Autumn at Hanging Rock

Saturday, November 4, 2017

Streaming Cascades

It seems that the last handful of times that I have been to Hanging Rock it has been a quick trip before work, or just slipping it in for a quick outing.  I feel that I haven't been giving Hanging Rock its fare shake lately.  There is a lot to photograph out there with about a half dozen or so waterfalls in the park, not to mention many trails that lead to overlooks.  There is just so much to do there, but since it is close I get out there quite a bit usually.  However, this year my time there has been in hour long segments with a handful of pictures that are the result.

With the work week coming to a close, I was itching to get out and do some photography, but I wasn't really sure what kind of weather I should be expecting.  For the most part it had been sunny throughout the week which doesn't make the greatest of conditions for a photographer.  When I looked at the forecast on Friday, there was going to be a lot of clouds in the foothills and mountains with some occasional rain.  This was my kind of shooting conditions!

I started to look at places that I could go.  The Blue Ridge Parkway has been done to death by myself and other photographers for the last six weeks or so, and quite frankly, I was a little tired of making that trip.  Stone Mountain was next on my list, but the clouds were going to be a wild card.  If they were thick and lacking definition, I wouldn't be able to shoot dramatic landscapes from the clearings I like to hike to.  There aren't that many waterfalls there that I enjoy photographing, and I had just done Widow's Creek Falls a couple of weeks ago.  That meant that Stone Mountain was out.  That left Hanging Rock, which worked out pretty good.  I could concentrate on waterfalls and woodland images if the sky was boring, and if it got interesting, I could hike up to a couple of different points of interest.  Hanging Rock it would be!

Haunted Lagoon

I started my day early so that I could get to the park when it opened.  By the way, that was 7am, about 30 minutes before sunrise.  I wasn't going for a sunrise opportunity because I knew that there would be no color this morning.  I was just looking to get an early start because the park was having several different programs throughout the late morning and into the afternoon.  I wanted to have plenty of time to be by myself and concentrate on photographing rather than dodging other hikers. 

I did get there before first light and that meant that I would be hiking with a flashlight.  My first destination was going to be the Upper Cascades because that was going to be the first program destination and I wanted to be done with it before that started up.  When I arrived at the falls, it was still pretty dark and I got to thinking that I might want to try doing a little light painting at this one.  I went ahead and set the camera up with the 16-35mm lens and got in close to it.  I composed the image with the aid of the flashlight and set it to bulb so that I could just have the shutter stay open until I was done.

I tried several different times, and finally got one that I liked.  The one above was 60 seconds of exposure during which time I painted the waterfall with my flashlight.  I hovered over the pool at the bottom as well to give it an ethereal feel.  Of course the white balance was all over the place with the ambient light, and adding an LED flashlight.  I had to do a little work to balance the colors out when I got home.  For my first attempt as light painting a waterfall, I'm actually pretty happy with this.

Rocking Fall

As the sun was coming up I started to look around to see if there was any Fall color in the park.  I was quite pleased at the amount of color that I saw, but realized that there was none in close proximity to the waterfall.  There were some bright trees to my rear though, and they caught my eyes.  There were two large rock outcroppings that complimented themselves, and a nice tree trunk at the end of one of the outcroppings.  In the background there were some brilliant trees.  The trick was going to be dealing with the sky which was pretty much featureless.  I decided to crop in close and use my 24-70mm lens with an intensifying polarizer attached.  The composition that I chose showed a nice "S-Curve" through the picture leading the viewer to the colors in the background.

The exposure wasn't too difficult as the sun was barely up at this point.  Everything was quite even in tone, and it was just a matter of getting the composition right with the camera.  That took a lot of moving around in order to get the right angle on things.  The one that I decided I liked the best was one of the tighter compositions and really had an intimate feel to the whole image.

From here, I started to move around the scene a little bit.  I wasn't all that impressed with the water flow, but I decided to get an overall shot of the Cascades.  I moved back into the water and framed the shot to show the full waterfall in the morning light.  This is the opening image to the entry.  It is one of my favorite exposures of the waterfall, but unfortunately the flow let me down.  Without more water, the photograph kind of feels flat in comparison to others I shot.  But...it was still worth a press of the button for sure!

Seasoned Slopes

As the sun continued to rise, the lighting quality changed all around me.  I started to focus my attention back on the seasonal colors down stream.  This time, I went further back and got a wider view of the scene from a slightly different angle.  There is more context here and I personally like the image more than the intimate one.  There is still a great deal of detail in this image and the trees in the distance really stand out.  The interesting tree trunk in the foreground is still an important part of this composition, as is the "S-Curve."

I tried to shoot some isolations on the waterfall but was unable to get anything that I really liked.  I tell you...when the waterflow is low, this is just not an impressive waterfall.  I decided to call it quits here and move downstream to the unnamed cascade a few minutes off of the trail.  It isn't too bad of a scramble to get down to it, but having the camera still mounted to the tripod made it a little more difficult to do.

A Subtle Melody

I've only photographed this waterfall one other time, and the lighting was not quite the best.  Today, the lighting was much better.  I just had to hope that the flow was decent.  When I got down to it, I found that the water was actually flowing quite nicely over the rocks.  The water was shallow enough that I could get right up on the falls as well.  I left the 24-70mm lens attached and got in really close.  I chose to use a rocky wall as a natural frame for the waterfall which I was unable to do last time.  This allowed me to keep the actual waterfall completely uncovered.  I went very wide for this shot and got really excited with what I was capturing.  I tweaked my position a couple of times to really fine tune the composition.  The lighting was nice and consistent so the exposures were all the same and looked great!

