Photography Composition

Liquid Light • Salt Creek, Death Valley National Park, Ca.

Hi everyone and welcome to today’s post. This will be my last post for about a week or so. I am heading out to the Grand Canyon for a combination work and shooting trip. I will be at the South Rim for a few days and then heading up to Page for a trip into Canyon X and some photo exploration with Tony Kuyper. The 10-day weather forecast looks promising to finally get into Canyon X. I was thwarted on my last attempt when a large front moved over the Page area killing off all the light. Tony and I are planning a little exploration of the Painted Desert and a jaunt through Cathedral Wash down to the Colorado River.

Today’s image is affectionately named “Liquid Light”. This was shot on my recent trip to Death Valley with my pals Alec Johnson and Travis Bechtel. As you may have noticed from recent posts we were blessed with incredible shooting conditions, amazing light, and clouds. Epic clouds to be more exact. This image, shot at Salt Creek, was made in the late afternoon as the sun was setting over the Panamint Range, just behind my camera position. The sky event was happening on both sides and it was difficult to choose where to shoot. There were just so many options. The three of us must have looked like ants after a picnic basket as we scurried about framing compositions. The clouds sent long tendrils over the salt flats. Driven by upper level winds the clouds resembled a liquid spill in the sky. As the sun moved lower reflected light illuminated the clouds and carried their reflection in the water below. Sky and earth seemed to meld into one. We continued to shoot well into Civil Twilight just enjoying the light show.

Technical Details: This image is a blend of two bracketed exposures. One for the foreground and one for the sky. Each image was processed in Adobe Lightroom and opened as layers in Photoshop for final work. I created a Channel Mask to seamlessly blend the two exposures before applying my final curves and color adjustments.

Thanks for stopping by. I’ll see you back here soon.

Bob

Elakala Falls No. 1, Shay’s Run, Blackwater Falls State Park, WV

Blackwater Falls State Park, Heliopan Filters, Landscape, Landscape Photography, Nikon D3x, Photography Composition, Photography Trips, Photoshop Technique, River, Robert H Clark Photography, Water, Waterfall Photography, Waterfalls, West Virginia, West Virginia Photography 2 Responses »

Nov 202011

Elakala Falls No. 1, Shay's Run, Blackwater Falls State Park, WV.

Hi everyone and welcome to today’s post. In my last post I presented an image from Elakala Falls No. 2, on Shay’s Run, in the Blackwater Falls State Park. Today I want to start at the beginning with Elakala No. 1. You might ask, as some have already done, why I did not start with this one. I am not sure really. Elakala No. 1 after all is the most iconic of the group of four waterfalls that tumble along Shay’s Run as it travels to meet the Blackwater River. But quite honestly Elakala No. 1 has been shot quite a bit and in truth I became enthralled with Elakala No. 2. It had such a thunderous power that kept me lingering and shooting for a long time.

You can’t argue about the beauty of Elakala No. 1 though. Where No. 2 was a pounding wall of water, No. 1 is a delicate veil of water linked by molecular glue. A study of this image will show a waterfall made up of smaller flows each one with its own series of cascades. The sound here is more symphonic. If you listen carefully, each cascade has its own sound, all part of the whole but with an individual voice. The amphitheater of rock is also quite interesting. It is a jumbled wall almost hand built in appearance, ancient, striated in layers, and painted with rich colorful hues. The walls are reminiscent of hand built farm walls I have seen throughout West Virginia. From above the sound of the waterfall is a rushing noise, a continuous sound of instruments warming up for the concert. Standing in the hall below the sound of water reverberates along the walls replaying the melody, each instrument clearly delineated.

The colors here are an intense, full-bodied, palette of tones. The water is a rich golden brown, affected by the concentration of natural dissolved organic acids such as tannins and lignins, which give the water the look of tea. Shay’s Run flows through a coniferous forest of pine, hemlock, and spruce. The brown needles shed by the trees degrade over time and mix with the run-off of organically rich plant and animal matter to give the water its brown color and a musty smell. The wetness supports vibrant green mosses and lichens. This is a place to delight the senses. Elakala No. 1 is also a place to reflect which is probably another reason why I did not start with this waterfall. Sometimes more powerful images surface to the top while the more sublime take a little longer to reveal their secrets. Slowly over the last few weeks this image has revealed its quiet secrets-the sounds, the smells, and the colors. A complete symphony I think.

