Slickrock and Shadow

Reflections in Death Hollow  Today I'll use a recent photoshoot in Death Hollow to discuss photographing reflections in landscape photography.  Reflections are a great aspect to landscape photography that come into play whenever water is nearby.  These reflections have to be accounted for when that body of water is especially still, such as an undisturbed lake or pond.  First things first . . . Q:  Do you want a reflection? A:  No.  Use the polarizer and you will see less reflection and see more what is under the water surface.   A:  Yes.  In this case, do not use a polarizing filter because it specially cuts down on reflection.  If the reflected image is especially interest or adds a desired symmetrical element, I want to include that.  Keep reading for other tips. Next you need to compose your photo to include the right amount of reflection.  Getting lower to the water surface can actually make your reflected surfac...

Lost Lake Dock -- near Whistler, Canada Photography composition is an essential element to any quality photograph.  Even when light may not be "golden", composition can make or break a photo.  Composition is personal.  Two photographers at the same location, photographing the same subject in the same light will come up with different results because their composition choices.   What are the elements of composition?  These things spring to mind for me.  There are others.   1.  Focal length of lens 2.  Distance from subject 3.  Height of camera 4.  Angle of camera (looking up or down towards the subject, or even on the side) 5.  Shutter speed (adding motion blur or smoothing water) 6.  Aperture (for depth of field) 7.  Symmetry or Asymmetry 8.  Lines and curves 9.  Dark and light areas Simply by changing any one of these, the whole photographic expression changes.  An example of  how shutte...

Half and Half Rock:  Yellow and Purple Strips run through everything here! Half and Half Rock is an extension of the surrounding stripes running throughout Coyote Buttes South.  Not only is it amazing that the stripe runs exactly though the middle of the rock but it's mind-blowing that the same stripe continues across the ground and up onto the northern wall of sandstone.  It's like someone with purple chalk drew a wandering line through the whole landscape without regard to obstacles.  This small wonder is one of the first places the casual visitor to Coyote Buttes South discovers.  He sits right on the eastern border and the sandy trail leads to this general area from the parking lot.  If you seek, you will find.  If GPS coordinates help, then here it is:  N 36°57'39.3"  W 111°59'16.9". A literal rock star, this little guy has been photographed by some of the most famous landscape photographers.  Fatali flipped his photograph ...

Kanarra Creek Waterfall in the Springtime:  lots of water and green trees. One of the first, if not THE first, decision a photographer must make is how to hold the camera. Horizontal or vertical?  Landscape or portrait?  Up and down or side to side?  With the old cameras, the default was landscape.  With the advent of cell-phone photography, portrait orientation has become much more popular. In my case, I don't want the easiest or most convenient shot when I have all day to compose a shot.  I want the most aesthetic shot, the one that shows off how amazing my surroundings are.  Sometimes the choice is obvious.  Sometimes it is not.  With Kanarra Creek's 3rd waterfall, the portrait shows more of the lovely red cliffs above.  With landscape orientation, the path of water is shown better as it leaves the pool at the waterfall base.  Both are good so in this case I took 2 shots. A compromise is a square photo.  For some re...

Jumbo Rocks Panorama -- click on picture for larger view I had to visit Jumbo Rocks in Joshua Tree.  I've seen so many pictures of these amazing and balanced rock conglomerations that my thoughts of JTNP immediately bring up the Ansel Adams photo of the balanced boulder.  So I went. These rocks are right in the middle of the largest campground in the whole park.  People are coming and going.  Just finding a parking space was difficult.  From a distance, I could see that this formation stands taller than many of the surrounding hills and mounds.  One of those mounds served as my location for this panorama.   From 400 feet away, I shot with my 300mm lens on a tripod and slowly moved across this rock formation.  Back home I stitched all these together to create a massive file.  It's a different look at this classic place, and one that I am happy with.  

