28-SEP-2009
Moonrise, Jasper National Park, Canada, 2009
I had put away my primary camera and lenses for the day, and was walking back to our hotel from a nearby restaurant, when I noticed a half moon hanging in the evening sky over the nearly mountains. However I always keep a small camera in a pouch on my belt, and zooming it out to its maximum 60mm focal length, I was able to magnify the rising half moon large enough to have impact. The medium focal length also allows me to include two layers of horizontal mountains and three pinkish cloud layers. I increased the scale of the moon even more by cropping one-third off the left side of the frame, and one third off the top of the frame.
02-OCT-2009
Tide pool, English Bay, Vancouver, Canada, 2009
The morning light and the trail of a receding sea give the wet sand a tactile sheen, leaving an array of rocks and boulders that speak of the glaciers that once covered this area. I like the play of light and shadow as well – the image flows from blue to black as it reads from both left to right and top to bottom.
02-OCT-2009
Seascape, English Bay, Vancouver, Canada, 2009
I worked on this image for nearly fifteen minutes, waiting for passing freighters to position themselves in my frame, the small waves to break on the rocks, and for a lone gull to do something other than just stand on the big rock. Finally, after about fifty images, a freighter worked its way to the end of the hills in the background, a dense rain cloud framed the top of the image, a small wave breached the valley between the rocks, and the gull decided to stand on one leg and scratch its head. Note how I positioned the horizon here, placing it one quarter of the way from the top, rather than splitting the frame in half at the middle. This off center horizon placement gives primacy to what is happening in the bottom three quarters of the image.
28-SEP-2009
Athabasca Lake, Jasper National Park, Canada, 2009
The fall colors were just starting to show about the time we visited Jasper. By making this image early in the morning, when much of this river valley was in shadow, I was able to paint the new colors upon a darkly forested canvas. I only retain a sliver of the blue gray lake at the bottom of the frame, and remove all sky from the image. I virtually fill my frame with trees, featuring orange Aspens against a field of dark pines.
17-JUN-2009
Seascape. Crescent City, California, 2009
I made this view of Crescent City’s rocky harbor from an overlook many miles away. Using a long telephoto lens, I compress a string of rocky islands that line the Pacific coast into a unified pattern upon a sea streaked in shadow and light. The evening sun, hiding behind the storm clouds overhead, adds a golden aura to he scene. The island at left has a single cypress tree. Next to it stands the silhouette of the historic 1856 Battery Point Light House. I made this image as both a vertical and horizontal, and selected the vertical because the tall frame intensifies the compression of the string of islands.
15-JUN-2009
Fallen giant, Hendy Woods State Park, California, 2009
This park has two groves of old growth coastal redwood trees, hundreds of years old and enormous in scale. I made my most expressive redwood forest landscape photograph of a tree that has fallen and a fern rising from a pool of light next to it. It is not the subject itself that moved me to make this image. It the way light simultaneously abstracts and reveals it. The fallen tree creates a dark diagonal, deep within the shadows. It has been left to gradually decompose, nourishing the soil around it so that new growth such as this lone fern can flourish. One leaf of the fern catches the light, as if in salute the fallen giant behind it. The gradations of light and shadow in this image trace the process of life itself.
08-APR-2009
Desert glow, Saguaro National Park, Tucson, Arizona, 2009
The sun is low in the sky, backlighting the spines on the Cholla cacti as well as illuminating the outlines of the Saguaro cacti in the background. Just enough glare enters the top of the frame to inject a golden glow into the image. We move from the deep shadows in the foreground through the luminous strands of cactus in the middle ground to the fiery haze in the background. This is what it feels like to stand in the southern Arizona desert at sunset.
13-APR-2009
The Old West, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona, 2009
I have always wanted to make a photograph of the Grand Canyon that drew on the nostalgic color palettes of the great oil painters of the Old West, such as Thomas Moran, Frederick Remington, and Maynard Dixon. This image brings me a step closer to my goal. I made it very late in the day, as a low hanging sun was trying to burn through heavy clouds, creating a diffused glow that rendered the copper cliffs of the canyon in tones of rustic brownish gold. Using a long 400mm telephoto lens, I compress a series of buttes into a series of tightly framed layers, completely eliminating the sky. I like the splashes of melting snow at the lower corners – it give the image a feeling of an unfinished canvas.
13-APR-2009
Colorado River, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona, 2009
Using a long 400mm telephoto lens, I focus on only a tiny part of the river as it roars between the towering cliffs and the piles of rocky debris that surround it. The tiny slash of bluish green contrasts strongly to the golden brown rocks and dark shadows that frame its course. We are looking at the work of nature here – centuries of it. It is a sight such as this that makes the Grand Canyon one of the wonders of the natural world.
14-APR-2009
Morning, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona, 2009’
The Grand Canyon was full of morning haze and the sky partly overcast – we were very unhappy with the light. Yet as we continued to shoot, I noticed that one particular butte in the midst of the canyon seemed to be picking up at least some defining light, and it stood out in sharp contrast to the bluish haze behind it. I was able to build this layered image out of that situation by spot metering on the illuminated crown of rock, using a 150mm medium telephoto focal length. The foreground layer is full of softly shadowed rock, the middle ground layer embraces two richly colored buttes, one of them well illuminated, and the background layer offers a deep blue background for contrast. I learned a good lesson from this photograph. Always look for the spot of good light, even in situations where it might be difficult to find. You never know when you’ll find it and if you do, make the most of it by spot metering on it, and then working on it with layers and contrasts.
06-OCT-2008
Changing seasons, Cache National Forest, Idaho, 2008
I’ve tried to express the changing seasons in this image of fall color in Idaho’s high country. I use backlighting to make the Aspen leaves translucent, and bring out the comparison between the tree full of leaves at the center and the branches in the process of shedding their leaves at right. Meanwhile, the pine tree at left is impervious to the changing seasons, and holds its green color.
06-OCT-2008
Seed pods, Preston, Idaho, 2008
This flow of seedpods, glowing in backlight, begins at upper left and wraps its way around and through the small stream that slices through the middle of the frame. This autumnal image offers a palette of browns and greens, striking evidence of the seasonal change.