Technical Details: The image was shot with a Nikon D3x and a Nikkor 17-35mm lens at 26mm. The image was exposed at ISO 100 at f11 for 1 second. To slow the down the shutter speed and remove specular highlights I used a Heliopan Warming Polarizer.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Bob

Dawn Sky – West Virginia Farmland, Shepherdstown, WV

Landscape, Landscape Photography, Nikon D3x, Photography Composition, Robert H Clark Photography, Shepherdstown, Singh-Ray Filters, Split Neutral Density Filters, sunrise, West Virginia, Wide Angle Photography 2 Responses »

Nov 082011

Dawn Sky No. 1 and West Virginia Farmland. Shot near Shepherdstown, WV.

Hi everyone and welcome to today’s post. Over the last few weeks we have had some incredible “cloud events” here in the eastern panhandle of West Virginia. I am fortunate to have a beautiful drive to my office. It winds through rural land plowed and planted with corn, winter wheat, soybeans, and other crops. On many mornings a misty fog settles into the low spots obscuring the landscape like a veil. From the high points in the road I can see the mountains of Loudoun Heights, and farther still, the water gap at Harpers Ferry, where the Shenandoah and Potomac join together.

On these crisp, fall mornings, the air is razor clear. The cool mornings coupled with the fog bring a hard rime that coats the land with a white ice. Everything seems crisp and clean; sharp with the expectations of a new day. With my morning coffee I breath in the day, gazing upward to see what treasures the sky holds. Most days are clear with maybe a passing wisp of cirrus clouds. Nothing spectacular really. Just another beautiful day in the panhandle. On this day if was different. Off to the east the first rays from the sun were just peeking over the horizon. The clouds hung low moving slowly on high winds. I just thought it was going to be special. On these days I always have the camera pack ready; batteries charged, cards loaded, camera settings dialed in. And don’t forget the tripod. I hit the road to my favorite cornfield. I arrived as the eastern light came alive. The clouds were slung low along the horizon, rising upwards, soft like flowing silk on the wind. The light hit bringing color and form to the sky. Everywhere I looked the clouds expanded over me like a shifting aurora of pulsing mist.

The corn, freshly cut, stood at attention; the long, even rows of cut stalks marching into the horizon. Overhead the clouds continued to morph into continuously changing organic shapes. It was like an unseen artist created pastel paintings and hung them in the sky. I barely changed camera positions opting instead to simply rotate the camera or switch from horizontal to vertical orientations as I composed on the fly. On this day it was all about the sky. I kept the fields low in the composition to expand the idea of the sky and how it dwarfs the landscape. The show proceeded from Act to Act with a final bow as dawn color faded bringing the high contrast light of the new day.

Dawn Sky No. 2 and West Virginia Farmland near Shepherdstown, WV.

Technical Information: The image was shot with a Nikon D3x and a Nikkor 17-35mm at 17mm. Dawn Sky No. 1 was shot in one exposure at ISO 100 at f11 for 1/2 of a second. I used a Singh-Ray, 3-stop, hard edge split neutral density filter to balance out the exposure. Dawn Sky No. 2 was shot in three exposures and blended in Photoshop.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Bob

Blue Light Special – Lower Antelope Canyon, Arizona – Creative White Balance and Exposure Blending

Antelope Canyon, Antelope Canyon Photography, Arizona, Colorado Plateau, Grand Circle, Landscape, Landscape Photography, Lightroom, Navajo Lands, Photography Composition, Photography Technique, Photography Trips, Photoshop Technique, Photoshop Workflow, Robert H Clark Photography, Slot Canyon, Sony α900 4 Responses »

Oct 142011

Blue Light Special, Lower Antelope Canyon, Arizona. Creative White Balance Setting and Photoshop Exposure Blending.

Hi everyone and welcome to today’s post. Fall color is just around the corner and we may see the full display by the end of next week. So while I wait for nature to take its course in the next few weeks I am bring you some intense color of a different type. Many of you who follow this blog, and my work, know that I have shot quite extensively in Antelope Canyon. I love the sinuous curving formations and how light plays off the sandstone walls. It is light that brings the canyons to life. I other posts I have talked about some of the lighting in slot canyons including bounce, or reflected light, chiaroscuro light, and blue light. All can have a dramatic impact on your shot. Today I am going to show you what happens when you apply some creative White Balance Settings in-camera during your exposures.

