Slickrock and Shadow

Black Pool at Coyote Gulch, Utah:  a quiet campsite for single tent Here's my take on tent photography.  On a quiet morning after sleeping our first night at the Black Pool in Coyote Gulch, I got up while my two daughters continued sleeping.  The wind from the previous night was gone.  Nothing stirred.  The tree leaves, the tall grasses and the flat water surface each stood entirely still.  I was able to set up tripod and camera, shutter release and carefully focus.  A long shutter speed later, I had this photo. I carefully rotated my polarizing filter to remove reflections off the wet seeping rock walls, thus keeping the all wonderful colors.  But I also wanted to keep all those reflections on the water.  This ended up being an easy task, but one I did consciously. I have seen plenty of tent photography:  tents in lonely, beautiful places.  I think this shot is a worthy addition to this genre.  

Paria Mud Cracks:  when the mud is moist, these are extremely slippery! It had rained the previous week.  The mud was still moist and very slippery.  This is what I hoped for:  dramatic puzzle-piece mud cracks leading through the canyon floor. In composing this photograph, I wanted the cracks to take center stage.  I wanted them to lead to another interesting photography subject as well.  I found a very shallow pool and a rock standing in front of a dark wall.  I tried several compositions with a 16-35 mm lens but I was not satisfied.  I switched to a 17 mm tilt shift lens and took several pictures, shifting the lens up and down in order to have a very good view of the mud cracks at my feet.  These were stitched together in Photoshop.  Black-and-white processing seemed appropriate for this dramatic subject.

Columns of Buren at Palais Royale, Paris Paris has its' share of world-class icons.  We all know what they are.  A photographer's journey to such a well-known location certainly should include them.  But what else? Fortunately, the famous icons really just scratch the surface of this wonderful city.  The more one looks, the more one finds. One such find is the Columns of Buren.  Buren was an artist who liked graphic lines.  He sometimes put his art in public places without permission.  The Palais Royale gave him permission for this permanent art project many years ago.  He created black and white columns of different heights which completely fill a square within the Palais Royale.  This public art is there to walk around, climb on, jump off or photograph.  Although just one block from the Louvre, the fun public square is mostly undiscovered. In the early evening, I visited here with my family.  The kids had lots of fun ru...

Chairs and Fountain from Palais Royale, Paris Black and white photo processing is still used today and will always be used because there are certain advantages to removing color.  Removing the color from a photograph eliminates color distraction.  For example, in portrait photography the person is the main subject, not their clothing.  Often someone's clothing is a distraction from the person themselves.  It may be bright or have a pattern.  Black and white processing eliminates or minimizes that. When I process a photo, I'm ask myself whether color adds to the photograph or distracts from my message.  Every photograph tells a story.  The story should not have too many loose ends.  It should get to the point without confusion. Tuileries Garden Statue, Paris In these 2 pictures from Paris, I feel that black and white processing helps focus on the actual shape, structure and form of the subject.  In the first picture, it i...

Macro shot of the smooth and highly tangible rocks and pebbles of Waianapanapa State Park (Black Sand Beach), Maui. These lovely rocks make an excellent fine art subject.  Black Sand Beach (a.k.a. Waianapanapa State Park) is a location that I was hoping to visit. I had seen some very good as well as some very bad photographs from this location. I was not sure what I would find. Getting to Black Sand Beach was much easier than Red Sand Beach because a road goes right to it and there is no hiking in the dark on the side of a cliff required.  I was surprised to discover there was no one at this highly accessible and very beautiful location. I had the entire place to myself for two hours until I decided to leave. One of the most delightful things about the beach is the rocks themselves. They are smooth, black. When they are wet, they reflect the light from the sky. It's really a beautiful sight. Normally reflections are things you want to remove in a photograph with a polari...