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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.

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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

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Twilight at Zabriskie Point – Death Valley National Park, Ca

 California, Death Valley National Park, Death Valley Photography, Desert, Landscape, Landscape Photography, Moab Masters, Mountains, National Parks, Photography Trips  2 Responses »
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

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Clearing Storm over the North Rim • Grand Canyon National Park, AZ

 Arizona, Desert, Grand Canyon National Park, Grand Canyon Photography, Grand Circle, Landscape, Landscape Photography, Mountains, National Parks, Photography Trips, Robert H Clark Photography, sunrise, Twilight Photography, Winter  5 Responses »
Jan 292012
 

Clearing Storm over the North Rim, Grand Canyon National Park

Hi everyone and welcome to today’s post. As most of you know who follow this blog I have been away on a combined work/photography trip to the Grand Canyon. I was anticipating a great time with my shooting pal Tony Kuyper. We had compiled a list of places I have not been and was looking forward to bringing back some new images. Alas however that was not to be. Going back nearly a month to my shooting trip to Death Valley I contracted a nagging cough that weeks later was still with me. By the time I arrived at the canyon I was feverish and in quite a fix. I spent most of Sunday in the hotel unable to move and by Monday was in the Grand Canyon Medical Center with several IV’s stuck in my hand. The diagnosis was pneumonia. Needless to say everything was cancelled and I made the flight home two days later. Just to fill in the rest of the story I am on a new antibiotic that is working and I am on the mend.

Despite my condition, on the way out of the canyon to get to the airport at Flagstaff, I still managed to capture a few images. Well let’s just say I was bound and determined to shoot something despite how I felt. Over Monday night it snowed 8″ on the South Rim turning the canyon into a magical sight. Across the way on the North Rim it looked like nature had dropped white sugar sprinkles over the spires and buttes. A layer of clouds had dropped below the rim and was drifting among the canyons formations. As the sun rose and kissed the buttes with light the composition was complete. In this shot you can see the Cheops Pyramid (right), and the Isis Temple (left). Overhead the early morning light turned the clouds a subtle magenta. This was a special sight to see and though I really did not feel well I was bolstered, even if only for a brief period, by the experience. Nature has powerful healing forces. At least it does for me. This image will forever be linked to one of the worst trips I have had. But every time I see this image I will remember it fondly.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Bob

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Sunset in the Alabama Hills – Lone Pine, Ca

 Adobe Lightroom, Alabama Hills, California, Death Valley, Desert, High Dynamic Range, Landscape, Landscape Photography, Lightroom, Mountains, Photography Technique, Robert H Clark Photography, sunset, The Alabama Hills, Twilight Photography, Wide Angle Photography  1 Response »
Jan 102012
 

Sunset in the Alabama Hills, Lone Pine, Ca.

Hi everyone and welcome to today’s post. On my recent trip to Death Valley my intrepid friends Alec Johnson, Travis Bechtel and I were kindly treated to some amazing sunrise and sunset conditions. This is the kind of light and cloud cover you hope to have for at least one shooting session. We had it everyday save for one, and that was the last morning we shot at Zabriske Point. Today’s image defines some of the incredible skies we had during our shooting excursions. The image was made in the Alabama Hills, a collection of rock monoliths and boulder fields, situated above the town of Lone, Pine, Ca. The area is known as the Gateway to Mount Whitney, the highest peak in the lower 48 states. On the trip over from Death Valley we saw the clouds build up and once we dropped into the valley on the eastern side of the Sierra’s we knew we might be in for another treat. Well, we were not disappointed. The show ramped up in the late afternoon and soon went into overload as the sun disappeared behind the massive Sierra Range. For a very brief period of time the light flattened out on the landscape but within 10 minutes into Civil Twilight the scene re-lighted and the rocks glowed with the reflected light from the sky. By this time all of us had spread out to compose and shoot. Even after an afternoon of scouting it was a hectic time as we were scrambling to create memorable images. To give you a sense of scale if you look between the “crab claw” formation you will just make out the silhouette of my buddy Travis. We only had one afternoon to spend here and for all of us it was not enough. But we left invigorated by the experience and the place.

Technical Details: As you might imagine the dynamic range of this scene was pretty intense. To compensate I made a five shot bracket at 1 stop intervals and chose two images from the set to process. The two RAW files, one for the foreground and one for the sky, were processed in Lightroom and combined in Photoshop using a Channel Mask for blending. From there it followed my usual workflow of masks, color corrections, and sharpening.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Bob

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Morning Fog on the Shenandoah River – Harpers Ferry, WV

 Harpers Ferry, Heliopan Filters, Landscape, Landscape Photography, Mountains, National Parks, Photography Composition, Photography Technique, Potomac River, River, Robert H Clark Photography, sunrise, Trees, Water, West Virginia, Zeiss Lenses  3 Responses »
Oct 122011
 

Morning Fog on the Shenandoah River, Harpers Ferry, WV.