Zion Narrows with High Cliffs and Autumn Trees Tackling a worldwide icon such as Zions National Park Virgin River narrows is a wonderful opportunity.  People wisely come from around the world to visit this magical location.  I live within a 1-hour drive and made my most recent trip here in October.  The leaves had changed to a greenish-yellow which made them stand out from the orange and black canyon walls.   I'll bet there are literally millions of photographs taken here each year.  This is not a place where I'll discover something never seen before.  Rather it's a place where I can shoot my best and then measure my work against the very best photographers in the world.  They all come here.  They all shoot in the same narrow canyon.   That being said, here are a few other photos from this beautiful icon of the Southwest. Virgin River Bend in Zion Narrows Zion Narrows in a wide canyon section Zion Narrow, a shot upstream ...

Snow Canyon Overlook with Tree in Foreground This entry will be about two things:  blown highlights and finding the right foreground subject. Blown highlights are a photographers' worst nightmare.  A blown highlight is just white, no color, no detail, no definition, nothing but white.  You cannot create anything with it.  Many cameras including mine have flashing red pixels on the LCD screen to alert you to blown highlights.  When shooting, they are to be avoided. In processing the above photo, the subject is a darker object against a brighter background.  This calls for processing to lighten the details in the tree while still keeping the detail in the brighter distant cliffs.  There are ways to do this which look fake and I don't want that.  Sometimes a photo will look more real, believable if you just let the highlights blow out, which is what I did here in the upper left corner of the photo.  There is just white, not blue, sky. ...

Sunrise near Face Canyon, Lake Powell Lake Powell is a place for recreation but also incredible beauty.  It remains controversial of because of the Glen Canyon dam which is really beyond the scope of my power.  As a visitor to Lake Powell, I did enjoy the beautiful combination of water, sandstone cliffs, clear skies.  One challenging thing about Lake Powell is the changing water level.  What is present in one year is not necessarily going to be there the next year or even the next week because the water level will go up and down depending on the amount of rain in the Colorado mountains.  As a photographer, I found my best pictures by walking around, looking at the land very carefully and trying to find interesting aspects of each visit. Sometimes I get lucky and a rainbow will appear right in front of me.  Other times I do a lot of walking.  This last year I found a wonderful curve in the cliffs that formed a perfect S.  The S-curve is...

Devil's Kitchen Sunrise at 105mm There is no quicker way to change a picture then to change the focal length.  If you have a zoom lens, simply twisting it back and forth can remarkably bring distant objects closer.  Twisting the opposite direction, a very wide angle can be obtained in which the whole universe seems to come into the lens. I thought it might be interesting and educational to show 3 different views of the Devils Kitchen, but a remote section of Canyonlands Needles District.  I traveled in there by car without any weight restrictions.  I brought my 300 mm lens and several other heavy photographic tools.  The first shot was taken at a focal length of 105 mm.  This is actually zoomed in quite a bit.  It helps bring the flowers and the spire is a little bit closer together in the photograph.  Nevertheless, the flowers are very small. Devil's Kitchen and Wildflowers at 50mm There is no quicker way to change a picture then to ch...

Sandy Spit, British Virgin Islands (as seen from Green Cay) Few people are lucky enough to visit the British Virgin Islands once.  Even fewer go twice.  Just such an opportunity came to me because of a family member who is passionate about sailing.  He invited me and a few others.  That makes more fun and we divide the cost of the ship.  But I digress. My first visit to Sandy Spit in 2008 was remarkable.  Here's this tiny piece of beach surrounded by water everywhere.  What could be more beautiful than that?  Taking a photo of this beauty should be easy right?  Wrong.  From the level of a sailboat or the beach itself, you cannot see the island's other side.  You can't see how small and cute it is.  My photos from 2008 disappointed me. A higher vantage point is needed to show this island in its' best light.  I did some advance research this time.  I checked out surrounding islands and their heights.  Coul...

White Bay, Jost Van Dyke, has the Beach Beach in the World!  (no exaggeration) Jost Van Dyke has several places to visit and to anchor for the night.  By far, the most beautiful on the island (and perhaps all the BVI) is White Bay.  Two amazing beaches stretch for miles separated by a small rocky prominence.  Sailboats come and go.  Sections of the beach are empty, virgin.  Others have lively bars and restaurants.  Here you can sink your toes in the sand and know that there is no better place in the world.  From a photography standpoint, the surrounding green hills and colorful boats are like icing on the cake.  These provide more photo subjects to mix into the beautiful beach scene.  In the photo above, I tried to capture these elements.  I crouched low on the sand and photographed some incoming waves.  In one corner I positioned the lovely red sailboat and in the other I included some palm trees:  Snapshot of para...

