Robert H Clark Photography Blog

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South Kaibab Trail – Grand Canyon National Park

Arizona, Colorado Plateau, Colorado River, Desert, Grand Canyon, Grand Canyon National Park, National Parks, Nikon D3x, Photography Composition, Photography Trips, sunset, Uncategorized No Responses »

Jul 122011

Along the South Kaibab Trailhead, South Rim of the Grand Canyon. Shot with a Nikon D3x and a Nikon 70-200mm lens at 200mm. Image exposed at ISO 100 at f13 for 1/2 of a second.

Hi everyone and welcome to today’s post. One of my favorite things to do when visiting the Grand Canyon is to get a cup of coffee and take and evening walk along the Rim Trail. It is a wonderful way to wind down after a busy day and experience twilight along the South Rim. Invariably I will meet other strollers and engage in the kind of general small talk reserved for such occasions. As the vastness of the canyon recedes in the dying light the subject of conversation often turns to the notion of scale. Many first time visitors, and even those who return often, are struck by the sheer enormity of the canyon. I have many trips to the canyon and never tire of its sense of scale, or in reality, my perception of it. It is of such proportions as to leave you spellbound. But the sense of scale can be confusing. Standing along the rim near the El Tovar you can see down to Indian Garden and out to Plateau Point on the Tonto Platform. As a rock falls, so to speak, it is not that far. But take the hike down and you soon realize that it is much farther than you thought.

Looking across towards the North Rim and the vastness is almost incomprehensible. When I was on a helitack crew at the canyon I had the opportunity to make many helicopter flights into the inner canyon and along the Colorado River. Dropping off the sheer cliffs of the Abyss towards the Tonto Platform was like taking a roller coaster ride. You soon understood how small you were in relation to the canyon environment. Huge, vertical walls, towering pillars of stone, buttes and temples, warrens of confusing canyons and washes all combined to overpower the senses.

Consider today’s image. It is a shot of the upper portion of the South Kaibab Trail. To find the trail just come down the upper slope from the rock pillars to a horizontal line that angles slightly down from right to left. Do you see it? This is still near the top and there are many miles to go before reaching the inner canyon and the Colorado River. Beyond is the North Rim. In a shot such as this, compressed by the telephoto lens, scale is hard to determine. Not even the trail helps. But take a look at the image below. It is an enlargement of the image. Look inside the white circle and you will see two small hikers. If you look very closely you can just make them out in the image above.

Detail from the South Kaibab Trail. Look inside the white circle to see the two hikers.

Now the immense scale of the canyon is evident. Dwarfed by the landscape the hikers have entered a world that can literally swallow them. The next time you make a visit to the canyon I would invite you to take the opportunity to experience this landscape up close and in person. Move away from the rim and let the canyon swallow you for a few hours. I can promise you will have a different sense of scale when you return.

Thank you as always for stopping by to visit.

Hozógo nasádo (Navajo): Walk in Beauty

Bob

Lipan Point Sunset – Grand Canyon National Park

Arizona, Colorado Plateau, Desert, Grand Canyon, Grand Canyon National Park, Landscape, Landscape Photography, National Parks, Navajo Lands, Nikon D3x, Photography Trips, sunset, Uncategorized No Responses »

Jun 232011

Lipan Point Sunset, Grand Canyon National Park. Shot with a Nikon D3x and a Nikon 70-200mm lens at 70mm. Image exposed at ISO 100 at f13 for 0.8 seconds.

Hi everyone and welcome to today’s post. As I promised I am beginning to post some of my recent images from my shoot at the Grand Canyon. The shooting conditions were difficult due to the high winds and I found that I had to wait through intensive cycles of strong gusts or seek out secluded perches where the wind was blocked. Some of the gusts reached 40 mph and at this intensity I had to hold on to the camera to keep it from going over the edge. To help me I shot from lower camera positions with the tripod legs spread wide. This also helped me create a more stable base and I could use my body as a wind block. Though difficult, I had to be patient and time my exposures as the wind cycled to a low point. I was using a long lens which can be a problem in windy conditions but the end results were pleasing due to the beautiful, late afternoon light on Cardenas Butte and the East Rim Palisades. The muted sky is due to the smoke and particulates from some of the Arizona fires. All in all it was not a bad way to start the trip. Stay tuned for more images from this trip.

Thank you as always for stopping by to visit.

