Robert H Clark Photography Blog

Desert

In the Grip of the Wind – White Sands National Monument, New Mexico

Desert, Landscape, Landscape Photography, National Parks, New Mexico, Nikon D800E, Photography Composition, Photography Technique, Photography Trips, Robert H Clark Photography, White Sands National Monument No Responses »

Apr 192013

Wind blown sand mixes with passing clouds over the gypsum dunes of White Sands National Monument, New Mexico.

Hi everyone and welcome to today’s post. Alright, I am going to make a very generalized statement here; “I hate wind”. There I have said it. As a landscape photographer I really do like stillness. After all the wind creates blurry leaves, moving grass, blowing dust, and everything else that can seemingly ruin a shooting outing. And then there is effect the wind has on the temperature. A cold wind is certainly miserable and a hot wind no better. Yes, I do not like the wind. But guess what folks. Mother Nature sent me a note recently and said get over it. “I am going to blow and you might as well get used to it”.

I have been know to pack up my cameras instead of facing the opportunities that wind offers. The wind has tried my patience on so many occasions, rendering me a sulking and unhappy photographer. To quote Catherine the Great, “A great wind is blowing, and that gives you either imagination or a headache”. I typically suffer from the latter condition. I am working through this though because it really is my issue. The wind just does what the wind does. It comes and goes, and it blows. Its natural and necessary. The wind is kind of like Mother Nature’s maintenance cycle. She blows in a few storms to bring rain, spreads a few seeds around, and slowly changes the landscape. Nowhere is this more evident than in sand dunes. More so than water, the wind is the force that moves them. Slowly over time, grain by grain, sand dunes move.

Today’s image was made out in the Western Dune Fields of White Sands National Monument. The dunes in this area are immense and generally free of plant life except in the inter-dune zones. I ventured into this area in a windstorm. I faced my demons and marched into the fray. The wind was blowing with an intensity I have not experienced in quite a while. Quite honestly it was really howling with sustained winds of 30 mph and gusts to 50. Out here, alone, I saw geology at work. Whipped by the winds frenzy, the fine gypsum particles were gathered up and blown skyward. Ripples formed, reformed, and moved before my eyes. Sand blew off the edges and my footprints disappeared in a matter of minutes. The dunes were literally moving, and I was moving with them.

Shooting in the wind does present a few challenges. Camera motion and stability is the first one. For this image I jammed my tripod legs into the sand for anchoring support. After establishing the exposures and brackets I wanted I positioned my body as a wind-stop, or airfoil. And then I practiced my patience. Yep, you heard that right. Patience. When shooting in the wind you have to slow down. I would wait for the cycles and lulls between the big blows and fire the shutter. This was made all the more challenging as I was shooting focus brackets along with exposure brackets. I stood just back of the edge and framed this shot to capture the patterns of ripples and the subtle sweeping line of the dune as it moved towards the horizon. Shooting nearly into the sun I caught the rising sand backlit against the advancing clouds. There is both a sharp clarity to this image and a softness. All of this was merged together by the conditions and tendered by the wind. My new friend.

Camera Settings: Nikon D800E and a Tokina 16-28mm, f2.8 lens at 22mm. Image exposed at ISO 50 at f11 for 1/250 seconds. This is a two shot, focus bracketed image processed in LR 4.4 and finished in PS 5.5

Thanks for stopping by today.
Bob

Last Light in the Alabama Hills, Ca. – A New Image in my Upcoming Show at the City Meat Gallery in Winchester, Va.

Alabama Hills, California, Death Valley, Death Valley National Park, Desert, Landscape, Landscape Photography, Moab Masters, Moab Paper, Mountains, Photography Trips, Robert H Clark Photography, sunset, The Alabama Hills, Twilight Photography No Responses »

Sep 052012

Last Light in the Alabama Hills, Eastern Front of the Sierra Mountains, CA

Hi everyone and welcome to today’s post. I know some of you have been wondering if I might post again. My apologies but I have been getting ready for a one-man show at the City Meat Gallery in Winchester, Va. I have posted the Press Release for the show below. This is one of the images that will be featured and is a twilight shot taken in the Alabama Hills located along the Eastern Front of the Sierra Mountains in California. This wonderful place is playground of granite boulders that extends for miles above the town of Lone Pine, Ca. I made the trip with two of my shooting pals, Alec Johnson and Travis Bechtel. We had some wonderful light and clouds for the afternoon shoot.

