is an abstract expressionist, for sure.

Sunlight Meets Badlands

Whoa.. hardly a thought about the poor old blog in over a week. Been concentrating mostly on holiday stuff and trying to get a new computer up and running while things are kind of quiet, business-wise.
Here is one more interesting formation from Death Valley, showing in more detail the incredible work done by the power of erosion in creating these badlands landscapes. Shot also from Zabriski Point (same as previous post), a couple of minutes after sunrise, which you can probably tell by the light just kissing the tops of the hills. I think this formation has a name, but I don't know what it is:).. will have to research it sometime. If anyone knows, feel free to set me straight!

Desert Sunrise (nearly missed)

Here we have a partial section of a larger, eight frame panorama that I shot just as the first rays of morning sun were sweeping across the dunes at Mesquite Flat. It was the night to set the clocks back an hour for the end of Daylight Savings time... and since there was no cell phone signal, I thought it would be safe to use the alarm in my phone to wake up for sunrise without changing anything, but somehow the time got set back during the night even without a signal, so we overslept and had to make a mad dash to get out here before the sun.

What a sight to see the whole scene go from dark and flat to brightly side-lit in just a few seconds, revealing all the amazing wind carved shapes and desert colors. I don't know if I will ever do anything with this as far as printing.. there are quite a few tracks in the sand rather bothering me, beginning just at what is here the left edge and continuing into the next section, but I thought it was at least worth a look. If enough people seem to like it I may take the time to do the necessary touch up in order to make a large print. Cropping out the sky is also an option... sometimes I have to look at these things for a few months before I can make a proper decision. (As usual, some nice clouds would have made my day). Look carefully and you can see another photographer kneeling on the crest of a dune over toward the right side, off in the distance.

Nature does not create works of art. It is we, and the faculty of

interpretation peculiar to the human mind, that see art.

- Man Ray

Light+Shadow=Pure Form

Finally working up some presentable frames from Death Valley a few weeks ago...

For the first night, we stayed right by the Mesquite Flat Dunes at Stovepipe Wells, and getting some good stuff out on the dunes was my main goal, so I might as well start there. This is the perfect kind of place: a wilderness where you can just wander around anywhere and anytime you want, totally undisturbed and with a limitless source of ever-changing light, shadow and beautiful sweeping shapes to keep you busy for hours.

At first impression, you might think that you can just point anywhere and get a great shot, but I find it really challenging to pick out and isolate just the right portion of the whole scene that might make an interesting composition. A certain shape or shadow will catch my eye from a distance, but by the time I walk towards it to find the right distance and angle, it's all gone.. point of view is everything here. Also, some otherwise nice scenes can get messed up by all the tracks in the sand.. (you kind of hope for a windy night followed by a quiet morning, but can't honestly expect that kind of perfection very often). I used a long telephoto (which I rarely do) for many shots, and it seemed to be a really effective tool for once.

This is one of my favorites so far... shot in the very late afternoon just before sunset; the light seems like it was just swept across the foreground by a painter with a large brush... and I love the warm golden glow of the sand against the flowing, soft blue background shapes. The smaller image is actually the larger; you can click for a screen filling view of this one because I think it gives an interesting sense of scale, especially with the figure of the guy walking on the crest. I want to call this one "Sword in the Sand".. can you see my thinking for the title?

A Simple Seascape

My mind is kind of occupied tonight with loading up for a photo trip to Death Valley, so this is from the archives... wanted to leave something fresh to look at since I'll be out of touch until next week.

I was planning a fall color shot for today, but while searching for the one I wanted, came across a different image that I've been meaning to post anyway. Not really sure why I like this so much but I do, something about the soft light and contrast of textures; sometimes really simple images can be really satisfying.. we don't always need to think so hard. I shot this several years ago out on some cliffs in the Big Sur area, south of Carmel in central California... well after sunset, one of those "one last shot before heading for the barn" type throwaways that like to pop up fairly frequently. The old "inner eye" strikes again.