But first just a small bit on Color Temperature which , in photography, is often associated with White Balance. Essentially color temperature is a characteristic of the visible light that we see, or in some cases, we don’t see. Color temperature is conventionally stated in the unit of absolute temperature, K, on the Kelvin Scale. Color temperatures over 5,000K are called cool colors (blueish white), while lower color temperatures, 2,700–3,200 K, are called warm colors (yellow white to red). In photography, the daylight or normal color temperature, is deemed to be 5000K. If you set your White Balance selector on your camera to Daylight Setting you will be shooting at 5000K. But what happens when you go indoors and shoot with incandescent lights on a 5000K setting? Your image will appear very warm and red/orange. If you lower your White Balance Setting to Tungsten, somewhere around 3200K you can compensate for the warmer color and render the scene more naturally. In this case you are bringing the color down from the warmer side of the spectrum to the cooler side.

You can use this information to do some creative White Balance shooting in your photography. Today’s image was shot in two separate exposures-one at 5500K, what I call my “normal” White Balance for slot canyons, and one at 2500K to bring the warm tones down to a bluer color. I can then combine the two files to create a dynamic image expressing blues in the shadows and oranges in the warmer highlights. When I looked at the “blue” image I noticed I picked up some slight magenta tones which gave me the opportunity to process a third, magenta toned, image to use in the composition. The resulting blending in Photoshop would give me an image that moves from blue to magenta to orange. So lets take a look at the files I processed to achieve the final image.

Image 1: Canyon shot at 5500K White Balance Setting.

Image 2: Canyon shot adjusted to 5800K in Lightroom.

Image 1: This is the first image shot with a White Balance setting of 5500K. I typically shoot just at a WB of 5500K for most of my work and make adjustments depending on the light conditions. You will need to check your manuals for setting a custom WB. On the Sony a900 I can set this right from the main menu screen. On the Nikon D3x I can set this from the WB controls on the back of the camera. Both cameras also give you the opportunity to adjust the color temperature further with by hinting the color towards the Green or Magenta side. Setting this to zero is fine.

Image 3: Canyon shot adjusted to 3500K in Lightroom.

Image 4: Canyon shot at 2500K White Balance Setting.

Image 2: In RAW processing of Image 1 I increased the WB to 5800K and made some adjustments to the Green/Magenta Tint using the slider in Lightroom. The intent here was to brighten up the warm tones.

Image 4: This is the second shot in my bracket set and was made with the camera WB at 2500K. This is below the Tungsten Setting of 3200K. In a situation like this, having shot so much in slots, I go for a lower K-number as I can get much cooler tones in the shadows. You can just note a hint of magenta color in the far part of the image. This led to processing out a third image to accentuate this color.

Image 3: This is the Magenta file processed from Image 4. For this I simply raised the WB in Lightroom to 3500K and adjusted the Tint Slider more towards Magenta.

You will notice that after all the adjustments the final files used for the blend all have the same relative luminosity and tonal consistency. Other than the various changes for WB and Tint the RAW processing for each file was the same. I applied the same development to the curves, noise reduction, and pre-sharpening. This must all be the same so the file set can blend together properly. When I was satisfied with each file I returned to the Library Module in Lightroom, selected the three files and then went to Photo > Open as Layers in Photoshop. All three files were processed and placed in Photoshop in a Layer Stack. The Layer stack for this image is shown below.

I ordered the files going from warm to cool in the Layer Stack. For this processing I preferred this as I wanted to paint on top of the warm file as I felt I could see the changes better visually. I added a Layer Mask filled with Black for the Magenta and Blue Layers. Using the White Reveals and Black Hides concept I went from Layer Mask to Layer Mask painting in and out the color changes until I reached a blend I liked. I used a soft brush and adjusted the size and opacity as I worked on the various layers. It is important when blending files like this to pay attention to the Blend Zones – the areas where the colors overlap. Here you must be subtle and work the masks to eliminate hard edges.

Photoshop Layers for Blue Light Special.

