Slow down and wait for it

On a recent trip to Death Valley National Park, I was out wandering the Mesquite Flats Sand Dunes early one morning.  I was looking for lines and shapes in the dunes that might make interesting compositions.  It was just over an hour past sunrise and the sun was still low in the sky, giving some nice side light.  It was also overcast and the sunlight was constantly changing.

I made the first shot below while the sun was between clouds.  I had hiked all over the dunes looking for a composition like this with a leading line, ripples in the sand, and no footprints.  The low side light produced some nice dramatic shadows in the sand, which was also one of the elements I was looking for. 

First Shot

 About 30 seconds later the sun went behind a cloud and without moving the camera I got a different photo.

Second Shot 

I actually like the second shot better.  There was enough indirect sunlight to make the ripples in the sand and the shape of the dunes stand out, without the high contrast shadows.  What looks good is subjective and you make like the first one better. The thing about art is there is no right answer.

Sometimes we shoot like we are in a hurry.  Set up, make the shot, move on to the next one.  It pays to slow down and wait for different lighting.  You don't know what you will get.

Skies

It's been a busy few weeks.   I haven't blogged in weeks and have barely done anything with my fall photographs and we had our first snow flakes today! Time is passing by quickly but June and I have found time to get out and enjoy God's creation in gold, yellow, and red before the leaves are all gone.

We took one day and drove up to Burke's Garden, Virginia.  It's a favorite place for landscape photographers but we had never been.  Burke's Garden is a bowl valley completely surrounded by Clinch Mountain.  The valley is reported to be the highest in Virginia at around 3,000 feet above sea level.  This elevation brings fall to Burke's Garden before many other places in our area.  

The day we picked turned out the be cloudy and overcast.  When we got into the valley the clouds had come down far enough to cover the surrounding mountains and even creep into the valley.   Overcast days can be great for some photographs but challenging for others.  One of the most valuable lessons for an outdoor photographer is to know what to shoot under different lighting conditions.   A cloudy overcast day produces fantastic soft light, obscuring shadows and eliminating bright spots.  It can also make colors more vibrant. 

In this first shot you can see how the clouds were hanging very low over the mountains.  The clouds thinned a little allowing just enough sunlight through to highlight the trees in this shot.  Including the sky in this shot puts it in perspective and tells more about the place and conditions.

In this shot of a road lined by beautiful trees in fall spender you can see how the soft indirect light allows the color to pop without being washed out by bright light.  The sky does not add to this photo but there was no way to get this shot without including some of the sky.

Most of the time you want to avoid including the sky in the composition if it is bland and uninteresting.  Below is the same shot with different crops.

In the second version I cropped out that bland sky.  I also cropped out the grassy foreground because I didn't think it added anything to the image.  If something doesn't add to the image then think about cropping it out.

The next weekend we took a side trip to Cataloochee Valley on the way to meet friends for the weekend.  At times we had the same overcast conditions but later in the day the clouds started to break up and create some different conditions.

With some interesting clouds in the sky I had some different compositional opportunities.  In this photo of an old barn the blue sky and clouds added to the photo.  The clouds are cool and the blue is a nice contrast with the fall colors.   To make this shot I had to use a graduated neutral density filter to compensate for the sky being much brighter than the rest of the image.   I don't use these filters on every trip but when I need them they make the difference between an impossible shot and something worth sharing.

Of course these bright conditions made other photographs very challenging.  I had to wait a while for the sun to go behind a cloud before I could get a picture of leaves in that little stream.  

The secret to getting good photos outdoors is to understand your light conditions.  Unlike the studio, you take what God gives you and make the best of it.

Joy

In early September I had the privilege to get to spend 13 days on a trip to Glacier National Park in Montana and Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta with my wife June.   We were blessed with safe travels and good weather as we checked off one more place on our bucket list.   It was a time of relaxing, refreshing, and recharging.

I've got a lot of images from this trip and it's taking me a while to work through them.   When I finish I'll post my favorites in a new gallery on my website.  For now, I'd like to share one from one evening in the Many Glacier area of Glacier National Park.

This row boat is on the shore of Lake Josephine not far from the Many Glacier Hotel.  We had stopped to photograph it around 9:30 on our way up the Grinnell Glacier Trail.  At that time the sun was behind me and the light was OK, but not very dramatic.  By the time we made it back down to this point it was 5:30 in the afternoon and the light had completely changed.   Instead of a low contrast uninteresting photo I now had fantastic warm afternoon light including God Beams coming out of the clouds and reaching across the frame to the other side.  What a gift!

The name of the boat pretty much sums up that day in Glacier.  We had woken up to a fantastic sunrise right outside our hotel and I was given enough time to set up to take nine shots to stitch together to create this panorama.   After a big breakfast we had one of our best hikes of the trip up to Grinnell Glacier.  The best part was I was able to share it with June.