Hozógo nasádo (Navajo): Walk in Beauty

Bob

Canyon Portal – Mountain Sheep Canyon, Navajo Lands, Arizona

Abstracts, Adobe Lightroom, Adobe Lightroom Workflow, Antelope Canyon, Arizona, Uncategorized No Responses »

Apr 162011

Canyon Portal, Mountain Sheep Canyon, Navajo Lands, Arizona. Shot with a Nikon D300 and a Nikkor 12-24mm lens at 18mm. Image exposed at ISO 200 at f14 for 1/2 of a second.

Hi everyone and welcome to today’s post. I have resolved my site issues and as promised here is a new image from Mountain Sheep Canyon, located just outside of Page, Arizona. For sheer textural complexity Mountain Sheep Canyon is one of my favorites. Canyon walls can be rough, revealing complex textures and patterns, to smooth, worn clean by the force of water. In this image the textures and smooth walls contrast against each other while reflected light illuminates the chamber beyond. There are several compositional ideas in this image. Most of you who visit my site know that I employ leading lines in many of my photographs. This is an obvious compositional device to use when shooting in many slot canyons due to the striations cut into the sandstone. I also try to create a way to enter the shot, a portal if you will, to begin the journey of exploring the image. These ideas are easily apparent in this shot. But there are several others which add additional complexity and interest to the image.. The first is the idea of repetition. This is found in the repeating planes of stone which have similar shapes. Repetition is a powerful component that adds a dynamic quality to a shot. Repetition is a way to create movement in a photograph – to lead the eye. Here leading lines work together with similar shapes in diminishing perspective to lead the viewer. The other idea is the concept of dark to light. The darker planes of stone frame the illuminated chamber drawing the eye inward. The eye will always be drawn to the light. The leading lines, stepped back planes of stone, and the tonality of dark to light completes this compositional study. In my mind this is a fairly simple shot but with a lot of complexity. It is the simplicity, as well as the complexity, that I enjoy about this image.

The RAW file was processed in Adobe Lightroom and finished in Photoshop. Mountain Sheep Canyon is located on the Navajo Reservation and is only accessible with a Navajo Guide. I first visited the canyon in 2009 and have been back on four other occasions. If you would like to visit the canyon please contact Carol Bigthumb at Adventurous Antelope Canyon Tours.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Hozógo nasádo (Navajo): Walk in Beauty

Bob

WordPress Site Update

Uncategorized No Responses »

Apr 162011

Hi everyone. You may have noticed some issues with the site loading or, in some cases, not loading at all. This was due to some confusion with an update to WP3.1.1 from my domain hosting site. This has since been cleared up and the site is now back up and running smoothly. I will be posting a new image tonight from Mountain Sheep Slot Canyon. So stay tuned. My apologies for any inconvience.

Thanks for stopping by.

Bob

Giant Agave and Moonrise – Big Bend National Park

Adobe Lightroom, Big Bend, Big Bend National Park, Desert, Landscape, Landscape Photography, National Parks, Singh-Ray Filters, Sony α900, Split Neutral Density Filters, sunset, Texas, Twilight Photography, Uncategorized 6 Responses »

Mar 312011

Giant Agave and Moonrise, Big Bend National Park. Shot with a Sony α900 and a Zeiss 24-70mm lens at 24mm. Image exposed at ISO 100 at f14 for 3 seconds.

Hi everyone and welcome to today’s post. Today in beautiful West Virginia it is cold and rainy. It seems that spring is just around the corner. It has been that way though for the entire month of March. North of us they are getting snow and the folks living there probably feel the same way I do. A dose of warm weather filled with vitamin enriched sunshine would go a long way towards lifting winters stranglehold.

Today’s image is from a place where the weather seemed to be near perfect all the time. I know Big Bend can have some severe weather but for one perfect week I was able to bask in the park’s beautiful landscape and balmy temperatures. This is a twilight shot of a giant agave set against the rugged Chisos Mountains. At nearly four and a half feet tall this is one of the biggest agave plants I have ever seen. It was just huge. The interesting part about this image is that somehow I managed to pre-compose the shot in my mind. I knew we would be shooting with the Chisos range as a backdrop and I just imagined finding an agave that I could frame against the mountains. We already knew we would have a full moon rise and the trick would be to bring all the elements together in the final shot. I started with a series of much tighter shots but moved back to include more of the landscape. The moon rose on cue and a wonderful cloud drifted by as I tripped the shutter.