Each of the Layers also had a Selective Color Layer where I adjusted the color intensity. Keep in mind this is a salt to taste function. For this file I wanted more intensity in the colors so I pumped up the blue and magenta. I finished off the file by setting the White and Black Point, adding several Curve adjustments, Dodging and Burning, and Creative Sharpening. Dodging and Burning is an important Layer as painting in darker and lighter tomes adds additional detail and helps to blend in color at Blend Zones.

Technical Details: The image was shot with a Sony α900 and a Zeiss 24-70mm lens at 28mm. The image was exposed at ISO 100 at f16 for 1.0 seconds.

If you have any questions on this post just send me an e-mail. Thanks as always for visiting and supporting this blog.

Bob

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

Bridge and Fog – Shenandoah River, Harpers Ferry, WV

Adobe Lightroom, Adobe Lightroom Workflow, Bridges, Harpers Ferry, Landscape, Landscape Photography, Lee Big Stopper, Lightroom, National Parks, Photography Composition, Photography Technique, Robert H Clark Photography, Shenandoah River, Sony α900, sunrise, West Virginia, Zeiss Lenses 4 Responses »

Oct 092011

Bridge and Fog, Shenandoah River. Shot with a Sony a900 and a Zeiss 24-70mm lens at 45mm. Image exposed at ISO 100 at f11 for 1-1/2 minutes.

Hi everyone and welcome to today’s post. Today’s is image is brought to courtesy of our recent influx of beautiful fall weather. The cool mornings and warm afternoons typically generate some fantastic fog along our rivers in the early morning. In a recent conversation with Alec Johnson we were both lamenting that our current workloads and obligations were preventing both of us from getting out and shooting. So I want to make a point about this conversation. Getting out and shooting for the two of us usually involves anywhere but home. For Alec it is the North Shore of Lake Superior and for me it usually revolves around some slot canyon or grand vista in the American West. The fact is that the act of photography, the mental and physical immersion we both have for this medium, is important to our sanity and well being. It seems like a lot of baggage to place on our choice of art but it is true. Both of us, in our own pursuit of photography, find peace and well-being. Much like yoga the process is one of contemplative and deliberate practice and within this we find a release of our demons.

With the arrival of the fog came a revelation. I travel so much and most of my shooting has indeed been in the far reaches of the country. But I live in an incredible place with a veritable playground full of photographic opportunities. What am I waiting for? Nothing was preventing me from shooting, but me. That’s right, me. I am coming clean here. It is so easy to put up the road blocks and complain about our situations. Our conversation and the influx of of fog gave me a new sense of clarity. Yes, I want to shoot out west but when I can’t be there I have great places at home to practice my craft. In the immortal words of Steven Stills, “if you can’t be with the one you love, love the one your with”. The river is so close and I can make the time without negating my other obligations. It is a good thing and I am glad I woke up to the possibilities. So “Chak” , if you read this far, this one’s for you.

Technical Details: Today’s image was shot in the early morning and was conceived as a long exposure black and white. I wanted two things in the vision of this image. I wanted to soften the details and capture the beautiful soft light created by the fog. This required a long exposure to achieve. So out came my Lee Big Stopper. 10-stops of neutral density gave me a shutter speed at f11 of nearly two minutes. So during the exposure time the river softens and becomes “ice” like and the drifting fog softens the details rendering the image almost high-key. Just exactly what I was looking to do. In processing I kept the image light soft and put most of the detail into the first bridge pier. This in effect stabilizes the composition and provides a nice contrast.

Get out and shoot. Time is wasting away.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Bob

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

Glen Avon Falls – Beaver River, North Shore of Lake Superior

Lake Superior, Lake Superior Photography, Landscape, Landscape Photography, Lightroom, Nikon D3x, North Shore of Lake Superior, Photography Composition, Photography Technique, Photography Trips, Photomatix HDR, sunset, Twilight Photography, Water, Waterfalls, Wide Angle Photography 2 Responses »

Aug 222011

Glen Avon Waterfall, Beaver River, North Shore of Lake Superior. Shot with a Nikon D3x and a Nikkor 15mm Rectilinear Lens. See the post for technical details on the shot capture.