As joyful as this day was it pales in comparison to the joy of being forgiven through the sacrifice of Jesus.   The word joy occurs 217 times in the Bible and this joy is available to all.  What a blessing!  I'll leave you with Paul's words.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. - Romans 15:13

eBook Review - Rabari - Encounters With The Nomadic Tribe

If you read my earlier post about my photography library you know I love books about photography.  I have books about composition, technical aspects, printing, Lightroom, HDR, and many others.   Recently I've been buying electronic eBooks.   These books are typically not printed in hard copy format but are books in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format that can be read on a PC, MAC, iPAD, or Smart Phone.  It makes taking your library along with you on a photo outing much easier.  Because there is no printing or distribution costs these eBooks are typically cheaper than hard copy books.   Most are also shorter than normal books.  I'm really not sure why.

This week I got a copy of Rabari - Encounters With the Nomadic Tribe by Mitchell Kanashkevich.  This is part of The Insider Series on Travel Documentary Photography by LightStalking.   The title suggests it is a travel book but it's really a book about photography that just happens to use the author's four month long travels in this region of India for the examples. 

Here's the table of contents for the book:

After a brief introduction to the project, the equipment (surprisingly affordable) and the work flow, the author goes into details about each of 10 different photos from the project.  For each photo, he discusses background information, objectives for that particular photo, the light, the moment and/or pose, the composition, the "Biggest Challenge" and how me managed it, and the what/why of post processing.

The author provides great insight into what was going through his mind when he was working on that particular photo. Reading these well written descriptions is like being with him on the photo shoot and having him tell you what he's doing and why.

One thing I was surprised to learn was how little equipment he used.   He didn't have high end cameras, lenses, or elaborate artificial lights.   Instead he relied on a 5-in-one reflector for his lighting.   He describes the conditions he was shooting in and includes diagrams showing where the subject, light source and camera were located.

I found his description of the biggest challenge with each situation and how he overcame it to be instructive.  While I may never run into that exact challenge, his approach to solving the problems was educational as I learned things I will be able to apply later.

He uses a combination of Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop to edit his photos.   In the book he talks about what adjustments he made to the photo and how he made the adjustments.  The book is more about the photography and is less about post-processing. He includes before and after versions of the photo.

Reading this book was entertaining and informative.  The photos reached out and grabbed me right off.   You can see why Mitchell Kanashkevic is a successful  travel and documentary photographer.  I recommend this book for amateurs as well as professional photographers.

Rabari – Encounters With the Nomadic Tribe is available for download for the special Christmas release price of $19.95 when you apply the special launch discount code “HAPPYXMAS” until Dec 25th.  Go online and buy a copy.   There's no waiting for shipment so you can start reading right away.

If you don't go, you'll never get the photo!

This past weekend I went with my friends in the Eastman Camera Club to Charleston SC for a long weekend of photography and friendship.   This was a great trip, even if the weather didn't cooperate.  On Sunday morning we got up way early to leave the hotel at 5:30 AM for sunrise at Folly Beach.   It started raining Saturday afternoon and had been raining ever since.   When we left the hotel it was raining pretty hard without much sign of clearing.   We kept telling ourselves, "if you don't go you'll never get the photo"   Not everyone agreed it was worth trying and only half our crew got up that morning.  

When we reached the beach it was still raining but after about 15 minutes, the rain slowed down enough to get out of the cars.  At that point about 7 of use headed down the path toward the beach with no blue sky to be seen.  About 5 minutes later we walked out on the beach, the rain stopped, and the clouds started breaking up!  Our prayers were answered -- God blew the rain out and gave us a couple hours of shooting time.

Something I never saw growing up in Florida was a starfish on the beach.   This morning we saw two live ones and one that had spent too much time in the South Carolina sun.

f/8, 1/40 sec. 70mm handheld

This one reminded me of John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. 

f/8. 1/20, 100mm handheld

The landmark on Folly Beach is the lighthouse that is just off shore.   The skies were still dull grey and cloudy and the lighthouse was a bit dull itself, which does not make for dramatic photos.   To make things a little more interesting I got low and shot the starfish with the lighthouse in the background.   The sand was very wet and I didn't want my camera in the sand and I didn't want to lay down in the sand to make the shot.   I ended up resting the camera on my wallet to keep it off the sand.  

f/14, 1/80 sec, 95mm "Wallet Mount"

The wallet was my idea, but someone else suggested the composition. 

Finally, the sun came out enough to give us some good low side light on the dead trees along the beach and the lighthouse offshore.

f/16, 1/60, 50mm hand held

My friends came away with several good photos from Sunday morning.  If we had stayed in bed or went back to bed when it was raining, we never would have gotten any shots of Folly Beach.   Sometimes you have to get up at completely unreasonable times, drive with no promise of good light or even good weather, and pray that you will find something worthily of shooting.   There are no guarantees, expect "if you don't go, you'll never get the photo".