My show will feature 20 images. Each one was developed from its RAW digital state in Lightroom and exported to Photoshop for the final work. All images were printed by myself using archival inks on an Epson 3880 Printer. I want to thank my sponsor MOAB Paper for their generous gift of the MOAB Somerset Museum Rag Paper. I consider this to be one of the finest Rag Content papers to print on. It renders exceptional tonality and depth of color and was the perfect choice for my photographs. If you are in the Winchester area and have the opportunity to stop by I would love to see you. Here is the Press Release for the show:

CITY MEAT GALLERY FIRST FRIDAY ARTIST ROBERT H. CLARK

Winchester, Va. – On Friday, October 5, City Meat Gallery will participate in downtown Winchester’s First Friday Celebration of the Arts with an exhibit by photographer Robert H. Clark.

Robert H. Clark is a fine art landscape photographer based in the United States. Born in North Carolina, he is a graduate of the University of Georgia School of Visual Design, and the School of Architecture at Georgia Institute of Technology. Robert is a photographer, graphic designer, architect, and a teacher. He currently works as a media designer for the National Park Service.

In this exhibition, “Chasing Light,” Robert features his new landscape work from recent trips to the West Virginia highlands, the Navajo lands of Arizona, Death Valley, and the Eastern Front of the Sierra Mountains, California. In these new photographs Robert takes viewers on a journey featuring the high alpine landscape of Dolly Sods Wilderness, the elegant waterfalls of Black Water Falls State Park, the multi-colored canyons of the Navajo Nation, and the intriguing rock formations of the Alabama Hills in California.

Robert’s work can be found in private collections, exhibits and publications, and internationally for corporate clients. The exhibit is open to the public on Friday, October 5, from 6:00–8:00 p.m., and through November 23 by appointment. For more information, visit the City Meat Gallery web site at: www.citymeatgallery.com.

To view Robert Clark’s portfolios or learn more about his photography, visit his web site at: http://roberthclarkphotography.com/.

ABOUT City Meat Gallery
City Meat Gallery is located inside the The City Meat Building, home to Water Street Design, LLC and Reader & Swartz Architects, P.C. Exhibitors are by invitation only. City Meat Gallery participates in up to six First Fridays a year, with openings scheduled for February, April, June, August, October and December.

“Fire on the Flats” – Salt Creek Flats, Death Valley National Park, CA

Adobe Lightroom, Adobe Lightroom Workflow, California, Death Valley, Death Valley National Park, Death Valley Photography, Desert, Lightroom, National Parks, Photography Technique, Photography Trips, Reflections, Robert H Clark Photography, Salt Flats, Split Neutral Density Filters, sunset, Water 1 Response »

Jul 222012

Fire on the Flats • Salt Creek Flats, Death Valley National Park, CA

Hi everyone and welcome to today’s post. Today I am bringing you a little color and a little intensity. The image was shot on the Salt Creek Flats, a large expansive playa of heat tortured earth. Here in the summer the temperatures can reach well over 115 degrees. The heat leaches the salt and minerals from the soil which leaves the earth with a myriad of patterns, salt circles, ruptured soil, and the occasional pool of water. In the winter, when this shot was made, the temperature is more moderate and in fact very pleasant. Alec John, Travis Bechtel, and I spent several days exploring and shooting in the flats. It is a habit we have to shoot and scout locations multiple times in order to get to know the conditions and find interesting compositions. This was made on the evening of our second visit to this area. We had experienced amazing clouds through out the day and geared up for a potential “special event” for sunset. We were not disappointed. The clouds thinned along the western horizon and cleared the way for the sun to really light up the clouds moving in from the east. A large amorphous dragon-like cloud began to spread out over the playa and I began to look for a location to pick up a nice foreground and some water to capture the intense reflections of t he cloud. I found this beautiful round pool rimmed by puckered soil and a rime of salt. I began to shoot as the color started to happen. The intensity built till it looked as if the entire cloud was on fire. About fifteen minutes later it was all over as the flats entered the twilight zone of darkness.

How I Made the Shot: As a matter of photographic practice I often use a series of graduated split neutral density filters in my work. The filters allow me to balance the exposure in high contrast scenes such as this shot. Here the sky was well over 4 stops brighter than the foreground. So a split would allow me to expose for the foreground and hold back the sky creating a balance exposure. But on this trip I was experimenting without using filters. To capture the full range of light I made bracketed exposures-usually 5 stops but sometime 7, in the following increments: -2/-1/0/+1/+2 or -3/-2/-1/0/+1/+2/+3. In this way I was assured of having the data I needed to make blended exposures in Photoshop. I have found on recent shoots that I prefer this method as I not so intent on fumbling with the filters and instead looking at the light and watching it unfold. I can set the bracket sets on the camera and freely shoot. Back in the digital darkroom I can process the RAW files and bring them into Photoshop for blending. In this case I only needed two RAW files, one for the sky and one for the foreground, to make the final master.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Bob

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Folds in the Earth – Zabriskie Point, Death Valley National Park, Ca.