Hi everyone and welcome to today’s post. In my last post I admonished myself for not getting out and enjoying the many scenic possibilities that exist in my own backyard. I received quite a few comments via e-mail from folks all coming clean about falling prey to the same malady. It is easy to do of course. When you plan a shooting trip, say out west, your whole focus is on that trip and the physical and mental act of scouting, shooting, chasing the light, composition, and the list goes on and on. It is different at home however. Because all the home obligations from family to work to putting a roof on the house take over. It is natural because unless we live totally in a self-absorbed vacuum we still have to take care of the business end of life. And that means manage our commitments. It is just life. But, and here is a really big but, if we do not take the time to pursue what we love then it will pass us by. Lost opportunities will turn into the “I wish I had done that”. I for one have a big bucket list of places I want to go and things I want to see, do, and experience. It is quite long and I may never get to the end of the list but I am going to try. If you want something to happen then you have to take matters into your own hands. You can’t wait for it to come to you. You must throw you aspirations out into the karmic airwaves and step by step begin the journey. The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. Oddly enough the journey, for most of us, begins at home.

I am fortunate to live and work in a very beautiful place. Just twenty minutes from my house the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers meet just below Harpers Ferry. The Appalachian Trail passes below my office and Loudoun Heights and Maryland Heights, part of the Appalachian chain, tower over the the confluence of the two rivers. Needless to say it is not only beautiful but an amazing barometer of the changing seasons. Fall color has started to appear and it will not be long before sheets of ice will stretch across the river. Though constantly changing the river is the catalyst which draws me to shoot. Fall brings some incredible fog events caused by the temperature inversions as the weather changes. So I have been spending a few days at “home” now just getting reacquainted with the river. As I have discovered it has a lot to offer.

Technical Details: I was on the river fairly early in the morning. The fog is generally thicker at this time and depending on the temperature swings can hang low to the river, obscuring all but the closest details, or float higher revealing more of the landscape. On this day I waited for the fog to begin to burn off just a bit and set up the shot to play on the various converging lines. The image was shot with a Sony a900 and a Zeiss 24-70mm lens at 24mm. The image was exposed at ISO 100 at f11 for 6 seconds. I used a Heliopan Circular Warming Polarizer to remove specular highlights and a Singh-Ray 3-Stop, Soft Edge, Split Neutral Density Filter over a portion of the sky and background to hold in the sky and fog.

Thanks for stopping by today. Remember where your journey starts. Get out and shoot.

Bob

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Cloud Reflections – Crater Lake National Park, Oregon

 Crater Lake, Crater Lake National Park, Landscape, Landscape Photography, Mountains, National Parks, Oregon, Photography Composition, Photography Trips, Robert H Clark Photography, Singh-Ray Filters, Sony α900, Split Neutral Density Filters, sunrise  No Responses »
Sep 042011
 

Cloud Reflections, Crater Lake National Park. Shot with a Sony a900 and a Sony SAL 20mm lens. Image exposed at ISO 100 at f11 for 1/30th of a second.

Hi everyone and welcome to today’s post. After a long stint in the field I am finally back at home saddled with the joyful task of sorting through quite a few images. Many of the images I took on this trip will require some time consuming post-processing as I shot a lot of bracketed exposures for Helicon Focus and Photomatix. I will get to these as soon as time allows. In the meantime please enjoy a new black and white image from Crater Lake National Park.

This shot was made early in the morning from the south rim side of lake and is looking across Wizard Island towards Llao Peak. When I arrived a little before 6:00am the lake was calm and a near perfect mirror for reflections. I fooled around for about 20 minutes trying to decide where to make the shot and by the time I had set up the had wind picked up on the lake surface. Intermittent gusts though only disturbed portions of the lake leaving some areas completely calm. I was immediately irritated with myself for taking too long and losing the opportunity to fill the lake with cloud reflections. But as I watched the lake surface change I found this turn of events far more interesting and liked the muted nature of the cloud reflections in the lake. Often the wind levels on the lake leave the surface featureless which makes composition difficult since you have to balance the thin line of the crater rim and the mass of the lake. On this day I could use the crater rim as a distinctive line that separated the cloud patterns between earth and water. Additionally the patterns in the lake became my foreground elements.

Technical Details: The image was shot with a Sony a900 and a 20 mm lens. The image was exposed at ISO 100 at f11 for 1/30th of a second. The white balance was set to 5500K. I used two Singh-Ray Split Neutral Density Filters: A 3-Stop Soft edge for the top, above the rim to cover the sky, and a 2-Stop Soft Edge, below the rim to cover the water. The RAW file was processed in Lightroom and the final file was finished in Photoshop.

