Death Valley - Mesquite Flats Dunes

The dunes were probably my favorite location for the trip.

However, I got off to a rough start.  It was 5:30 a.m.  It was still dark.  I asked the instructor which lens would work best.  He gave the right answer but it was not the one I wanted to hear.  He said that whatever lens you leave in the car will be the one you want in the field.  Ok.  I get it.  But I had just bought the camera the week before the trip and I was not going to change lenses in the middle of a sand dune.  The sand was finely textured enough that any breeze at all would have it swirling in all directions.

So I chose the 24-70mm and trudged into the dunes.  And sure enough, once I had convinced myself to climb up the large dune in front of me, I found that I was too far away from the dunes in the back that I wanted a picture of.  Oh well.  I had to make the best of it so I shot at the 70mm end of the lens.

When I got the images on the computer, I was pleasantly surprised.  I liked quite a few of them.

The warm morning light was just wonderful.  The dunes have some great shapes.  And I was able to get some B&W images.  A great morning!

In fact, we enjoyed the dunes enough that Annette and I decided to go back to the dunes by ourselves on Saturday morning after the workshop had finished.  That time I took the 70-200mm lens and felt I was too close.  Oh, well!

In this first image, notice the little speck of a person and try to comprehend the size of the dunes.  Also, notice how the long shadows caress the dunes.

This next image is a picture of Annette.  No, really!  That is Annette in the lower right.  The only reason that I know this is because I was there.

On this next image, I cropped a little too close at the top.  Unfortunately, the crop was done in camera.  But I love the shadows in this image.  I like how they gently break over the round edge and deepen into  a pool.

I like to shoot perpendicular to the direction of the light, as I did in this next image.  It allows the shadows to define the shape and form of the object.  I like how the edge of the shadow goes from a blending into a sharp edge.

Notice the shadows and the softly flowing S curves in this black and white image of the dunes.

On this trip I started looking for black and white images and I am always open to abstract images and this next image is a combination of both.

Desert Track Abstract

On one of the hillocks as you enter the dunes, there is a tree with lots of character.  It was too dark on the way in to the dunes to see enough to compose a shot.  I was glad I was able to get this on the way out.  The photographer in the image was a fellow student.

Anderson Grist Mill, 2012

It's been two great days this weekend!  The only problem is...they are over!

I'll tell you about yesterday in a future blog, but for now, let's talk about today.

Last year Annette and I arranged for the camera club to go to the Anderson Grist Mill near Mercersburg, PA.  The participants who attended the photo shoot last year were very excited about all of the opportunities for pictures inside of the grist mill.  Several asked if they could get in on their own!  The club president said that it was the most requested photo shoot of the year.

So, what could we do but an encore.  Annette and I arranged for the Camera Club to go to the Anderson Grist Mill near Mercersburg, PA for the second time.  The weather shaped up right on cue.  It was a beautiful day full of warm fall air and wonderful sunshine!

The grist mill is so full of ingenious contraptions that I just look for more time than I spent taking pictures!

Inside the grist mill there was a tool room with all kinds of hand tools laying on the work benches and hanging from the wall.  There was also quite a bit of old junk.  In the middle of the floor was a table with window light hitting it just right.  So, I used that table as a place to "stage" some of the junk treasures.

This first picture includes a bottle, just for Annette.  On one of our first workshops, Annette found some old bottles and arranged them just so against a colorful rusted bucket.  I wondered why she was photographing trash!  Now here I am doing the same.

This second picture is of a wooden box with an orchard brand name stamped into the end.  I set up the box so that the sunlight would rake the side of the box and create shadows in the imprint so that the imprint would be more visible.

There were three planes in the tool room.  One of them had so much dirt and grime that you could no longer see the wood grain.  So I set up the two other ones.  I wanted the handles to echo one another.

I even had a chance to make an abstract photo.  The lights in this abstract are from holes in the wall of the mill.  I used a longer shutter speed to get more length to the streaks.  I was pointed up a little so I think the blue color comes from the sky.

One other thing that deserves more telling than I am going to do is that it was great to see fellow photographers in action and share tips and tricks.  This is the way that friendships are born.  I think some were birthing today!

Well, I hope you enjoyed hearing from me again and also enjoyed the pictures.

More importantly, get out there an keep making photos!

Shem Creek

Shem Creek is a great little area near Charleston.  Annette and I went there for dinner and spent the rest of the evening taking images.

Shem Creek used to be a very active port for fishermen in the area.  However, as of late, the fishing industry is having its challenges and the fleet is shrinking.

There was a great pier/walkway that was built quite a ways out along Shem Creek.

The end of the pier.

Pier Light from below.

 I can't take credit for the concept for the Pier Light photo above.  I saw Annette taking the picture and had to have a picture of my own.

Two Fishing Boats in Daylight

Fishing Boats along Shem Creek

Fishing Boats on Shem Creek at Dusk

Fishing Boats on Shem Creek at Night

 

Fishing Boat on Shem Creek at Night

Experimenting with Fall

Annette and I are in the midst of a long weekend.  We travelled to Bath County in Virginia to enoy the fall colors and to see how well we can capture them in photographs.

It turns out that we are not doing a very good job capturing the beauty of fall.  We see the beauty all around us, but when we view our images, it's just not the same.  Landscape photography is more difficult than it looks!

At one stop we made, we were trying to capture a barn in the valley against the backdrop of the fall colors on the mountain.  But, alas, we were five minutes too late.  The barn was in teh shadow of the mountain on the other side of the valley.  Still, I tried to take the picture, but in my haste, I didn't check my settings and the shutter speed was too slow.  I got a blurry mess!

But the next day, I was shooting from the deck of the house where we are staying and I remembered that.  This time I did it on purpose.  I made some abstracts of the fall colors.

Early morning fall abstract

Tree abstract in Fall

I found that the shutter speed is important.  The shutter was open for a longer period of time in the first image than in the second.  You can tell because the lines stretch farther and there is less detail.  There is obviously more detail in the trees of the second image, which was made with a shorter shutter speed.  Experiment until you find the speed that lets you obtain the image you have envisioned.

 If you want the trees to show up as an element in the image, you must move the camera in the same orientation as the trees.  In other words, I moved the camera up and down.

Another experiment, is to modify the colors in post production.  There are so many presets that you can experiment to your heart's content.

After you apply the preset, you can modify the image with the sliders  for saturation, blacks, exposure, etc.

Check out these weird images of the Humpback Covered Bridge near Covington, VA.

Humpback Bridge in Yellows with Blue Sky

Isn't it weird how the image still has a blue sky?

Humpback Bridge in Sepia

Old time sepia color for an old time bridge.

Some experiments work.  Some do not.  The important thing is that we get out there, use our imagination, make images and continue to grow!  

Blurry Pictures

At the Project Image Competition for Harrisburg Camera Club this past week, the judge told us not to be afraid of blur.  Sometimes blur is a good thing, like when using a small depth of field to make the background blurry and focus the viewer's attention on the main subject.

One of the club members has been experimenting with abstract photography, which is also a good place to use blur.  On our trip to the cemetery yesterday, that photographer put a polarizing lens plus a neutral density filter on the lens of his camera so that he could get a long exposure.  He then shook the camera up and down or left and right or in circles for the whole exposure so that he made some wild abstracts.  He has shown his abstracts at the camera club meetings and actually gives talks on how to create them.

So as I watched him doing those crazy things with his camera yesterday, I decided to try it myself.  I didn't take the time to add the neutral density filter so my exposure outside in the sun was limited to 1/13 of a second.  Not that long really.

Anyway, here is the best image of the half dozen I took using this technique.  What do you think?