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Jul 012012

Folds in the Earth • Zabriskie Point, Death Valley National Park, Ca.

Hi everyone and welcome to today’s post. Zabriskie Point in Death Valley National Park might be one of the most photographed iconographic locations in the United States. The reasons for this a pretty simple; access. Just a quick jaunt up the path to the overlook and you are looking at one of the most incredible scenes in the American landscape. Like multi-colored neapolitan ice cream sinuous folds of earth rise and fall, spreading outwards to the Red Wall and Manly Beacon. To get a sense of the place please take at look at one of my past posts here: http://roberthclarkphotographyblog.com/2012/06/02/twilight-at-zabriskie-point-death-valley-national-park-ca/.

Sometimes when faced with such a grand landscape, or a landscape that has been oft photographed, you can get a different perspective by focusing on a part of the overall scene. By isolating the scene and cutting out most of the overall subject it is possible to show a unique view of a place. An effective way to do this is to use a telephoto to change the focal length of the shot. Dial in the shot, move back, change shooting positions, watch the light, look for interesting patterns, shapes, and colors. All of these methods are ways to get more creative and come away with more than the standard shot. For this scene I used a 70-200mm lens to create an image to compress the folds of earth that lead up to the Zabriskie Overlook. Beautiful late afternoon light was high-lighting the folds and created an interesting rhythm in the landscape. The light was pretty soft, tempered by some high clouds, as if the landscape was illuminated by a giant softbox. This revealed the beautiful highlights and kept the shadows open as well.

Of course I did shoot the classic shot. Who can resist when presented with such a fantastic landscape. But the next time you go make sure to try some alternative shots. Get creative. You never know what you might come back with.

Thanks for stopping by.

Bob

Liquid Light No. 3 – Salt Creek Flats, Death Valley National Park, Ca.

Badwater, California, Death Valley, Death Valley National Park, Death Valley Photography, Desert, Landscape, Landscape Photography, Mountains, National Parks, Photography Trips, sunset, Twilight Photography 2 Responses »

Jun 162012

"Liquid Light No. 3" • Salt Creek Flats, Death Valley National Park, Ca.

Hi everyone and welcome to today’s post. This shot was made on a winter trip to Death Valley with my shooting pals Alec Johnson and Travis Bechtel. The trip was singularly marked by some of the most amazing weather I have ever experienced on a trip. Amazing clouds, light, and color greeted our eager eyes every morning and evening. As a matter of practice for this trip we opted to focus our shooting time for the week on just a few areas. For most photographers Death Valley can impart upon you the “kid in the candy store” syndrome. The desire to hit every spot or slam on the brakes to scout all the interesting landforms is certainly understandable. But in my experience it leads to a kind shooting madness without focus and direction. The best way to experience big places is to reduce the macro scale of the landscape to the micro. Micro in this case, at least for the way I think, is a search for intimacy within the grandness. It takes some discipline but the end results are better. Except for a side trip to the Alabama Hills we concentrated our shooting to Badwater Basin, Zabriskie Point, and the Salt Creek Flats. We revisited each of these places more than once exploring morning and evening light. Make no mistake these landscapes are grand and vast, macro in every sense of the word, spreading for mile after mile as far as the eye can see. We were able to reduce the macro to the micro because we stopped and simply spent time there. We were not there to “get THE shot”, rush back to the car, and move on to something else. If you do this you will open up to the landscape and it will open up to you.

I saw these crusty upheavals several days before and became fascinated with their architecture. Why here? What forces of time and temperature converged to lift them above the white salt flats. Like small islands they seemed to float on a white tide, separate but yet anchored by their own roots into the soil. On this incredible evening I found myself back at the formations and a composition that had yet eluded me came to fruition. Stretching overhead, tendrils of sunlit fire draped the sky in a curtain of red, orange, and magenta. The Panamint Mountains were shrouded in the cool blue tones of twilight, their size dwarfed by the immense cloud formation moving overhead. The white salt glowed in the dying light. All of this became the perfect backdrop for the “crusty islands”. Here I could reveal something intimate about the landscape and layer it into a story about the place. Micro in this case meets macro.