Hi everyone and welcome to today’s post. I am preparing once again to leave town for another trip, this time out to Crater Lake National Park in Oregon. After this one I will be able to stay home for a while and rest a bit. So in this brief respite between trips I am getting the cameras ready, cleaning sensors, lenses, and other packing chores. And of course I am trying to process out a few more images from the Lake Superior shoot. Today’s post may be my last until I return so I thought I would show you one I am very proud of.

For me this image represents the constant struggle we face when trying to craft an image. This is a shot of the upper falls on Glen Avon Falls on the Beaver River which empties into Lake Superior. I made two scouting trips to the falls and came away simply befuddled. I just could not get a handle on a worth while shot. The problem I faced is common and many of our workshop participants faced the same dilemma. Glen Avon is not what I might call a singular waterfall. It is instead made up of many cascades rolling through different levels. The problem was one of isolating the shot to achieve a uniform and cohesive composition. Alec and I scouted the falls before the workshop and I knew right away it was going to be a challenge.

When we brought out the workshop folks for the scouting session I once again just struggled to understand the place. When scouting waterfalls it is generally best to start at the bottom and work your way up. It is often difficult to see the cascades and features when approaching from the top. So for most the afternoon I mingled in with our students and made my way down stream. Again not much was revealed to me that gave me a meaningful composition to capture. We would all return that evening for the “formal” shoot and I was resigned to leaving the camera in the bag.

On the way out after the scouting exercise I finally saw what I was looking for. Or that is to say what I had missed. Making my way along the edge I came back to a long rocky chute that connected the upper falls with the lower. This was the isolation of forms I was looking for. The shot angle possessed a strong diagonal leading line and prominent foreground features that jutted into the scene providing a beautiful counter-balance to the strong line of flowing water. I saw the shot in my mind as late evening and in black and white. When we returned for the evening shoot I studied the angles once again from the top and bottom of the chute. The bottom was the best for the evening and the top position would actually be good for a morning shot. Around 8:30 pm I began to frame up the shot. I positioned myself, rather precariously, on a slippery ledge of rock, and put my tripod into a series of contortions to get the right camera angle. To get it all I had to shoot ultra wide with the 15mm rectilinear lens. I shot two test exposures to get a lock on the histogram and then made three sets of three exposure brackets, each bracket two stops apart, to merge in Photomatix. I shot the three sets in order to make sure I had the flowing water captured in a form I liked.

Technical Processing: The RAW files were brought into Adobe Lightroom and I choose the three image brackets that gave me a consistent look to the water flow that could be merged. Each exposure was approximately two stops apart and included a dark file at 8 seconds, a midtone at 30 seconds, and a lights at 2:00 minutes. Each file was processed and corrected in Lightroom and saved out as TIFFs for Photomatix. After import I processed the file twice-once in Exposure Fusion and once in Photomatix Tone Mapping. This was simply to compare the files and see which one I like better. In the end I went with the Tone Mapped version and let Photomatix convert to black and white. The final Photoshop work included some minor curves adjustments for the falls and dodging and burning layers.

The final image is born from the struggle that exists for all photographers. We can all point a camera at something and press the shutter. But the crafting of a memorable image takes time, patience, vision, and a little help from the muses. Sometimes our vision is clouded and what we seek will only be revealed by letting go. Easier said than done I can assure you. But working through this is, and always will be, part of the process. Basically some days are diamonds and some days are rust. Enjoy and embrace the struggle for inside lies the genesis of something beautiful.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Bob

Lake Superior Twilight – Split Rock Lighthouse State Park, Minnesota

Lake Superior, Lake Superior Photography, Landscape, Landscape Photography, Lee Big Stopper, Minnesota, Nikon D3x, North Shore of Lake Superior, Photography Composition, Photography Trips, Photography Workshops, Robert H Clark Photography, Singh-Ray Filters, Split Neutral Density Filters, Twilight Photography 2 Responses »

Aug 212011

Lake Superior Twilight, Ellingson Island, Split Rock Lighthouse State Park, Minnesota. Shot with a Nikon D3x and a Nikkor 17-35mm lens set at 19mm. The image was exposed at ISO 100 at f13 for 2:00 minutes.