Ordinary Made Extraordinary - Gear Photography

There is always something to shoot.   You don't have to have a perfect day or a perfect subject.  Sometimes ordinary items can become extraordinary subjects.  This is especially true in macro or close up photography.   Here's an example.

My son Tim ordered a new set of gears for his mountain bike.  When he opened the package and I saw the repeating pattern of silvery gears I said "I've got to shoot that!".   Fortunately for me, he was lacking a tool to replace the gears so I had an extra day to try out the gear photography.

The gears themselves were interesting under normal light, but I thought adding some color would add some interest and make them eye catching.   I used the on camera flash and a second off-camera slave flash to light the gears.  I then used colored tissue paper over the flashes to add the reds, blues, and yellows.  I also used a yellow envelope behind the gears to give a stronger yellow reflection.

I was shooting in manual mode on the camera and adjusted the on-camera flash output depending on the tissue paper and where the other flash was positioned.   I moved the off-camera flash around to produce different lighting effects.

I'm normally outside shooting landscapes or nature so it's a little out of the ordinary for me to shoot still life or abstract photos.  It was fun to try something new.  And I didn't need a fancy studio or a particularly special subject for this.  Just goes to show, you can find something to shoot anywhere.

These were all shot at ISO 640 using a Canon 100mm macro.  The aperture was between f/10 and f/16 and of course I was using a tripod.

Lighting Series - Backlighting

Note - larger copies of the photos in this post are available by clicking on the photo.

I've decided to write a series of three posts on backlighting, frontlighting, and sidelighting in nature photography.  As you might have guessed, this is all about the direction of light.  When taking a photo, you should always be thinking about the direction of the light that is illuminating the subject.  Is it coming from behind you, from the side, from behind the subject or somewhere in between?  Different subjects and situations call for different lighting direction.   By setting lights and placing a subject, a studio photographer has a great deal of control over the direction of his light.  A nature photographer has some control over sunlighting by planning ahead before going to a location.  Often we just have to take what mother nature dishes out. 

Backlighting is when the light in a photo comes from behind an object.  This can be a tricky situation to handle, but when done right can produce some very dramatic photographic compositions.  With a back lit subject you must pay attention to the exposure.  Manipulating the exposure can dramatically change the photo.

In this first backlight example the rising sun is behind the boat and I have set my exposure for the light of the sunrise in the clouds and on the ocean.   Because of the brightness of the sunrise and clouds, the boat and the bird are dramatically underexposed.  In fact, they are silhouettes with almost no detail.  If I exposed to see the details in the boat, the sky would be very over exposed or blown out with no details.  This is one of those situations where you're not going to capture the entire range of light without an advanced technique, such as HDR.

Sometimes when shooting into the sun you can create a sunburst or star effect by stopping down your aperture to a small opening such as f16 or f22.  In the photo of Crabtree Falls I used the leaves in the trees to block some of the sunlight so that it didn't overpower and cause the falls, rocks and trees to be under exposed.  The trees were blowing in the wind and I took several shots to get one with the star effect but not too much light.

You have to be careful when shooting into the sun. If the sun shines directly on the front of the lens you can get lens flare which will show up as spots or circles on your image. Use a lens hood or other object to shade the front of the lens to avoid flare.

The lightsource is not always going to be visible in a backlit situation.   This can make the dynamic range of light smaller and the photograph easier to expose correctly.  The subject is still backlit which can give you a very cool photo.

In the first example with the Great Blue Heron (I am calling this one "Fire Beak"), the sunlight is on the back side of the bird and is not lighting the side of the bird facing the camera.  Where the light shines through the feathers and beak it makes them appear to glow.  Photographing a person in these conditions can make their hair glow, almost like a halo.

In the second example, the sun is shining through the tulip, making the entire flower glow like a lightbulb.  Because the flower is very bright with the sunlight shining though, the background is dark making the flower stand out even more. 

Finally, you may be able to use your flash to compensate for a backlit situation.  In the photo of June and I, I intentionally positioned the camera to create a backlit situation so that the sun was shining through the leaves making the most of the fall colors.   Without a flash, either June and I would be underexposed or the leaves would be overexposed and I would have lost all those beautiful fall colors.   I used my flash to add some fill light to us in the foreground so that the photo was more evenly lit.   You might need to experiment a little with different flash settings.  I turned the flash down 1/3 EV so that we weren't too light compared to the background leaves.

I hope this short explanation of backlighting has been useful to you.   If you have any questions, please drop me a note or give me a call.  If you know of others who might enjoy these posts, please let them know about the blog.

I'll be talking about front lighting and sidelighting in future posts.