Face Canyon Narrows Face Canyon is a beautiful location in the southern portion of Lake Powell, also known as Glen Canyon recreation area.  Before the Glen Canyon dam was completed, these narrow slot canyons were much like Buckskin Gulch or Antelope Canyon.  As water has filled the canyon, these narrows have become very unique indeed!  Although the walls of the canyon are close enough to permit touching both sides at the same time, the water is profoundly deep.  This is not something that can be waded. I discovered this particular branch of Face Canyon while traveling in a kayak.  I made 4 visits to this location.  On my 2nd visit I attempted to wedge my tripod against the wall so that I could take a photograph.  The walls are too steep, too slippery.  On my last attempt I realize that is photos would have to be taken handheld.  This is difficult to do when you are sitting in a kayak and a slight breeze is blowing in the canyon.  ...

Old Venice This is another discovery as I wandered off by myself.  I found this beautiful opening onto it for now.  Directly across there was the doorway to another building.  I tried to frame these 2 portals so that they would mirror one another, emphasizing the arch on top as well as the rectangular opening on all the other side.

Shooting under the horse to frame the campanile beneath its' chest took me to my knees and required an acute neck angle to get this shot. Just like in Paris, Venice challenges the photographer to discover a new composition.  This ancient city has been photographed millions of times and has also been painted by the old masters.  How could I possibly go to this location and come back with something original? Well, I am not sure if I did come back with anything original but I tried.  I tried by getting down on the ground and shooting up, I tried by using my telephoto lens to pick out just the details and bring pieces of buildings closer in a photograph than they appear in real life.  I tried by getting up early in the morning and I tried by staying out late.  I also tried by not having specific locations programmed into my mind.  I let myself wander and discover. Here are some photographs of Venice that I hope are unique. This shot was muc...

Snow Canyon Tree, Reflection and Cliffs One of the most helpful pieces of advice to give the photographer is to limit how many subjects are in a photograph to a maximum of 3.  A photograph tells a story.  In order for the story to be clearly understood, there must be a straightforward message.  Anything that is a distraction from that message, weakens the impact. In this photograph the story is simple.  small oasis in the desert.  The subjects in this photograph are the tree, its' reflection in the water, the background cliffs.  This composition was achieved by using a telephoto lens, zooming in on this subject and eliminating some distracting bushes on the left.  A photographer should not simply record an image.  He or she should draw attention to the subject in order to communicate emotion or tell a story.  My story about this tree is one of small beauty in the desert, living among the rocks, without neighbors.  It is a delightf...

#1  Composition:  Standard view of the Lollipop from White Pocket The Lollipop of White Pocket is the most recognizable feature of this incredible area. It located right in the center of the sandstone goldmine and gets the late afternoon sunshine. I was shooting here after a summer monsoon as the clouds were just clearing. Blue sky was coming out but the light wasn't going to last forever with the clouds coming and going. They seemed to get thicker as time progressed, taking away the beautiful blues in the sky.    #2 Composition Sandstone swirls act as leading lines to the Lollipop Formation These three compositions were shot one after another, each with the 17mm tilt-shift lens to prevent vertical distortion. One features a classic shot with the whole lollipop with landscape orientation. That's the shot on top.  The second is the sandstone portrait orientation shot on the right.  This has great lead-in lines and a wonderful point...

Lines of composition at White Pocket This will be a more technical entry featuring the sandstone wonderland of White Pocket.  I'm still sorting through and picking out the "keepers" from my photo trip there last month. Sharpness and vignetting are two key photographic characteristic related to aperture.  When setting an aperture, a very small opening such as f/16 tends to reduce vignetting and enhance the depth of field (how much will be sharp and "in focus" whether near or far from the camera).  This attitude of "I'm going to get the maximum depth of field" attitude works well for some and I've used it for years.  This is especially helpful in the corners of a photograph (where sharpness tends to deteriorate).  This problem is pretty exclusive to wide angle lenses. I changed wide angle lens from Canon's 17-40 f/4 L to the more pricey 16-35 f/2.8 L specifically to get more corner sharpness.  The 16-35 is sharper and I've not re...