Cascade Cliffs

One thing that I had not done with this waterfall was to shoot isolations on it.  Since I was up close and personal with it, I figured that I might as well give it a try.  I found an interesting segment that had a bit of visual drama, and also had a counter element of fallen leaves that gave a different diagonal line.  It was also the splash of color that the image needed to keep me from shooting it as a monochrome composition.  I had ideas of doing the conversion when I got home, but when I saw the image, the splash of color really set the photograph off.  Black and White wasn't going to do this one justice.  After about 30 minutes, I decided that I had shot everything that I was going to here.  For the climb back up, I packed the camera back in the bag to keep it safe and started back up the hill to the trail.

I hiked back past the rock garden but didn't find anything that I particularly wanted to photograph there.  I got to the main parking area and looked for interesting trees, but there was just too much visual clutter to be able to get the trees that I wanted.  The colors were really nice though and I wanted to shoot some woodland scenes.  As I worked my way down the next trail to the Hidden Falls, I passed by the picnic shelters and started to look at using them in some compositions.  Nothing really worked out for me though, so I was starting to get a little discouraged.  The last shelter that I passed by changed my mind though.

Getting in Step

As I was passing the last shelter, I saw the stairs leading up to it, and saw this really cool diagonal tree that complimented the stone railing quite well.  The color behind the tree was amazing so I decided to set up the camera to see what I could do with it.  Since I was wanting to work on shapes and textures, I chose to shoot this scene with my 70-200mm lens with a polarizer attached.  I framed up a landscape composition and liked it, but all of my visual interest was to the side.  I flipped the camera and recomposed to get the stairs and the one tree.  It was a simple composition but one that I was pretty excited about.  It got me motivated once again to keep looking for those woodland shots with the trees looking so brilliant.

That was short lived though.  The further I got down the trail, the less vivid the colors were.  Oh well, I was about to be at the Hidden Falls which I always enjoy photographing.  I had to wait to turn down the trail because there was a family hiking out and continuing down to the Window Falls.  That left me all alone at the Hidden Falls. I was rather excited!  But when I got to the falls, that excitement left me really quick.  The waterflow was dismal and there was no color in proximity to the waterfall.  I could have shot isolations on this one, but quite frankly, there wasn't enough water to make it worth the time.  I went back out to the main trail and started to look for woodland compositions once again.

Nature's Sigh

There wasn't anything really standing out to me, and I actually caught up with the family.  Once I got past them, I decided that I would go ahead and get on to the next waterfall to give myself time to work it before they got there.  When I arrived, it was empty which was great.  The waterflow was not that exciting, but I was planning on shooting isolations anyway.  I still had my 70-200mm lens attached and started to frame up shots from the base of the falls.

One of the nice things about this waterfall is that it is just a drop and there are interesting points at the top and the bottom that work well in photographs.  The lighting was excellent so I was in a happy place with this waterfall despite the lack of water.

Twin Streams

For the first time in several years I was actually moved to shoot the top of this waterfall. I'm not sure what drew me to it, but I had to act quick.  There was a light rain falling and having the camera angled up left my glass exposed to the elements.  I just couldn't resist though with the water just gently flowing over the cliff.  It was rather soothing to me.  I still prefer the terminal end of the drop though with the little mini cascades that result.  I always tend to gravitate to those compositions more than the top of the falls.

A Cavern's Whisper

One of the things that I love about photography is that you really control how the image is presented.  This waterfall is pretty basic, and there is nothing all that special about it, but when you start doing isolations with it, you can change the entire look of the environment.  The way that I framed this particular picture makes it look like the water is falling from a hole above and into a cavern.  The rocky wall to the rear appears to continue all the way around. The light looks like it is concentrated through that hole that the water is flowing from.  This is so not the case with this waterfall though.  The visual tricks are what makes it fun to work with though.

After a few minutes of working on this waterfall, the family arrived and gave me my space which I greatly appreciate.  Not wanting to prevent them from enjoying the waterfall, I went ahead and packed the camera up, and decided to go up to the unnamed waterfall that is above the Window Falls.  It is not difficult to get to, but requires a little bit of rock crawling to get up to the upper section.  Once there, you are treated to almost a cave cut into the rocks.  It is a very cool place to be, especially the first time you see it.

The Forest's Cry

For this subject, I decided to swap in my 24-70mm lens and get up close to the waterfall.  There wasn't much flow to it, but there was enough to capture my attention.  With the help of a polarizer, I was able to get the contrast of the scene just right even in the tricky lighting of the cave.  I worked my way around the water and tried compositions from both sides.  The most effective ones were the ones that were shot directly to the falls, which is what I decided to stick with when I was editing the photos.

Quiet Thoughts

My favorite composition was a portrait shot of the waterfall.  It took advantage of the flow that was there, and had a nice visual flow through the frame with the rocks below providing a nice barrier for the eyes.  By far, this is my favorite composition that I have shot at this waterfall which is usually quite disappointing.  Now, I can't remember the last time that I tried to photograph this waterfall, so my skills have improved quite a bit since that last time.

About the time that I was getting into the groove and was about to switch out to my 70-200mm for some different compositions, I realized that there was a scout troop that was working their way up the rocky wall to join me.  Well, this was the end of the road for me.  There were just too many people milling around at this point so I packed up my camera and worked my way back down to the trail.

I kept my eyes out for any woodland images, but there were just too many people and distractions at this point so I started to lose my eye.  The fact that I was hiking uphill and getting tired didn't help matters either.  I didn't see a single thing that I wanted to photograph on the way back up the trail.  I did decide that I was going to get back on the road when I got to the truck since the park was getting rather full of people enjoying the leaves.