Hoping to have some interesting new desert scenery to play with when I get back:)

Bare Bones, III- A Photographic Sketch

Probably my favorite of this quickly shot set from my iPhone; good enough I think, that I will return and re-shoot the subject with an actual camera next time I am here. Maybe try some different compositions, but the shapes and contrasts are ideal for a nice image. I'm planning to experiment with this in the future as a "sketching" tool or "visual notebook" of sorts, to quickly pre-visualize scenes and subjects, helping to decide which are worth returning to and how to set them up for the actual shot... much as a painter would quite normally do. I often spend a lot of time in a new location just wandering around, composing images in my mind and getting a feel for what I might want to attempt at a better time of day, so this could be really useful, especially if I have a laptop handy to download and play around a bit during mid-day "down time".

What?... Fall Colors Without Color?

Aspen Trees - Southern Utah

Sure, the leaves were very pretty shades of gold and yellow, but the light at the time was kind of flat and try as I might, I couldn't get any shots from this location to pop as I would like in color, so why not reconsider conventional wisdom and try it in black & white? Aspens seem to be one of those subjects that look great either way... and I am much happier with this now than I ever was with it in color. The thin vertical lines of the trunks and the delicate leaves always give a watercolor painting-like feel that I never get tired of, especially if you can get them against a dark background. Luckily that happens a lot in Utah where the groves tend to line open meadows against the darker evergreens of the forest. I found it interesting when analyzing this scene that I could crop it to almost any section, size or proportion and still end up with a pretty decent composition, so I guess in reality it's a kind of texture study.

Shot one year ago to the day, I came back to this because I'm deciding if I will go foliage hunting this year and where.. it will be more towards the end of the month or into November if I do. And yes, the colors were indeed fantastic.. I will post some color images too:)

"Simply look with perceptive eyes at the world about you, and trust to your

own reactions and convictions. Ask yourself: "Does this subject move me to feel, think and dream? Can I visualize a print - my own personal statement of what I feel and want to convey - from the subject before me?"

- Ansel Adams

Ghost Tree and God Sky

Another example of an image that takes on a life of it's own only after you get home and start to work with it. Of course, it was intriguing enough at the time for me to set up and frame a few shots... and I pretty much had a black and white result in mind under these conditions, but somehow in real life and later in color on the raw exposure, it just didn't have the drama that came through ultimately. Shot near Desert View at the Grand Canyon a short time after my last one from this location (here), I was busy watching the sky develop minute by minute and searching out interesting foreground subjects to use as a foil for the clouds.

I borrow the term "ghost tree" from a local newspaper writer who sometimes does articles about nature, parks and hiking trails, etc. (maybe she in turn borrowed it from someone:) I love it, since this is a fairly frequent subject for me (as you can see from an older post here) and I've always needed a descriptive tag for these skeletal trees. "God sky" speaks for itself.. I almost expected to see a bolt of lightning crash down from the heavens and this dead tree to burst into flames. Honestly, not a good idea to be standing on the edge of a canyon with a metal tripod if there is lightning about.. (there wasn't in this spot at the time).

As usual, check out all the great SkyWatch images of the week right here.

Our job is to record, each in his own way, this world of light

and shadow and time that will never come again exactly as it is today.

- Edward Abbey

Mushrooms of Stone

These odd formations resemble something Lewis Carroll might have dreamt up, but believe it or not they are quite real and occur naturally in a spot along the Utah/Arizona border known as The Rimrocks or The Rimrock Hoodoos, about midway between Kanab and Lake Powell and just a short hike from the road. Another fine example of the endless wonders that can be found in this area. Some have a white base with a red cap and others are red all the way, but all have the distinctive "mushroom" cap due to uneven erosion in the different densities of rock.
On my first stop here a year before, the wind was blowing so hard that I couldn't even get out of the car because of the sheer force and the blowing blasts of sand that would have ruined my camera if I had decided to try. Those same winds turned out to be the ones that nearly caused all of San Diego to go up in flames, as we discovered while driving home a few days later. So, last year while foliage hunting, I was determined to get back to this spot even though this time rain was the problem, but the weather broke overnight and I was able to catch some soft post-dawn light filtered by the remaining storm clouds. On the drive out here before dawn, I experienced the awesome sight of leftover clouds from the storm literally pouring out of the vermillion cliffs to the north, along the ground and across the road, backlit by the rising sun. Something I was unable to stop and capture photographically then or to describe adequately in words now, but believe me a sight to see, so this will have to do for today.