There are more things to come including images from the Oregon Coast and the California Redwoods. So stay tuned.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Bob

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My Encounter with Ansel Adams

 Adobe Lightroom, Ansel Adams, California, Landscape, Landscape Photography, Mountains, National Parks, Sony α900, sunset, Yosemite, Yosemite National Park  2 Responses »
Feb 202011
 

Ansel Adams, February 20, 1902-April 22, 1984

Hi everyone and welcome to today’s post. Today is Ansel Adam’s birthday. Happy birthday Ansel. There are so many photographers who have had the great fortune to have studied or worked with Ansel during his career. Sadly I am not one of those lucky ones. But I did have an incredible encounter with Ansel and it remains today in my thoughts. When I was in graduate school for architecture I took a design studio in the fall of 1983 where we were to design a house, in an urban setting, for an artist. All of my classmates chose famous painters or sculptors. I chose Ansel. After all I loved photography-and his photography in particular.

I stewed around for a week trying to decide what Ansel might want in a house and what about his work could influence the design of a house. That was the difficult part. Several years earlier I had visited Yosemite and spent time in the Ansel Adams Gallery. So I decided to call them thinking they might be able to help. They were most kind but did not have any ideas. They thought I might be better if I spoke with his personal assistant. So they gave me the number and I made the call. His assistant answered (to this day I cannot remember her name), and I gave her the whole story. She said ” I have no idea what Ansel might want in a house. I think maybe you should talk to him”. I went silent. She called out for Ansel. And the master picked up the phone and said hello. I introduced myself, stammered a bit, but managed to tell him about my project. “So tell me about this house” he said. I said it was a project to design a house in an urban, city setting, and it must reflect the artists personality. He said “well, I would never build a house in the city”. “Oh”, I said, somewhat defeated. But he picked up on this and immediately said “but if I did here is what I would like to see”.

Ansel spent over thirty minutes with me on the phone that day. It was the greatest of treats. His kind, and generous spirit, and willingness to talk with a young student architect has remained with me to this day. Not long ago I tried to find, without success, the drawings from that project. I managed to inject some natural elements into the design including a walkway that passed through large focal plane walls and granite boulders. I sent some of the sketches to Ansel after the class was over. Not long after I received a small package with a print. It was Moonrise over Tanaya Lake. The print hangs today in my office and is a constant reminder of a wonderful photographer and a special man.

The image below was taken near Glacier Point in Yosemite National Park. I sat through a storm as it passed over the high country. As it cleared a small bit of sunlight illuminated a cloud passing next to Half Dome. It was fleeting and gone within a minute or so. The color and texture on Half Dome was amazing. A beautiful evening in a special park. Thank you Ansel for all the inspiration you have given to me and countless others who continue to enjoy your work today. Happy birthday Ansel.

Half Dome Twilight, Yosemite National Park. Shot with a Sony α900 and a Sony SAL 70-300mm lens at 135mm. Image exposed at ISO 100 at f16 for 1/15th of a second.

Thanks for stopping by today.

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Half Dome Light and Yosemite High Country – Revisiting the Black and White Process

 Black and White, California, Landscape, Landscape Photography, Mountains, National Parks, Photography Technique, Photoshop Technique, Photoshop Workflow, Sony α900, sunset, Yosemite, Zeiss Lenses  No Responses »
Jan 082011
 

Image 1: Half Dome Light and Yosemite High Country, Yosemite National Park. Final image after reprocessing to add contrast and punch.

Hi everyone and welcome to today’s post. Today I am going to revisit the black and white version of Half Dome Light and the Yosemite High Country. Before I get into this I would like to thank all of you who visited the blog and commented and voted on your preference for color versus black and white. I started this blog ostensibly to get some visibility to my website and make connections to other photographers and folks who love landscape photography. To that end, a year down the road, more people are visiting my website and I have made some great connections. But something more powerful is happening. Recently I have been getting more critical commentary and dialogue about my photos as well as discussions on techniques and places to visit. A sense of community is beginning to develop which transcends everything that I thought would happen. When you put your work out in the public forum you open a door that invites the viewer into your world. It can be scary. The  ”what if”s begin to surface. What if someone does not like my work? What if I receive negative comments? What if I am wrong about a technique? What if, what if, what if. We should not buy into this fear based position. Though I have been shooting for almost 35 years I think of myself as both a teacher and a student. It seems every day I learn something new. As a student I find the “what if’s” powerful and exciting. What if’s are teaching moments that help you along the journey of photography.