Technical Details: This image is a composite of three separate exposures. Each exposure was processed in Adobe Lightroom 4.0 and then exported to Adobe Photoshop where the exposures were hand blended into a starting file. From there it followed a workflow that included Smart Sharpening, Luminosity Curve Adjustments, Selective Color Layers, and Dodging and Burning.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Bob

Twilight at Zabriskie Point – Death Valley National Park, Ca

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Jun 022012

Twilight at Zabriskie Point • Death Valley National Park, Ca.

Hi everyone and welcome to today’s post. I am trying to work my way back into a more regular posting schedule. We shall see. With a recent high school graduate, and the preparations for sending her off to her first year of college, I am finding my time limited these days. But it is all good. These times only come around once and I am enjoying all the activity.

Today’s post is from a winter trip I made to Death Valley with two of my shooting pals, Alec Johnson and Travis Bechtel. It was a fabulous trip with incredible camaraderie, great light, and beautiful landscapes. This image was shot at Zabriskie Point and features Manly Beacon, nearly in the center of the shot, and the Red Wall. I never get tired of this view. It has been photographed a zillion times but it remains one of the most breath-taking vistas anywhere. From my vantage point the landforms fall away into a series of folded textures with high points separated by twisting arroyos. Beautiful tones of yellow, pink, orange, brown, blue, and rose coarse through forms and reminded me of a multi-colored batch of Neapolitan ice cream. One of the special characteristics of Zabriskie Point is how the colors change in the light. In the twilight hours the colors can change from warm to cool hues and are often accentuated by the tones in the clouds. On this evening magenta and blue in the sky brought a slight cool hue to the landforms. Far across the valley the Panamint Mountains are kissed with the last rays of the setting sun turning the peaks a soft pink. There was no wind, only a silence that comes from complete solitude. Shooting beside my friends made this a special evening. We did not talk. We shot, observed the changing light, watched the clouds, and basked in the grace of just being there.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Bob

Storm Light over the North Rim – Grand Canyon National Park, Az.

Arizona, Desert, Grand Canyon, Grand Canyon National Park, Grand Canyon Photography, Grand Circle, Landscape, Landscape Photography, National Parks, Photography Trips, sunrise No Responses »

May 132012

Storm Light over the North Rim • Grand Canyon National Park, Az.

Hi everyone and welcome to today’s post. I am still embroiled in the day to day activities of my daughters last few weeks in high school. Time is really rolling now and the days are seemingly compressed with so much to do. To get away I returned to some recent files from a winter trip to the Grand Canyon. Time here does not roll at a frenetic pace. Or so I thought. I have long thought the canyon was the “energy” center of the earth. I feel so much power here and I tend to slow my movements and thoughts. I have never tired of the far-ranging views or the labyrinthine forms of the inner canyon. It has always been this way for me.

On this trip I was treated to several days of incredible light and atmospheric conditions. Storm clouds rolled over the canyon dropping snow on the North Rim. From the South Rim it was like watching a movie where natural forces collided. The relative stability of the buttes and rock formations seemed under assault as wind driven clouds dropped tendrils into the canyon, bent on covering the world with a foggy mist. Even the sun joined the fight seeking to break the hold of the clouds. So even here in a place of timeless evolution the pace can seem to quicken. My heart raced as I alternately watched the drama and composed the images in my camera. After hundreds of shots I just went on a sensory overload.

When I look at this image today I can still feel the natural power of that day. Standing alone on a finger of rock I was embraced by the changing opera of nature. Life goes on and we simply have to let it play out. These are hard words that I find difficult to live by right now. My child is growing up and I can no more hold on to her as to try and keep the winds at bay. Hard as it is to except, life goes on. It has always been this way.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Walk in Peace

Bob

Mar 102012

Twilight over the Sinking Ship • Grand Canyon National Park, AZ.

Hi everyone and welcome to today’s post. Just a short post today featuring a recent image from a February trip to the South of the Grand Canyon. I was there for some NPS work but got out for a little photography in between meetings and surveys. To say I had some incredible weather would be an understatement. I have been to the canyon many times but I have never had the sustained atmospheric conditions I witnessed on this trip. On successive days clouds rolled over the canyon creating dynamic and dramatic light. Clouds passed over the buttes and also dropped into below the rim to drift in and out of the formations. In the evening the clouds moved up allowing beautiful twilight shooting conditions.