The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders.
-- Edward Abbey

Twilight in Joshua Tree (and an Instructive Site to Visit)

All that I have achieved are these dreams locked in silver. - Paul Caponigro

No special background story to go with this one! It's a rather alien-looking scene (the kind I love) shot at twilight among the boulders in Joshua Tree National Park, which I have mentioned before here, in a February post. If I remember correctly, some smoke from a distant wildfire contributed to the nice colors in the sky at the horizon on an otherwise pure blue day. The granite formations in this area are very unique and interesting as you can see, but no Joshua trees appear in this shot.
In addition to mentioning as I go along here some of the classic photographers or artists that have influenced and inspired me, I want to occasionally point out a site that is especially interesting or informative. Therefore, for my "tip of the day", I give a big thumbs up to Georgia-based photographer Craig Tanner's video series "The Daily Critique". You can view it directly on the website where he is the principal contributor: The Mindful Eye (after a free sign-up), or find the entire archive easily here on YouTube. Each day, he takes a viewer-submitted image and analyzes it in a very informative and positive way, discussing composition, color theory, processing techniques and the general thought process behind art and photography. I'm pretty sure that no matter what your skill level, you will find it quite fun to watch. He has a very pleasant manner and more importantly, is excellent at articulating the concepts of visual language. A nice byproduct (to me at least) is that at the end of each segment, you will have spent 6-8 minutes really studying an image and getting a feel for what the photographer was thinking and trying to accomplish, as opposed to the quick few seconds glance we typically allow when cruising blogs and websites. His essay, "The Myth of Talent" is quite inspiring, also. Please check out a video or two and let me know what you think.

Water Study: Time Provides Perspective

This image and a color one to come, were both taken over one year ago near our home in the southern California mountain community of Idyllwild. I made about 40 exposures over the course of several hours, working on the waterfall flowing out of a small local lake. (Hard to call it a "waterfall" compared to one like this, but they can't all be epic:) The whole session has been languishing in my "digital negative cabinet" since then. I had looked through the exposures several times and played briefly with a few, but just had it in my mind that there was nothing really worth developing from this session. Something about the quality of light or color of the rocks just wasn't sitting right with me at the time.

As I've talked about before, it very often pays off to go back and rework things after some time has passed.. shots that you think great in the excitement of reviewing them while brand new, can be evaluated more honestly after the attachment we feel to them has faded. Even better, as in this case, you may find something very worthy that you completely overlooked. Just consider that whatever skill level you are currently at, your eye and technique are constantly changing and developing.

Rethinking the Dunes

I wanted to briefly go back and wrap up my post regarding the Algodones Dunes: "Solitude and Civilization", that I posted a few weeks ago.  At the time, I mentioned working some exposures from that session in both color and monochrome, so here is one B&W version that is very similar in composition to the color one posted previously.  You can see that it's essentially the same shot, although I shifted position slightly to lessen the size of the deep shadow on the right side of the frame.. it seemed a little overbearing in this monochrome version. Other than that, I don't have any strong preference between the two, maybe slightly towards the B&W, so I'd be interested to hear any opinions.

Check out lots of fine B&W images at: The Monochrome Weekly Theme page.  

Solitude and Civilization

There are several large areas of dunes in California; the best known are in Death Valley and here, in the extreme southwest corner of the state right next to Arizona, are the Algodones Dunes. More commonly known as the Imperial Dunes, because that is the name of the recreational area set aside for all the dune buggies, ATVs and dirt bikes that buzz around burning gas literally by the tens of thousands on any given weekend. Especially in the winter when it's cool, there is basically a temporary city of campers and motor homes each weekend as thousands migrate here to play in the sand. Fortunately, the much larger part of the area is set aside as a pure wilderness... no vehicles or other man made activity is allowed except for hiking and nature watching. So, as peaceful and desolate as this image may look, a mile or so behind from where I took this is all the motorized craziness. Wandering out in this direction, you can barely find another human footprint, but if you look closely in the foreground you can see part of a few prints that look like a coyote had walked by, and we found numerous beetle and bug tracks in the undisturbed sand also. There are no trails, obviously... you can just wander around up and down the dunes wherever you want until you get tired, which doesn't take that long walking in the loose sand. Dangerously hot here in the summer, but winter is very comfortable.
I mentioned this area briefly in a previous post, and have been struggling a bit since then with how to present these; going back and forth between B&W vs. color so many times that I'm not sure which I prefer... depends on what particular day I happen to look at them I guess. For today, I'll show a color image and then maybe a B&W one later... I'm always curious about what people prefer. Since it was winter and the days were short, we stuck around until late in the day to capture the low golden light and deep shadows just before sunset.
You can get a sense of scale and see an interesting shot of the dunes taken from the international space station here.