In order to gain some exposure latitude I used a Singh-Ray 3-stop soft Split Neutral Density filter to hold back the sky. In addition when I shoot in twilight I like to drop the white balance down to around 4700 to 4800K to accentuate the cooler blue tones in the sky. The RAW image was processed in Lightroom and finished in Photoshop.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Hozógo nasádo (Navajo): Walk in Beauty

Bob

Inner Light – Antelope Canyon

Adobe Lightroom, Adobe Lightroom Workflow, Antelope Canyon, Arizona, Chiaroscuro Lighting, Colorado Plateau, Desert, Grand Circle, Landscape, Landscape Photography, Navajo Lands, Slot Canyon, Slot Canyon Photography, Sony α900, Uncategorized, Zeiss Lenses 2 Responses »

Feb 252011

Inner Light, Antelope Canyon. Shot with a Sony α900 and a Zeiss 24-70mm lens at 24mm. Image exposed at ISO 100 at f16 for 4 seconds.

Hi everyone and welcome to today’s post. We are in a transition now. Spring is nearly upon us. The days are gradually getting longer, I see a lot of activity from the birds, and we are getting a some warmer weather. But then again we have had some major snowstorms at the end of February. Last year at this time we had about three feet on the ground. So it wants to be spring but we are still at the back end of winter. So it is a transition. An interstitial time that occurs between the seasons. Mother Nature it seems is a tease. Over the last week it has snowed, the winds have blown, and the sky is grey. “Oh I’ve been for a walk on a winter’s day”…

I find transitions somewhat difficult. The thought of what is coming, of course, is exciting. But it is just being stuck in the grey of the day. The inner light, my inner light is dim. At times like this I just seem to drift, my mind wandering-not really centered and in the moment. Today’s image is one that centers me in the moment. Part of it relates to being in the place. The other relates to a series of opposites: Light and Dark; Stable and Unstable; and Solid and Fluid. In each of these concepts we can find a transition. Light transitions into dark, or dark into light depending on how you view the image. Stability in the forms of the sandstone gives way to instability. And solid rock in the foreground becomes fluid and wave like. Within these transitions is the inner glow. A molten glow of warmth that stabilizes and centers the images. All the opposites and all the transitions lead inward to the inner glow.

So when it becomes grey and life seems to be in a time of transition I will try to find a place to center myself and ride out the flux of instability. Sometimes it does not take much. Just a change in routine can do wonders. A trip to the desert is like a giant B-12 shot. Photography is one avenue I use to rekindle the fire. Many times I am drawn to images like this because of the power they have over me. I love opposites, especially those which feature light and dark. I think many of us can relate to this one concept. We are all drawn to light over darkness. How many times I have waited in the darkness of the early morning hours for the sun to rise and spread its fingers of light across the landscape. The darkness retreats in the face of light and warmth replaces the cold. With light is hope. And with hope we can go forward. My grand mother once told me that a person needs three things: someone to love, something to do, and something to look forward to. With these you can ride out the storms that rise in between. When I am in a place of transition I think about these words. They provide an anchor in the storm that allows me to regain my inner light.

Thank you as always for stopping by to visit this site. The photographs I make for myself, but the joy is sharing them with you.

Hozógo nasádo (Navajo): Walk in Beauty

Bob

Postscript: I have been asked on several occasion whether I use any filters when I shoot in Antelope or other slot canyons. The answer is no. To achieve the glow I simply follow the light. Slot canyons by their very nature are an exploration in the juxtaposition of light and dark. This type of lighting is called chiaroscuro. The word is derived from Italian and means light-dark. Chiaroscuro lighting is about opposites, or contrasts in light and dark. The quality of the reflected light on the sandstone walls can be intense and colorful. Filters are not necessary for image capture. RAW processing techniques I use including adjustments to curves and luminance values brings out the intense colors.

Trip Updates

Uncategorized No Responses »

Oct 152010

Hi everyone and welcome to today’s post. As you can see there are no images but I can promise they are coming. I am a forth of the way through a long time in the field encompassing not only my work for the National Park Service but photography as well. I have just spent a very busy and productive week at White Sands National Monument. An early look at sorting over 700 images looks good and I think I have several really nice shots. White Sands is an amazing place and the light at civil twilight is incredible. I could only shoot on two mornings due to missile launches at White Sands Missile Range. But the evenings were fantastic. Last night I hiked into the western dunes for my last shoot. Far from the beaten track the pristine dunes undulated through the landscape with blue shadows reflecting the sky. I shot through twilight and early evening capturing the dunes with a half moon. I had to use my GPS to get back out in the darkness. It took over an hour to hike back in.