This image was shot at one of my “secret”, favorite shooting locations along the South Rim. A short little off-trail scramble brings you to a series of rocky ledges that affords eastern and western views within the canyon. Looking east you can see the giant mass of Coronado Butte, and west affords incredible views of the Sinking Ship formation, aptly named as it appears to be an ocean liner sinking into the water. This image of the Sinking Ship was shot about 10 minutes into civil twilight. The clouds had begun to lift and some subtle re-lighting illuminated the foreground rocks and large buttress to the right. I used these elements to frame the vista to the Sinking Ship.

Technical Details: This image is a composite of two exposures, one for the sky and one for the foreground. The two files were processed in Lightroom and opened as layers in Photoshop. The two files were hand blended using a luminosity layer mask before completing the usual contrast and color layers I typically employ.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Bob

Feb 242012

Twisted Tree and Winter Light • South Rim, Grand Canyon National Park

Hi everyone and welcome to today’s post. I am currently sorting through about 3000 exposures from my last trip. I have been shooting differently on my last few outings which includes more bracketing of shots for manual blending in Photoshop. I am after more dynamic range in the light and though the Photoshop work takes more effort I think the results are much better.

Today’s image was made from Maricopa Overlook on the Hermits Rest Road. During the winter months the Canyon stops the buses and visitors are able to drive on the Hermits Rest Road which makes access to some of the more dramatic overlooks easy. On this morning there was a fairly heavy cloud cover and I was not to hopeful for a sunrise shot. It was also quite cold at 16 degrees. Still recovering from pneumonia I was not to eager to leave the warm car or my cup of hot tea. But a cold fog had descended on this side of the Canyon and some of the trees were painted with a coat of light hoar frost. No matter how I played with the compositions I just “wasn’t feeling it”. I found this gnarly tree on the walk back to the car just as a bit of soft sunlight began to break through the cloud bank. The yellow glow as very nice and gave a nice halo around the top of tree. So I began to work with this composition placing the top of the tree against this light. In post processing I used several Selective Color Layers to target the Reds, Yellows, Blues, and Whites and followed up with a Dodge and Burn Layer to sculpt the form of the tree. The amazing contortions in the tree truck are testimony to the harsh environment along the South Rim. Beaten by wind, snow, and cold temperatures in the winter this tree is an amazing survivor. In a funny way the tree became a metaphor for how I felt-not feeling well, but surviving.

Technical Details: This image is a blend of three exposures using Enfuse for Lightroom. It was composed for three exposure, one for mid-tones, one for highlights, and one for shadows. The resulting file is sent to Photoshop for final finishing. I like Enfuse as it prepares a very natural looking file without the artifacts that can come from HDR Software. You can get the plugin from The Photographers Toolbox.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Bob

Fins at Water Holes Canyon – Navajo Lands, Arizona

Arizona, Desert, Grand Circle, Landscape, Landscape Photography, Navajo Lands, Photography Trips, Robert H Clark Photography, Slot Canyon, Slot Canyon Photography, sunset, Twilight Photography, Water Holes CAnyon, Wide Angle Photography 8 Responses »

Feb 202012

Wave Formation at Water Holes Canyon • Navajo Lands, Arizona

Hi everyone and welcome to today’s post. I am back from my recent trip to Arizona which included photography at the Grand Canyon, Glen Canyon, and some special areas on Navajo Lands with Tony Kuyper. I have so many images to go through that it will take quite a while to go through them and make selections for processing. As a teaser today’s post is from an area on Navajo Lands just outside of Page, Arizona. The shot was made in the vicinity of Water Holes Canyon. Water Holes is a slot canyon but the surrounding area is a fascinating landscape of sculpted sandstone, many that resemble waves. This wave-like formation was shot just as the setting sun hit the horizon giving me a nice soft light to accentuate the layered edges of the sandstone.

Technical: The image was shot in two exposures, one for the sky and one for the foreground, and hand blended in Photoshop.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Bob

Older Entries

Robert H Clark Photography Blog

Desert

In the Grip of the Wind – White Sands National Monument, New Mexico

Last Light in the Alabama Hills, Ca. – A New Image in my Upcoming Show at the City Meat Gallery in Winchester, Va.

“Fire on the Flats” – Salt Creek Flats, Death Valley National Park, CA

Folds in the Earth – Zabriskie Point, Death Valley National Park, Ca.

Liquid Light No. 3 – Salt Creek Flats, Death Valley National Park, Ca.

Twilight at Zabriskie Point – Death Valley National Park, Ca

Storm Light over the North Rim – Grand Canyon National Park, Az.

Twilight over the Sinking Ship – Grand Canyon National Park, AZ

Twisted Tree and Winter Light – South Rim, Grand Canyon National Park

Fins at Water Holes Canyon – Navajo Lands, Arizona