Cozy in the Forest

When I got back up to the shelters I again started to look to see if I could get anything to use as a visual anchor in a composition.  I did see two small buildings off in the distance away from the shelters, tucked in the woods.  I was a little disappointed to see that they were restrooms, and I really didn't want to use those in a photograph.  However, the colors were just too good, and the wood and stonework on the structures were just too good to pass up.  I worked around until I found a possible angle to shoot from.  

I was lucky to find an area where there was a little bit of a clearing so that I didn't have to shoot through too many trees to get the composition I wanted.  I did choose to use my 70-200mm lens with an intensifying polarizer to compress the scene and focus on the repeating shapes of the trees and the contrasting lines of the (we're going to call it a) cabin in the woods.  I decided that the most effective composition was going to be picking only a portion of the cabin to give a sense of story to the image.  The main element was going to be the color in the woods.  It took about four frames to get settled in on the composition that I wanted.  The end result looks really warm and cozy as you can see the...ahem...cabin overlooking the colorful surroundings.  It's a cabin, and I'm going to stick with that story.  It works in the picture, and makes the whole scene make sense....until you realize that there is a roll of toilet paper by the door.  Made you look!!

Well, the parking lot was in sight, and so were droves of people and dogs at this point.  It was time to cut bait and leave.  I was hoping to find a barn or two on the way home since I was still wanting to shoot more.  I even took the long way home and wend down Hwy 8 which I don't usually do.  The rain was starting in earnest at this point and I was glad that I was not still out hiking.  At least I could look for something else to shoot in the dry.

Mail Call

About halfway home, I passed a property that I have driven past many times before but this time something caught my eye.  It was an old Postal Jeep.  Not exactly the classic car that I like to shoot in the last stages of life, but something about this old Jeep struck a nerve.  I turned around and took a second look.  Yeah, there was rust, and it was in front of a barn.  It was worth a frame or two, and what was best was that I would do better shooting it from the street than on the property.  I pulled off the road and opened the hatch to get the camera.

Before I even got the tripod out and leveled, I heard an ATV coming down the road.  Yep, I know what was about to happen.  He stopped across the road from me and we both said hi.  I went ahead and beat him to the punch and asked if this was his property.  He replied that it wasn't, but he knew the owner.  I went across the road to engage him in a little conversation.  He said that he didn't think that the owner would have a problem with me photographing from the road, and he pointed to where the house was where he lived.

Now, I'm not lazy, but the house was a little further than I wanted to walk leaving my 4Runner on the side of the road.  It was way too close to justify cranking it up and driving it over there.  Since I was planning on shooting from the road, I decided to save the aggravation and the potential for missing a rain free opportunity.  We concluded out chat and I went back to setting the camera up.

American Icon

Since I was shooting from the road, I put the 70-200mm lens on the camera with an intensifying polarizer attached.  I stayed true to my word and remained close to the road so as not to encroach on anyone's property when I wasn't sure if they minded or not.  The compositions actually came pretty easy.  There was a tree and some type of old farm implement right next to it that helped to add some context to the story.  The barn, while not a typical barn had a little bit of character and the vertical boards on it made for a very nice contrast to the horizontal stripes on the old postal carrier.

I was actually surprised at how good these came out.  Normally white vehicles don't photograph all that great, but the white really made it stand out from the background and made a rather impressive composition.  I'm sitting here looking at the picture now remembering the days gone by when these Jeeps were all over the roads delivering the mail.  They had character, unlike the mail trucks of today.  In fact, this old Jeep still has a lot of character, and it is instantly recognizable to anyone above the age of 30.

Well, the rain was returning so it was time to get on home to finish processing the images.  During the course of my day I had shot 113 frames between Hanging Rock and the Postal Jeep.  I was feeling pretty good about things, and when I got finished editing the pictures I was really happy to find that 15 of them managed to make the cut.  It was a really great day, and the weather was perfect for what I was shooting.

Fighting for position on Beacon Heights

Friday, September 29, 2017

Autumn Peak is scheduled for a week away along the Blue Ridge Parkway.  That should mean that the leaves are really starting to get in full swing by this point.  In the moderate elevations of the Parkway, I was expecting that the leaves were getting pretty close to peak as they typically change about a week ahead of the lower (primary) sections of the Parkway.  I was lucky enough to have accumulated enough hours at work that I could bug out a little early on Friday, which I did.  That gave me just enough time to get up to the mountains for about two hours worth of daylight before sunset.

My plan was to work around the area of Rough Ridge which is right at Grandfather Mountain and by my calculations should be quite colorful at this point.  I must admit, it was a different animal entirely going to the mountains in the daylight, and in traffic.  I was used to going hours before sunrise and knew the darkness around the highway like the back of my hand.  Driving the daytime did have its benefits.  I could see the clouds that had been hanging around all day which were going to be wonderful in my photographs.  Between the dramatic skies and the colors on the trees, I should be having a very successful trek ahead of me.

By the time I hit Wilkesboro, my mood changed a little bit though.  The clouds that I had been looking at all day long were starting to thin out and and it looked like by the time I got to the mountains they would all be gone.  The cloud forecast was calling for 70% coverage, but I was thinking that they missed the mark completely.  Oh well, I was nearly to the Blue Ridge Parkway and I wanted to continue if for no other reason than to see the leaves at Grandfather Mountain.

Bathed in Golden Light

When I arrived at the Parkway, the leaves were barely even showing a change.  This wasn't what I expected at all.  I knew that Rough Ridge was still up about 1000 feet or so, which gave me hope, but the closer I got the more my hopes dwindled.  By the time I got to Price Park and saw the same conditions I had a week ago, I wasn't holding out much hope for autumn colors.  The clouds had all but gone as well.  Was I looking at a wasted trip to the mountains?  I sure wasn't seeing much that I wanted to photograph.