Hi everyone and welcome to today’s post. Today’s photograph is another image from the Lake Superior Workshop taken along the shoreline of Ellingson Island in Split Rock Lighthouse State Park. Lake Superior was pretty calm on this day and a few clouds were drifting by towards sunset. Low clouds along the horizon just off to camera left were blocking most of the late sunlight giving a slight blue cast to the overall scene. I have always loved the notion of edges and constantly explore this idea in my images. Edges abound in the natural landscape-light and shadow, earth and sky, earth and water-and it is at the meeting of these edges that photography can be interesting. In this image shoreline rocks give way to the lake environment. Boldly the shoreline reaches its fingers into the cold waters as lapping water rolls over submerged rock barriers revealing a thin defining edge. Beyond this Lake Superior stretches out almost 300 miles and disappears into a horizon of blue sky and clouds.

Technical Details: The clouds were blowing in towards me and with a little filter trickery I could impart a dynamic sense of motion to complement the angles along the shoreline. The camera was set to Matrix Evaluative Metering and manual focus. The white balance was set to 6000K. I used two filters during the capture – a Singh-Ray 4-Stop, Soft Edge Split Neutral Density and a Lee Big Stopper. The Lee Big Stopper is a 10-Stop Neutral Density filter that, as its name suggests, will hold back 10 stops of light. In practice however the filter stops are not precise and it is a good idea to test this in order to get a good exposure. In my case the filter is right on 9-2/3 stops so its close enough. In any event the addition of almost 10 stops affords very long exposures which can impart a sense of motion to the clouds and soften water into a smooth, ice-like surface. The filter will impart a blue cast to the file which can be corrected in post processing. Generally I will preset my white balance up to about 6000K for some compensation but for the most part make corrections in RAW processing.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Bob

Split Rock Lighthouse and Lake Superior. Shot with a Nikon D3x and a Nikkor 17-35mm lens at 17mm. (See article for capture details)

Hi everyone and welcome to today’s post. I have just returned from assisting Alec Johnson on the North Shore of Lake Superior Workshop. What an incredible week with a fantastic group of photographers. It was hectic to say the least and none of us got much sleep as we chased the light in several beautiful locations. In my last post from the workshop I talked about the need for scouting a location. Very few photographers can come into a location cold and expect to come away with a quality image. It takes time to understand the intrinsic rhythms of a place necessary to making a photograph. In our workshop we focused on the concept of scouting. During the week we shot in three locations. For each location we did an afternoon scout then shot sunset followed by a sunrise shoot. During the afternoon scouting sessions we had each participant perform some basic exercises including digital sketching and a 10 Step/10 Shots routine. In each case we asked everyone to dispense with their tripods. We wanted them to explore untethered to the rigidity of a camera support. Exploring this way does several things. First it puts you in a shooting rhythm. The more you shoot the more you will see and the more you see the more you shoot. Second it allows you to move your camera in all directions and from different heights and angles. We gave everyone a sense of how the light would change over the course of the day and that they should use this information to consider and imagine the possibilities as they played with their compositions. This exercise was very successful for each of our photographers and everyone made inspiring images. And as you might guess the best work came on the second shooting session as each one began to unravel the intrinsic rhythms of the place. Alec will be posting some of these beautiful images over on his blog site at http://www.acjphotoblog.com/.

Today’s image was a direct result of a pre-workshop scout I did at Split Rock Lighthouse State Park. The shot was made from Ellingson Island. The back side of the island is quite rocky and consists of a series of granite rock shelves that eventually meet the lake. The lower shelves contain pools and slick rock from the ebb and flow of the lake. From this vantage point, given the chance arrival of some great clouds, I pre-visualized a dramatic leading line pointing to the distant lighthouse. On the day the class shot here we had some beautiful clouds and the opportunity presented itself to achieve the shot I had envisioned. I wanted to emphasize the idea of motion into the shot to complement the leading line. To so this I needed to slow down the shutter speed to impart motion in the clouds and “liquify” the water. To do this I used a Lee 10 Stop “Big Stopper” Neutral Density Filter coupled with a Singh-Ray 3-Stop Hard Split Neutral Density. The final image consisted of three separate exposures of 1:00 minute, and 2:00 minutes, and 4:00 minutes and processed in Photomatix HDR Software. The file was blended using the Fusion engine. The exposure sets I used along with the filters created the motion effect in the clouds and gave the water an icy, flat look. Final finishing was performed in Abobe Photoshop.

Thank you for stopping by today.

Hozógo nasádo (Navajo): Walk in Beauty

Bob

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