Nature's Own Sculpture-SkyWatch Friday No. 41

This is one of those rare (for me, at least) examples of an image where I actually had a concept in mind well before trying to execute it.

I've been driving past this unique rock several times a month for years; it's right beside the road we have to travel between San Diego and our place in the mountains about a hundred miles to the northeast. I've always known that I was going to stop one day and do something with this, but it was just a matter of being there at the right time and having my gear with me also.  It lies in a high-desert transitional zone, so the sky here is usually clear blue unless there is some kind of storm in the area, but for once the weather gods were kind enough to leave these perfect high, thin cirrus clouds in just the perfect location to serve as a backdrop.. all around to the left, right and behind me was nothing but clear blue!  

As far as I know, this is basically natural, except for where some genius decided to paint a ring around the eye and possibly someone has chipped away a few strategic spots to emphasize the obvious, but that doesn't bother me too much. I wouldn't be surprised if there is some legend to this rock among the locals-I believe it lies on a bit of Native American reservation land-but if there is, I do not know it. I made 5 or 6 different compositions and don't know yet which will ultimately be my favorite, but for now this one will do.

Since the sky is an equal subject here, I am participating in SkyWatch Friday this week. Visit their page to see many other weekly entries... it's a hugely popular site.

Finding Hidden Gems

Sometimes, when I don't have any new images to work on (which is actually quite often since I don't tend to work much locally around where I live), I like to dig into my "digital negatives" of past sessions.
After a 3 or 4 day trip, I may have 150-200 exposures to go over(not that many compared to some people, I know), and I then go through a selection process where I assign star ratings to sort out the ones I'm pretty sure have potential, a second level that may or may not work, and finally, to leave out the ones that don't seem to have any potential at all. I'm pretty critical during this process; in the first go-round, I look only at the thumbnails, because I feel a really strong shot will come across even in miniature format, where you might not even be able to tell what it is... there's just something about the abstract shapes and tones that somehow works. Of course during the next phase, I might open a supposed winner to look in detail and find something that kills it, or a so-so looking image may come to beautiful life after a little tweaking. All of this is usually done in an inspired rush of first impressions and gut feelings when I get back home to the studio; the downside is that I sometimes pass over some good stuff, making it fun and productive to reprocess marginal images or even take a stab at some of the ones I completely ignored the first time around.
This is one of those... I took a second look at it after more than a year. Probably during the initial sorting process I was concentrating on bigger and more dramatic views and thought this was too simple or too flat, but after adjusting it to bring out the light and texture, I find this one really pleasing and peaceful, almost meditative to look at... there's a lot to be said for letting some time pass before you judge your own work.
This little piece of tumbleweed had blown down inside the canyon and lodged in a way that made it seem to be basking in sun from the slot above and growing right out of the rock. The textures of the rock remind me of a continuous brush stroke, flowing from lower left to upper right.

First Kiss of Dawn

"First Kiss of Dawn" - Eastern Sierra

Ahh.. what better place to be on a freezing December 31 morning than all alone among miles of hills and boulders, beneath the eastern wall of the Sierra Nevada mountains, waiting with your camera for the sun to come up? This particular area has thousands of fascinating granite formations and is right at the foot of the spectacular peaks surrounding Mt. Whitney, the highest peak in the lower 48 states. Many old movies and TV shows like The Lone Ranger, Bonanza and Treasure of Sierra Madre were filmed here because of the unique western landscape of rocks and snow capped mountains, and it's still popular for commercials and movies. When my wife first saw this, she thought the subject rocks looked like two figures kissing, hence the title of this one. You can see some snowy peaks off on the left horizon, the distance exaggerated by a wide angle lens.