When I got to Rough Ridge, there was no parking available in the parking lot, and there were even cars parked on the side of the Parkway.  Yeah, I could pull over to the side of the road, but the leaves weren't all that great at all.  Not good enough for me to fight the crowds anyway.  I thought that I would head down the road to see if the colors were better around the Viaduct because I knew of a couple of compositions that could be made from Rough Ridge that included that section of the mountain.

When I got there, I wasn't happy with the colors at all.  Things were just not looking Autumn enough.  The roadway was crowded, and it was just not going well at all.  I pulled into one of the first overlooks after the Viaduct to collect my thoughts.  It happened to be Beacon Heights which gave a view of Rough Ridge.  I looked at the mountain and could see some very patchy color from this side.  Since there was only about an hour or so until the golden hour, I decided to stop here and see what I could do.  I also knew that there were some hiking trails off of the overlook which I had never been on before.

I started out with working on the Rough Ridge area using the Parkway as some foreground interest.  The lighting was nothing really special, but at least there were some clouds in the frame.  I got about four frames here, but wasn't happy with any of them  Just too run of the mill for my tastes.  I packed the camera up and started down the hiking trails.

I passed several folks, one group had a wedding dress hanging on a tree.  Well, this should get interesting!  I was really hoping that I wasn't going to be getting involved in a wedding ceremony on the actual overlook.  The way my evening was going though...

Hints of Autumn

The hike was relatively short and fairly easy to accomplish.  I started out with the right fork in the trail and came out on a rocky bald.  There were already several people standing and sitting here.  There was a pretty good view, but the light was not right, and there were more people than I cared to deal with.  Since I still had a bit of time, I moved back onto the trail and took the other fork.  That took me to a different bald, but with a similar view, just more to the left.  There was more options of foregrounds here, and even more important I could see the Rough Ridge from this section.  There was a nice tree that I could use as a foreground interest as well.

I pulled out the camera once again and started to work some compositions.  The problem was that the distant mountain was under full sunlight, and the foreground that I was wanting to use was in the shadows.  I had to use ND Grads to keep the sky under control, and was still not able to get the exposure the way I really wanted it.  I had now shot about 25 frames and had yet to get something that I really thought would work out.  I was really starting to get discouraged.

To make matters worse, my silence was interrupted by the wedding party that finally joined me.  It wasn't a wedding, but a wedding photo shoot with the bride.  Well, now in the background I was listening to modeling instructions and a young boy who was very tired and whiny.  My zen was shaken and I wasn't liking anything that I was working with.  I intended to swap lenses, but my hands started to put away my camera.  Well, that might have been a subconscious sign, so I went with it and packed everything away.  There was now about 30 minutes before sunset, and not enough time to go anywhere else.  I decided to take my chances with the larger number of people on the other bald.

Shadowed Ridge

When I got there, there were more people.  They were sitting, standing, walking, and just generally....there.  The change of getting much in the way of a foreground was slim.  It was also in the shade, so it wouldn't really work all that great anyway.  Because of that I went ahead and fitted my 70-200mm lens, and left the front element bare with the exception of the lens hood to keep any sunlight leaks from causing any ghosting.  I started to pick out sections of the range in front of me to photograph.  There was a lot of interesting sections, but they were lacking in context for the most part.

Almost on a whim, I decided that I would try a panorama to capture the entire scene.  My main reason for this was the way the light was playing with the mountains.  On one side, I was seeing a warm glow from the setting sun, while the other side was in the shadows presenting a very cool color tone.  This was a striking balance between color pallets.  There was really no other way than a panorama to capture this.

I flipped the camera on its end, and racked it out to 70mm.  I leveled the tripod, and did a dry run to check that the camera would remain level through the sweep.  I picked my end points, and then found the focus length.  it was then time to confirm that the exposure would be right.  I dialed it in on the right side which was the brightest.  I checked the left, which was mostly in the dark.  That seemed like it would be correct.  I swept through the seven frames quickly sine the light was changing very fast with the setting sun.  When it was all over, the light had changed, and I was hoping that I had something that would work.  It wasn't until I started to edit the next day that I found out that not only did the sequence work, it also turned into my favorite image from the day!

Shortly after shooting the panorama, the crowds started to leave.  Unfortunately, it was not in time for me to compose shots that would include any type of foreground interest.  It was just too dark at this point.  I went ahead and packed the camera up and started my way back down the trail.  Right before hitting the parking lot I found an interesting tree trunk that I wanted to try an intimate portrait of.  The lighting was so dim at this point I had to bring out the flashlight in order to get a little color in the trunk.  This never really did pan out photographically though.

I was pretty sure that I was done for the evening at this point, so I finished the hike to the truck.  I could see that the sky was still kind of light above the Rough Ridge, and there were a couple of faint clouds above the mountain.  I decided that it would be worth trying that subject once again.  I pulled the camera back out and added the 24-70mm lens.  I used no filters since it was getting dark and the exposure was pretty much even across the scene.

Blue Autumn

What I was liking about this scene was that the colors were different than I normally see them.  You could see the fall colors on the side of the mountain, but they just looked different.  I set the camera up using the railing and the road as a leading line, and dialed in a five second exposure.  The longest part was waiting for the traffic to stop long enough to shoot the shot.  What you are seeing here was created just after a motorcycle road out of the distance, and a car had passed me by to the left.  There was the sound of another car coming from behind me that appeared just as the shot finished exposing.  The light became too dark to repeat the exposure the next time I had a clear patch of road.  I though about adding light trails, but I wasn't able to get the exposure that long without doing some changes to my setup that I didn't have time for.  Plus, I kind of liked the calm effect of the composition that I had created.

