Slickrock and Shadow

Stone Monster watches over the Desert When stone imitate other things we call that a sculpture.  Some sculptures are natural and coincidental creature of nature while others are manmade.  These sculptures resembling reality are what gives the land our manmade names:  Rainbow Bridge, the Wave, Teepees.  Coyote Buttes South has a few sculpted sandstone figures that are named such as the "Control Tower".  I've heard of the "Witch's Hat" for the structure pictured above but from the side this looked like a creature with a long beak surveying all the desert for prey.  It's like an eagle or hawk but with a nightmarish lower body and bulk. Control Tower at Coyote Buttes South The wild sculpted desert

Watkins Glen:  classic view of falling water, bridge and pools Watkins Glen is both a town in the Finger Lakes region of New York as well as a state park.  Among photographers it is most famous for the view pictured above:  the bridge, stone stairs clinging to a cliff while water is falling all around is surreal.  To me it felt like I had entered Rivendell from Lord of the Rings.  During my trip to New York, I went to this location twice.  I went in the afternoon with my family.  During that trip, several hikers were always to be seen in front of and behind us.  I wouldn't call it crowded but it was not empty. That same day, early in the morning I came here alone at the time of sunrise and saw two people total during my entire hike from the top of the gorge to the bottom and then back up.  I really had the whole place to myself and was delighted to discover waterfall after waterfall all the while walking on a perfectly maintained stone...

Flower Field in the Peaks District:  Stone walls, sheep and lovely skies add to the scenery. What do you do when something very small catches your eye?  How do you photograph minuscule objects while simultaneously including the greater landscape?  These challenges generally call for at least 2 things, usually 3: 1.  A wide-angle lens which can include so much in every directions. 2.  Very close proximity to the tiny object. 3.  Narrow aperture is third, which is necessary to show everything sharply in focus.  An open aperture could focus on the small object while blurring the background. This lovely small yellow-orange flowers in the Peak District challenged me greatly.  So small at only a centimeter each, I doubted my ability to really show them off.  Setting my tripod at its' lowest height, nestling into the grass, getting down, crawling around, moving a few longer wet grass shoot away from the lens is how I hoped to succeed. ...

St. Giles Kirk Ceiling St. Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh Scotland is a national landmark.  It's also very photogenic.  And most important for a photographer, they allow photography with tripods for a small fee.  Having a tripod makes the difference in a dark cathedral.  It allows long exposures, letting the light pour onto the sensor.  Cathedrals do not really move so these long exposures work wonderfully here. I took advantage of my 17 millimeters tilt shift lens and pointed it heavenward.  As I shifted from side to side, I was able to take in a huge amount of architectural information.  I tried very carefully to obtain a symmetric image.  I stitched these pictures Lightroom postprocessing.  With my lower ISO settings I was able to bring a lot of the detail out of the shadows including the rich color in the stonework.  Please enjoy.