Tomorrow I am heading to Big Bend National Park for another week of photography with Craig Tanner of The Mindful Eye.

Thanks to all of you who visit and support this site. I will be back soon with more images and adventures to talk about.

Bob

Coneflowers – Lensbaby Photography

Flower Photography, Landscape, Landscape Photography, Lensbaby, Lensbaby Photograph, Lensbaby Photography, Photography Technique, Photoshop Technique, Photoshop Workflow, Sony α900, Uncategorized No Responses »

Jul 192010

Image 1: Coneflowers - Final Image Processed in Photoshop. Image shot with a Sony α900 and a Lensbaby Composer at f4.0 at 1/250 of a second.

Hi everyone. I thought I would leave the slot canyons for awhile and post another Lensbaby image from my garden flower series. I am showing three stages in this image; the RAW capture, the Lightroom processed image, and the final composition completed in Photoshop. The image was shot in the early morning with the sun rising just off the image’s right hand side. The beautiful sidelight gave the flowers some nice illumination and added depth to the shot. The image was shot hand held with the focus on the two flowers in the center of the image. I used the f4.0 insert on my Lensbaby Composer and the camera white balance was set to 5200K. I composed the shot in a way that would give me cropping room for the final composition. The quality of light is what makes the shot beautiful but it also contributed to an exposure issue-that of balancing the white of the petals with the shadowed areas within the green leaves. Watching the histogram and the “blinkies” I had to clip the white highlights and the shadows just a fraction which pushed the majority of the mid-tones just to the left. I knew I could recover these in the RAW processor. Not optimum but pushing the histogram more to the right would have seriously clipped the highlights and I may not have been able to recover them.

Image 2, below shows the RAW file before processing. Not too bad but it can certainly be improved, especially in the shadows and mid-tones. And while I do like the hint of magenta colors in the top I thought the overall image could be improved by cropping in to eliminate some of the darker parts at the bottom of the shot. In looking at the image, right away I loved the quality of the light. The coneflowers really stood out and I liked the light striking the vertical stems which added a nice dynamic line that played against the curve of the flowers. With all that in mind my plan was to crop in on the shot and bring out the mid-tones for more depth. I also needed to recover a small bit of the highlights in the petal and add just a bit of fill recovery for the clipped shadows.

Image 2: Coneflowers, RAW capture before processing.

Image 3: below shows the image as processed in Lightroom before exporting to Photoshops. Here you can see the subtle recovery of highlights and shadows and the final crop. Additionally some small adjustments were made in the overall color with the sliders. Not a lot however as I prefer to use the selective color controls in Photoshop for final tweaking.

Image 3: Coneflowes, image after processing in Lightroom.

So lets take a look at all three images side by side: The first image is the RAW file, the second image is the Lightroom File, and the third image is the final Photoshop File. The results at first glance may appear subtle. The overall crop helped to eliminate the dark dead space at the bottom of the shot. But keep in mind that I shot this with an eye towards cropping in on the flowers. The Lensbaby Composer is not a zoom lens and though I might have moved in to the shot just a bit it would have altered the focus point. The second image also shows the slight recovery of the shadows with the Fill Slider and the highlights on the petals through the Recovery Slider. The third image is the final rendering from Photoshop. Here the shadows and mid-tones have been adjusted through a luminosity curve mask.

The shot below shows a screen capture of the layers I used in Photoshop. The Background Layer was duplicated and a Gaussian Blur at a 20 pixel radius was made. Though the Lensbaby at the f4.0 aperture insert already produces a nice selective focus blur I wanted to add just a bit more. From there, three separate luminosity curve masks were made for the mid-tones and shadows. The luminosity masks isolate certain tonal and value ranges in the image and from there I apply the curve adjustments through the mask. I won’t go into how these are made but if you are interested please visit Tony Kuyper’s website where you can download his tutorial’s on the masks. They are an excellent way to apply curve adjustments to a targeted tonal range. After the curves I applied a mid-tone contrast mask and then added my Dodge and Burn, Color Balance, and a Final Color Layer. This is a fairly typical Layer Stack for my work. I always do global curve work first followed by selective adjustments. I almost always use a Dodge and Burn Layer. This is an Overlay Layer with a 50% Grey Fill set to an opacity of 66%. You can paint on the mask using the Brush set to a large feathered radius. Painting with Black darkens and painting with white lightens. You should set the Brush to a low opacity and build up the effect.