With the light pretty much gone, I packed everything up and started the two hour trip back home.  Obviously, I didn't get the pictures processed that night.  I wanted until the next evening to start the processing, which ran into Sunday morning.  Out of 80-some frames, I ended up only keeping four of them.  That is less than a 5% cut, but considering the difficulties I was having finding something that I liked, I can live with those four images.  It wasn't an earth shattering trek by any stretch, but I found a new place to play with, and I got to see another segment of this fall season.

Light Painting in the Mist

Saturday, August 12, 2017

It has been a while since I've had the itch to go out with the camera.  I've been working a lot lately, and there has been a lot going on to keep my attention away from creativity.  That's not to say that I haven't had some ideas about future pictures, I just haven't had the drive to go out and capture them this month.  One thing that I do know about me is...once I get an idea, I will get stuck on it until I try it.  That means that I won't be able to move on to any other ideas.  That was the case for most of the last two weeks.  You see, there is an old REO truck going out to Walnut Cove that I have passed by for years and years now.  I've thought about photographing it, but it just never had the look I was going for.  Recently though, I have been opened to automotive subjects that are not quite as rusty as I once sought to place in front of my lens.

Not only did this truck have some appearance issues that kept me from really looking close, there were two rather large power pole structures behind the truck which brought with them power lines which I can't stand in my pictures.  It was situated in a location that looked staged...quite simply because it was.  This was yard art, not some abandoned truck which is my normal go to for photos.

All these negatives aside, I have been looking more closely at this truck for a while now and have been finding more and more to like about it.  For the last couple of weeks, I have been pondering what kind of lighting I could use to do this truck justice, and to minimize the large structures behind it.  I thought about photographing it at sunset with a colorful sky behind it; but that would take all of the detail out of the truck.  I thought about trying it at sunrise with some color in the clouds behind it.  That was a possibility, but the focus would be more on the sky, and the power lines.  I then thought about doing some light painting with a very subdued sky behind it.  That had some possibility, but I wasn't sure if I wanted a clear sky, one with some clouds, or a totally overcast sky.  I could visualize the results of any of those options, but when it comes to light painting and log exposures, there is a large element of chance as to what you will get as a final picture.

I had woken up early several different mornings, but rolled over rather quickly due to a lack of interest in creating.  I had asked Toni to wake me up this morning since she was going to work, and I was going in for a community function later on in the morning.  I knew that I had enough time to go out to the truck and photograph it.  The weather was rainy with pretty much total overcast conditions.  That meant that I would not be able to rely on the sun at all for any lighting.  It was just going to be a matter of how light the sky got, which dictated my shutter speed, and the amount of time that I would have to paint my subject with a flashlight.  I was expecting to make my best exposures during what is called the "blue hour" which is about an hour before sunrise.  I would have enough light in the sky to give a little interest if there was any definition in the clouds.  There would also be enough backlight from the clouds to flesh out the metal structures in the background, but not make them a focal point.  This could work...but I didn't want to get up.

Well, this was the picture that I have been wanting for a couple of weeks now, and if I didn't get it today, then I would try tomorrow or the day after.  But, that would keep me from going and trying other things, and that was not a good option.  I needed to get this picture out of my system, and today was going to be the day.  I got up, and got ready for work, and was out the door at around 5:15.  About 20 minutes later I was pulling into the driveway, pleased to see that there were no street lights to complicate issues.  There was a slight mist in the air, but nothing that would prevent me from shooting the picture.

REO Yard Wagon

I looked at the scene, and found everything pretty much as I was expecting.  I knew that I would be using the power poles in the composition to give a sense of utility and power.  I found a nice bush to use on the right side as a framing element to balance with a softer, natural element to the man made majority of the frame.  The truck was given a position of power in the frame, slightly elevated from my camera location.  I found the right balance, and set the camera up right at the edge of the driveway.  I was using my 24-70mm lens, set at 45mm.  There were no filters at all used.

My first exposures were set for about three minutes which gave me plenty of time to paint the truck with the flashlight.  The sky was still a bit too dark to render properly though.  As the time ticked on, and 6am neared, the sky got brighter, but didn't have much detail to it.  This was where the power lines actually helped out.  I went through the same routine with each exposure, and finally reached an exposure point where I could move out of the Bulb mode and back into manual mode.  The picture that you see here was shot at ISO 100, f/8, 30 seconds.  I painted the truck for the entire 30 seconds, including the bush to the right.  The sky rendered just about right according to the histogram of the camera.  This was probably going to be "the one".  Just in case though, I shot one more at the same settings and did the same lighting.  The results were close, but the shadows looked strange, and I liked the other one better.

At this point, I was looking at the sky to see if there was going to be the possibility of any new interest as the sun came up.  It wasn't looking like it, and I wasn't going to get enough sun to hit the truck to make it pop.  My flashlight was starting to get dim as well.  I chose to pack it up and head back to the house to see what I had gotten before time to go to work.

I downloaded a total of nine images from the morning, and found that there were 5 that I really liked.  When I started looking at the details, there was one that shined through as having all of the elements that I was looking for.  That was the next to last exposure that I had made.  It checked all of the boxes, and once I finished polishing it in Lightroom, I actually had the image that I had been formulating in my mind.

The focus was on the truck which was a big old chunk of red inside the frame.  Red is a powerful color to include, and one must be careful with how it is used.  This truck needed some very cool tones to balance it out.  That was where the sky came in.  It was largely blue with a purple undertone.  It provided the exact amount of visual balance that the cab of the truck needed.  The lit bush also balanced out the two power poles behind which were left in the shadows.  Everything just really worked out well here.  Now, I'm ready to go and photograph something different, and that helps to spark my creativity.

