Sunrise, Court of the Patriarchs, Zion National Park, Utah

Great light happens when you least expect it. Well sometimes that is. The fact is, great light rarely happens. Believe me, I know all about it. In fact, I'm an expert on this topic. I spend around 180 days a year in the field either working on personal shooting projects or leading workshops and tours, and while the light is often good it is rarely ever spectacular. I'm also standing with one foot in the past and the other in the here and now. On more than one occasion, workshop clients have made comments to the tune of "well, we could just add a dramatic sky, right?" Yeah, you could, by would you want to I ask. Would that feel right to you? Maybe so. If so, go for it, but please for the sake of full disclosure, label it as such.

That's just my thing I guess. yeah, I use digital technology and technique to it's full effect. I blend exposures, adjust the white balance and often times blend focus for unlimited DOF. Is that cheating. I don't think so, but some old timers might disagree. i don't really care to quite honest. I'm an artist and I I use my tools and trade to convey my vision. That being said, I will not do certain things to an image like add a sky, or a cougar or even a space craft. I prefer to work with what Mother Nature provides. It's a challenge! it makes it worth while spending so many just OK days in the field for when that pee in your pants light happens.

Image details: Nikon D300, 12-24mm, Singh Ray LB Polarizer
2 exposure blend (manually in PS4) 15 seconds for the land and water & 4 seconds for the sky.

Brain Rock Garden

Over the past 9 days, I travelled to the Desert Southwest on a search for new images from the Colorado Plateau and the Arizona Desert. Late March is a wonderful time to shoot in the Sonora and high desert slick rock country of Northern Arizona and southern Utah. I started out my trip by meeting up with legendary Arizona Highways Photographer George Stocking. After stocking up and fueling up, we headed north from Phoenix onto the Navajo Reservation.
Many of the images you will see are from some secret spots and sensitive areas in and around the reservation. For that reason, I will not be giving specific location names, but rather titles to the images.


I would like to start out with an image I created while shooting deep in the Paria Plateau back country. This location of brain rock and sculpted multi colored slick rock is in my humble opinion one of the most amazing locations I have traveled to in over 15 years of shooting the landscape. I started the day out waking up at 3:30am. In the dark gloom of night, I set low to a campfire to keep warm and thought about the day before while I was scouting out the location. I knew the sun would touch the brain rock in the upper basin of this place, and so this is where I headed for first light. The sky was clear and free of clouds. Not always the best situation, but we can only work with what mother nature affords! i set out to find a section of brain rock with a lone pine tree growing in the shallow sand. As the sun rose just a bit over the horizon it began to skim the rock face and paint it with soft and warm morning light.


I choose a composition that showed the absurdity of the lone pine clinging to life in such a barren landscape. In order to get the right perspective for this image, i had to climb up a steep embankment of brain rock. This was very important in order to show the right perspective of the tree nestled into the grove of solid stone. The use of a moderate telephoto lens allowed me to compress the perspective and effectively squish the lone tree in a maze of brain rock.


Best of light,

Joe

Water action at Great Falls National Park

Great Falls national Park is a photographers gem here in the mid Atlantic. Situated just 15 minutes outside of the District of Columbia, this location offers some of the wildest waterscapes in one of the most heavily populated areas of the country. The Potomac River puts on a show of power and beauty as it drops through Mather Gorge with thundering waters, large waterfalls and rock islands only accessible by brave souls in kayaks.

The first shot in this post can only be accessed by down climbing the rock face from the first overlook on the Virginia side just behind the visitor center. i made this shot on a very foggy and cold morning just after sunrise. The mighty flow of the river and the principal falls of the park were made dreamy by the use of a very long exposure (15 seconds at F16) to create a dreamy effect. the long exposure also did a fine job of letting the fog flow across the frame and add to the dreamy effect. I used a Singh Ray 3 stop ND grad (hard edge) filter to hold back the exposure or brightness of the sky while exposing for much darker gorge. I based my exposure by taking a spot meter reading of the gray/yellow rocks in the immediate foreground.

Thanks for tuning in and remember to check back often for new posts, stories and techniques on the creating of my Impressions of Nature.

Counterpoint and Visual Harmony

Wikipedia defines counterpoint as counterpoint involves the writing of musical lines that sound very different and move independently from each other but sound harmonious when played simultaneously. Lets think about counterpoint as it relates to the visual harmony of photography where certain elements in an image are like notes or chords, independently different, but when played together or in this case composed together in a symbiotic relationship create a visual harmony.

Counterpoint can be the relationship between soft lines and hard lines, light and shadow, circles and squares or movement and stillness to name but a few. When the photographer can compose these counterpoint visuals in a meaningful and dynamic way in a photograph, he or she is on her way to creating a symphonic image, if you will.

In this shot of Swirling leaves below second falls of Shays Run, there are several compositional elements at play here. First and foremost is the counterpoint relationship between the circular swirling leaves at the bottom of the frame in contrast with the diagonal lines of the rocks and waterfall itself. Also take note of the inclusion of the jagged triangle shaped rocks at the bottom. These are power shapes that immediately drawl the eye into the image and direct it t the swirl of the leaves. From there the eye swings it's way around the swirling leaves and lands on the waterfall in the upper middle of the frame. It is this use of counterpoint and power shapes in harmony with the beautiful falls, autumn color and soft water that for me creates a powerful image that is composed from design and shape based compositional concepts. In fact, this is the way I approach every composition I seek out. In other words, I am not photographing a waterfall or a mountain or a flower, but rather composing a series of shapes, lines, and colors in a an image that visually create a certain harmony or sound that is pleasing to the viewer.

Autumn Brush Strokes

I would like to share an image I made last fall while leading a photography workshop in West Virginia. I was about to take my group out to Pendelton Point for a sunset shoot when i noticed an amazing display of red and yellow in a field on the way. The light was bright and low in the sky back lighting the scene. The warm fall foliage was glowing and intense. I knew there were some great photo ops and even though we would be hard pressed to make sunset, I decided to stop and give everyone at least 15 minutes of shooting time before we had to depart.

Now, the meadow was busy and we were all having a time finding a clean composition. I suggest that maybe instead we focus our energies on creating some impressionistic images through the use of multiple exposures and swipes. This particular image is the result of setting my Nikon D300 with a 70-200mm lens racked out at 200mm to multiple exposure. I dialed in 10 shots and set the menu to auto gain. Using Aperture Priority I shot 10 images while moving the camera ever so slightly between each shot in an upward motion. I did this handheld by the way at 1/250th of a second. The trick to these images is to make sure that you pan the camera just a little bit between each shot and try to keep the vertical motion even all the way from start to finish.

I hope you enjoyed this post and learned a few things as well.

Best of light, Joe Rossbach.