Today’s post comes under the heading of “what if”. I process a lot of images and there are instances when I am unsure about the photographs direction. I call this “getting stuck in the curves”. I never really think an image is finished. In fact I revisit them often in an effort to tweak out more detail, better sharpening, better color, etc. But sometimes I just won’t go far enough. When I converted the color version of today’s “revisit image” I stayed with the same curve sets and only applied a PS Black and White Layer. I did a few other minor manipulations but after staring at the image for several hours my eyes became accustomed to the result. When I posted the image I thought it looked pretty good. But as it turns out I did not go as a far as I could.

In a comment about the post, photographer Michael Trupiano, recommended some constructive suggestions on how he thought the image could be better. So here are Michael’s “What if’s”: What if the mid-tone contrast was increased. He thought the image looked a little muddy. What if the sunlight striking Half Dome and the snow on the far peaks was brighter. And what if the sky could pop a little more. Now the main problem here is that what looks good on my monitor may look different on others. I take care to calibrate my monitor and ensure that I am preparing good jpg files for display. Additionally I still believe the print is the final word. If it looks good in print then that is the final word. But still, after thinking about Michael’s comments and looking closely at the file, I think he had some good points. In order to achieve a better result I had to add several new adjustment layers and tweak a few others. So lets take a look again at the original image, (Image 2, below) I posted at: http://roberthclarkphotographyblog.com/2011/01/02/half-dome-light-and-yosemite-high-country-yosemite-national-park/

Image 2: Half Dome Light and Yosemite High Country. Original Black and White Conversion in Photoshop.

Now let’s take a look at the areas that I worked on in the image, (Image 3, below). Area 1: Increase contrast and drama in the sky with two new curve adjustments to increase darkness in the 3/4 tones and punch the 1/4 tones and highlights. Area 2: Darken this area to provide better separation. This was done through a Dodge and Burn Layer. Area 3: This was the real critical zone Michael commented about. This needed a real contrast boast that required a new curve layer to darken the 3/4 tones and lighten the 1/4 tones and highlights. In addition some additional dodging and burning was performed. And finally Area 4: Here just a little dodging and burning to lighten Half Dome. In addition to these adjustmentss a small amount of manipulation to the 3/4 tones on the “Darks” Luminosity Mask helped the contrast in the area below and behind Half Dome.

Image 3: Areas reworked to increase image contrast and punch.

So here is the final image with adjustments, (Image 4, below). I think you will agree that the overall increase in contrast in the mid tones and 3/4 tones and punching the highlights has made a dramatic improvement to the image.

Image 4: Half Dome Light and Yosemite High Country, Yosemite National Park, Final Image.

I want to thank Michael for his insightful critique. I really appreciate him taking time to visit the blog, being part of the community, and providing his comments. The result is truly a better image.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Bob

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Half Dome Light and Yosemite High Country – Yosemite National Park

 Adobe Lightroom, Landscape, Landscape Photography, Mountains, National Parks, Photography Technique, Sony α900, Yosemite, Yosemite National Park, Zeiss Lenses  11 Responses »
Jan 022011
 

Half Dome Light and the Yosemite High Country, Glacier Point, Yosemite National Park, Shot with a Sony α900 and a Zeiss 24-70mm lens at 50mm. Image exposed at ISO 200 at f14 for 1/4 of a second.

Hi everyone and welcome to today’s post. Happy New Year to all my friends and thank you for visiting and supporting this site. Today’s image is a view of Half Dome and the Yosemite High Country taken near Glacier Point. In my mind it is arguably one of the most spectacular views in country. It is certainly one of my favorites. I was in the Valley for most of the day and watched as incredible bands of clouds drifted overhead. I though about staying in the valley to shoot sunset but I though with all the clouds the horizon might be blocked and there would be no color. I decided instead to drive up to Glacier Point thinking that the clouds might provide a more fitting backdrop from that vantage point. Well I was treated to an amazing show. Bands of clouds drifted over the high country and the light was amazing. Just before sunset the clouds opened up an sunlight lit up Half Dome and the higher peaks and snow-capped ridges of the high country. The light did not stay for long however. My suspicions about the horizon proved true and once the sun set the light and color were gone.

I processed the RAW image in Adobe Lightroom and prepared two files in Photoshop. The color version above and a black and white versions shown below. I like them both but find myself drawn to the black and white. I think some is this my conditioned response to viewing the Yosemite work of Ansel Adams. The other is that often reducing an image to simpler tones makes it more powerful. For the black and white version I used the Black and White Layer Conversion and adjusted the sliders in the Blue, Red, and Yellow zones. So what is your vote? Color or the black and white. I would love to hear your views.

Half Dome Light and Yosemite High Country. Black and White Conversion in Photoshop.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Bob

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