A Run in With the Law

Sunday, November 27, 2016

For a while now, I've been looking at this old Chevy sitting up on blocks at a garage in Walnut Cove.  Every time I pass by, I check it out to try and find a workable composition for it.  Every time, I talk myself out of the picture because of the surrounding clutter.  There are other cars parked very close to the side of it, there is a house behind it, and a street to the other side.  There is a nice tree behind it, but it was well past peek when I first saw the car, so the burnt color on the leaves really didn't work out for the image.  Everything that I could think of for this car left me feeling like it would just be "another picture," which is something that I really do try to avoid.

In the last week or so, I decided that I could capture this car at night and do some light painting on it which has worked out well for me in the past with subjects in a cluttered environment.  My concept was to get down low and shoot from below bumper level, up to the sky, concentrating on the front clip of the car.  For this, I was looking at having some clouds moving in the sky so that I could have some nice motion rendered over the course of the long exposure with the light painting.  It was an interesting concept, but one that would need specific elements in place.  For the last three days, I've been watching the conditions and trying to figure out when the best time would be to make this picture happen.  The short answer was...just not going to happen the way I want it to.

Knowing that the cars at this garage tend to move around from time to time, and get gone, I didn't want to wait too long for conditions to be right.  I came up with another plan of action that would incorporate the tree behind the car as a bit of background interest, while still shooting low.  The sky would not be that important, and I could get away with a clear sky for this concept.  With that idea, I decided to set out on my last day off before going back to work.  I arrived just after sunset which was the perfect time to get set up.

I still had a good deal of usable light so that I could see to get the camera set up, and the focus locked before that became cumbersome due to low light.  I started out with my 24-70mm lens and quickly realized that this didn't give me enough of a wide angle for the composition I was having to put together.  So, I swapped out to my 16-35mm which gave me a lot more flexibility where I needed it.  I also moved away from the car, and raised the camera just a little bit.  I got my flashlight ready, and just waited for the sun to drop.

As things were starting to happen with the lighting, I started doing some test shots to see how the car would look under the warm tones of the flashlight.  I worked out how I needed to "paint" the car in just a few exposures, and found that I could do it in about six seconds which was more than quick enough.

While I was dialing things in, I noticed a Stokes County Deputy pulling in and watching from a distance.  I was figuring he was running the tag on the car, and watching to see what I was doing.  I gave a friendly wave and went back to what I was doing.  I just knew that at any minute I was going to get approached and asked what I was doing, but that moment was starting to look less and less likely.  I kept on adjusting the exposure, and getting shots as the light went down so I had plenty of options when it was time to pick the image I wanted.

At one point, he came over the PA and asked if I would like him to light the car with his take down lights.  That told me he was comfortable with what I was doing, and was just watching at this point, so declined the offer, knowing that for my purposes, the Maglite was more than enough light, and was the right color temperature.  I kept on for a few more minutes, and then I could hear that he was approaching on foot.

We made introductions, and I found out that he was also an aspiring photographer which, of course, gave us something to talk about for a bit.  Once I let him know that I was a police officer as well, his stress level went way down, and we chatted for several minutes.  As the light dropped, he bit me a good evening, and I got back to business with the car.

Super Chief

As it turned out, we parted company right as the sky was where I wanted it.  I was still getting the silhouette of the tree to the rear, but the focal point of the entire image was what I was painting with my flashlight.  This was looking pretty good if I did say so myself.  I was looking forward to getting home and seeing how things looked on the computer since the LCD on the camera is a terrible gauge of the exposure, and the histogram wasn't really registering a wonderful curve.

As the sky finally went dark, I packed up, and made my way home.  On the way, I did notice another potential car off to the side of the road on the other side of a fence.  I was pretty sure that I could shoot the scene from the outside of the fence, but it will probably be one that I will attempt to make contact with the property owner at some point to get inside of the fence.  Either way, I have a lead on another old car which is always nice this time of year.

Halloween at Old Salem

Monday, October 31, 2016

For a little more than the past month, I've been concentrating on the mountains of NC for photography.  Of course, this is largely due to the season, and the chance to see the leaves changing.  This has taken a large toll on my time over the weekends, but has been very much worth it.  With the color about gone in the mountains, I can start setting my sights closer to home now.  Since I worked all through the previous weekend, I did not have the chance to get out at all with the camera.  Ironically, with the actual work week starting back up, I found that I had a little bit of time in the evening that I could get out real quick and hunt some pictures.  The sky was a little boring when I left work, but the hourly forecast gave me some hope for some decent skies right before sunset. 

For some reason, I had been thinking about Old Salem, which is a historic location about five miles from home.  I don't normally think about going here much any more, so that was strange.  I've been to Old Salem several times over the years and found some moderate scenes that I could shoot, but overall, I was never overly impressed with the layout.  One thing that I have found over the years is that the Fall colors seem to be pretty vibrant there, if nothing else.  With questionable weather, and limited daylight, I went with my urge to go to Old Salem.

Autumn in Old Salem

When I arrived, I was less than excited about things, but there was something pulling me into Old Salem.  I've learned over the years that there are times when I get strange urges to go places with the camera.  When I listen, I'm usually rewarded with some pretty good pictures.  Considering how tired I was, I was actually in a pretty creative mood, and I was ready to try some new things.  One of the first streets I came to had some very nice color in places.  I happened to find a nice rustic gunsmith shop in close proximity to a bright yellow tree.  This would be my first shot of the day.

In the spirit of trying new things, I decided to use different glass than I would normally think about for this scene.  While I have always used my mid lens (24-70mm), I decided that I would go with my telephoto 70-200mm instead.  This would give me a different perspective, and would help to emphasize the background as much as the foreground.  I added my Singh Ray Intensifying Polarizer to help bring out the color in the tree as well.  Because of the reach, I had to set up a fair distance away from my composition.  While this felt strange, the image that I was seeing in the viewfinder was well worth changing things up.  I was instantly excited about how this Trek was going to turn out!