Coneflower Photoshop Layers

Well, this was quite a bit to go through. Hopefully you followed along and got a glimpse of how I process some of my shots. If you have any questions or comments just drop me a note. Thanks for stopping by today.

Bob

Paperwhite Daffodils – Lensbaby Photography

Flowers, Landscape, Landscape Photography, Lensbaby, Photography Technique, Sony α900, Uncategorized No Responses »

Apr 042010

Paperwhite Daffodils. Shot with a Sony α900 and a Lensbaby Composer with the wide angle attachment. Image exposed at ISO 100 at f4 for 1/60 of a second.

Hi everyone. Continuing in the spring theme, todays post is a bunch of paperwhite daffodils shot with a Lensbaby Composer with the wide angle attachment. The wide angle lens really allows you to get in close plus the dramatic field of view coupled with the selective focus creates a dynamic image full of implied motion and color. Depending on your angle of view the bokeh created by the selective focus capabilities of the lens picks up the reflected colors surrounding your subject.

Todays composition was the result of a technique I learned from my friend Craig Tanner called Digital Sketching. The idea is to use your eyes only and create compositions without looking through the viewfinder. I got in low with the flowers, brought the camera in close, and just shot a series of images. I am not worried about focus while doing this but simply looking for pleasing compositions. Once I find something I like I reframe using the viewfinder and adjust until I get the shot I was looking for. It is a great exercise that will free you from the tyranny of the viewfinder. Now some might wonder about the validity of a creative composition framed without using a viewfinder. Well of course its valid. It is no different than a painter making a series of sketches before apply paint to canvas. In this image something drew me to the composition in the first place, be it color, or the light, or even the subject. So without getting locked into one aspect or one view I used digital sketching to move around the flowers from top to bottom exploring its potential. I would encourage you to give this a try.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Bob

South Rim Vista-Grand Canyon

Arizona, Grand Canyon, Landscape, Landscape Photography, Photoshop Sharpening, Photoshop Technique, Photoshop Workflow, Singh-Ray Filters, Uncategorized 7 Responses »

Feb 112010

Morning on the South Rim, Grand Canyon National Park. Shot with a Sony α900 and a Zeiss 24-70mm lens at 40mm. Image exposed at ISO 100 at f16 for 2 seconds.

This image was taken along Hermits Rest Road near Mohave Point Overlook. The large foreground formation is known as the Alligator. The pinnacle on the right is the Tower of Set. This image was shot around 8:15 in the morning. A beautiful subtle light was illuminating the North Rim buttes and providing a nice fill light into the canyon. I used a Singh-Ray 3-stop split neutral density filter to balance out a bit of the contrast difference and to allow more exposure for the inner canyon. Even at this relatively late hour of the morning the shot required a 2 second exposure.

In Lightroom I opened up the exposure about 1/3 of a stop and added a bit of fill light and black with the sliders. The red, blue, and magenta color sliders were used to tweak out some tones and capture sharpening was applied. Post processing in Photoshop employed a Find Edges, Surface Mask Sharpening Layer; curve adjustments to the foreground, midground, North Rim, and sky; a saturation adjustment for red and magenta; a Midtone Contrast mask; and a dodge and burn layer. I almost always set my curve adjustment layers to Luminosity Mode to avoid increased color saturation that occurs when applied in Normal Blending Mode. I prefer to apply color saturation through adjustment layers. If I had not done this the large foreground butte would have been over powering and out of balance with the other colors and image contrast.

A note about the High Pass Sharpening and the Midtone Contrast Layers. In addition to Capture Sharpening from the RAW processor I do employ several sharpening passes over the adjustment range of the image. I generally will start with a High Pass sharpen right out of the gate. Why you may ask. Simply because the process of sharpening is essentially an adjustment of image contrast. You can check this out for yourself by turning on and off a sharpening layer and notice how the images lights and darks change. I don’t leave sharpening to the end as it will affect the contrast. Subtle maybe, but it will. So I sharpen, make curve adjustments, and then sharpen again. Each time I am tweaking out the image. The Midtone Contrast layer is essentially a High Pass filter applied to the image through the Merge Layers Command. This is generally done in Soft Light Blending Mode and the Blend If sliders are adjusted for the midtone areas of the image. This is as far as I go if I am only going to put the image into the blog or my website. For a print I will apply one more sharpening round.

Thanks for stopping by.

Bob

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