Fireball

Once I left the street scene, I was really hunting Fall color.  I started to look for individual trees that were set apart from the others.  It wasn't long before I found a lone tree, a maple, I think.  It was close to one that I had shot before that really has a vibrant color to it, and it is also right over a bench.  Unfortunately, that tree was still 90% green, and did not look all that special today.  The one close by, however, was in full color, and had a little bit of character to it.  It was worth grabbing a few shots of.  I left the camera set up the way that I had it for the last scene with the telephoto, and color intensifier.  I worked on a composition that utilized a fairly uncluttered background, while finding an angle that showed the trunk, while not letting too much of the sky through.  That really narrowed my possibilities, but when I found the sweet spot, I knew I had it.  Thinking back to one of my new photography mentors, Josh Cripps, I decided to fill the frame with what I liked.  In this situation, I loved the colors of the leaves.  That was what filled the frame for this composition.  The fallen leaves provided a much needed balance to the bright leaves still on the tree, and I really like the composition here.

The Hidden Face

Just in case I thought that the leaves were too much when filling that much of the frame, I cropped in a good bit, and used the leaves to frame the tree trunk.  As I was focusing in on the trunk, I happened to notice something kind of spooky though.  Maybe it was the fact that I was out on Halloween night, or maybe I'm just a sucker for the macabre...but I was looking at what appeared to be a rather dramatic skull in the bark.  There was an eye, nose, and a creepy, grinning mouth looking to the right of the picture.  It wasn't until I started to look at this in detail that I found a second, smaller skull below.  If nothing else, this photograph gets an emotional response from me, and I see a certain animation in this static image.

With the light quickly changing, I decided that it was best for me to keep moving rather than stay one place too long.  I continued on through Old Salem figuring that my ultimate destination would be the cemetery where there is usually a very large yellow tree right smack in the middle.  That was what I was looking for, but I told myself that I would not pass up other shots along the way.

Lavender Bouquet

One scene that I came upon was the Single Brother's House (If I'm not mistaken).  I've shot this building a number of times, but never quite like this.  Today, I was drawn in by the purple bush at the corner.  That was really all that grabbed my attention.  I thought about shooting the entire building, but the sky was generally overcast and not all that interesting.  The building was also big enough that the size would reduce the scale of the flowering bush and make it barely a supporting player in the final composition.  So, what I decided to do was leave my camera as it was, and shoot a tight composition using the building as a backdrop instead of a primary element.  I was able to use a deep green bush as a counter element, and there was enough warm tones in the picture to give it a bit of visual drama.  I wasn't quite sure I liked this one, and I asked Toni's opinion before I gave it my final blessing.  She really liked it, and since I value her artistic opinion, I decided I liked it too.  Again, today was about doing things different than I normally do them.

As it turned out, there was a little garden on the other side of the street with a small house on the other side of a fence.  It was mostly obscured by the vegetation and the fence, but there was something very German about the scene, and I liked what I was seeing.  I decided to give it a try with the camera and see what I could come up with.

Humble

There were two things going in my favor for this image.  The sun was low in the sky, and was positioned over my left shoulder.  This provided a nice warm hue over the scene, and helped to brighten the house.  Second, the trees behind it were big enough that I could exclude the sky which was still rather boring.  With my tele lens still on the camera, I started composing shots.  I found that horizontal worked best for this particular subject, and grabbed a number of variations before deciding that the sun was dropping too low in the sky to keep the warm tones on the house.  I decided to head back into the main section and keep looking while working my way to the cemetery.

As I was walking, I happened to look to my left.  At first all I saw was a white fence, but as my eyes started to explore the scene, I found a really nice tree framing what was almost a pink tree.  I stopped in my tracks and heard Toni saying I had better shoot that.  It was more of a squeal, but I got the message and started to look at the scene, trying to imagine what she was seeing.  Yes, even when she is not actually with me, I know her well enough now to know what kind of pictures she likes.

Dream Catcher

There was a lot here that I wanted to capture.  I really wanted to keep the tree as dominant as I could, and I wanted to keep the power of the fence in tact by photographing it as completely as I could.  The colors would be a soft textured background for the scene.  In order to do this, I figured that I would actually need to keep the telephoto lens on, and would need to zoom in a pretty good amount.  As it turned out, the composition I liked the most was with the lens racked to a full 200mm, with me standing across the street.  This is really different than the way I would normally shoot this type of scene, but I found that the resulting composition was yards away better than I was expecting.

With the 200mm zoom, my depth of field was very shallow.  In order to expand it to where I needed it, I stopped down to f/20 (to maintain sharpness, while expanding depth of field), and focused about a quarter of the way down the fence.  With an exposure of five full seconds, I had to wait until the breeze died down as much as possible before tripping the shutter.  The resulting image had several nice surprises.  First of all, the depth of field was not quite front to back sharp.  There was a noticeable softness to the background as the leaves fell out of focus.  The lighting was not so much difficult as it was atypical for me.  The scene was essentially backlit so the leaves carried with them a certain vibrance, and glow which contrasted beautifully with the shadowed tree trunk.  There was also the contrast between the white fence and the dark wood of the tree.  The fallen leaves introduced a wonderfully warm foreground which helped to make the colors in the trees pop.

When I started to look at this picture critically, I found that I loved everything about it.  The soft focus in the leaves, along with the back light, gave the scene an ethereal tone, and the shape of the tree was holding those leaves so gently.  The fence was there as an obvious barrier, but for some strange reason, did not provide a visual obstacle to go deep within the image.  However, the assumption can be made after seeing two sides of the fence, it is designed to keep things in.  All of this worked together and made me think of a dream.  Knowing that Toni has always put a lot of emphasis in her dreams, and has expressed an interest in dream catchers, the title almost created itself.  Yes, this one was Toni's picture from the beginning, and remained right up to the finalized title of the print.

Main Street

Shortly after I shot Dream Catcher, I continued on to the cemetery and found that the tree I was looking for was still very much green.  Not wanting to bypass any more potentially good images, I returned into the main portion of Old Salem.  I stopped to talk to a resident for a few minutes, who gave me a bit of a history lesson before I continued on looking for other scenes.  The sun was dropping fast, and the sky was not looking like a sunset was going to be all that possible.  However, I decided to stick it out for a bit instead of packing it in just yet.

I'm glad that I did because I found that there were a few places where the street lights were throwing a pretty glow on the buildings.  I happened on one of these lights and decided that it was worth grabbing a few frames.  After a quick read of the scene, I decided that I needed to swap glass, and go with my 24-70mm lens, and I needed to shed the polarizer due to the low light.  I quickly got into position and composed this shot as the opening exposure.  I would try a few more in the horizontal orientation, and a few additional in a portrait orientation.  When it was all done, my favorite was my initial composition as far as balance and color.  Again, it was not my typical picture, but I really enjoyed the process and result of shooting this one.

With the end of the day quickly approaching, I struck out to see if I could take advantage of the sky which was starting to get some really good texture to it.  The sun was down, so I didn't have long to find something, and that meant that I might not be able to be too picky.  As I passed by the tavern, I noticed the woodshed behind was lit up from the inside, which was really cool.  But even better was the fact that the sky was fascinating above it, and the wind was moving the clouds towards me, as opposed to moving side to side like they normally are.  I set things up quickly, knowing that I had about five to ten minutes before the light was gone.

Woodshed

In order to capture the sky, I left my 24-70mm lens on, and set up low to the ground.  This allowed me to angle the camera up and into the sky.  The clouds were moving fast, and with a 20 second exposure, I was hoping to see some movement in the sky.  There was no time for any filters for this shot, I just composed, and exposed.  Looking in the LCD, I was pretty sure that I had a winner, but can never be sure looking at the desaturated and flat image that the image review shows.  It was not until I got home and started to process the image that I was able to realize the scene that I had previsualized when I came upon the woodshed.  There was drama, action, texture, mood, and it all played together so nicely.  Again, this was not a typical image for me, and I was very lucky that there were lights on since I did not have a flashlight in order to light paint the shed.  The highlights and shadows were a natural marriage, and the sky was the glue that kept the whole image together.  I'm hoping to shoot more images like this one in the future!

With the woodshed now in nearly total darkness, it was time to head back home and get some dinner.  I kept thinking to myself that I really felt like this was a largely successful Trek even though I only shot 40-some frames in a couple of hours.  It wasn't until I was done processing that I realized just how successful this outing had been.  With eight images deemed keepers, I was well over my standard 10% keeper ratio, and just about every image was shot in a different flavor than I normally do.  It is fun to keep things fresh, but when it comes to photography, it is always so much easier to keep things in your comfort level so you don't stand the chance to miss that one great shot.  By experimenting, I have found out that I might not get the typical image that I like, but I'm finding so many other approaches to the same old scenes.  Honestly, I'm really liking the different feel that my photography is starting to take these days.  It is a constant struggle to kick myself out of my own ruts, but when I do, I'm overwhelmingly impressed with the results.

As it turned out, I did very good listening to myself when I decided to go to Old Salem.  Everything I shot today was done in a different fashion than how I usually do business, and that paid big dividends in the end.  Now to pick what images go in the gallery!

Magnolia Manor by Flashlight

July 17, 2014

There are Treks that are planned for months, there are treks that are planned because of the weather at the time, and there are treks that are not planned at all.  Tonight was one of those treks that wasn't really planned at all.  Well....that wasn't entirely true.  I have scoped this location out before, and even shot many a frame here before.  I have been thinking about going out and giving it another try using a technique called painting with light.  So I guess you could say that this was planned, but the actual part where I got up and went was unplanned.  Toni got called into work for a few extra hours this afternoon, and I decided to go in and lend a hand to help out.  I figured that when we would be done, it would be about dark, and we would have to come back past Magnolia Manor anyway.  With that in mind, I loaded up the camera, and a flashlight along with the tripod and we went to work.

We got done with work a little early, stopped to get a bite to eat and then it was out to the location to get set up.  I still had plenty of daylight left and I had plenty of time to find my compositions and get the camera set up for the first one.  Things went very smooth, and we actually found ourselves sitting and waiting for over an hour before the lighting got just right...and by just right, I mean waiting for it to almost go away completely.  There was a good bit of sky visible behind the tree and I needed it to render a color other than white.  Using a minimum of a 30 second exposure made that rather difficult to say the least.

So, what exactly is painting with light?  Simply put, it is the practice of using a light source to illuminate exactly what you want to during the exposure.  Sunlight is broad reaching and will illuminate evenly except for shadows.  When I paint with light, I am adding light to precisely what I am wanting, and at the intensity that I am wanting.  The really cool thing about this technique is, no matter how many times I trip the shutter, I will always get a different image.  Its a creative technique that just can't be readily duplicated.  As you see in the picture above, I was using a maglite to "paint" the tree in nearly dark conditions.  While using a long shutter speed, 30-90 seconds in this case, I was able to paint light where I wanted it on both the foreground and the background.  I was able to control where the shadows were, and what appeared the brightest.

Complexity

My first composition focused on the rather unique structure of the tree.  This is what has made this a favorite portrait setting for when Toni and I did portrait shoots years ago.  The branches are strong and each one seems to dominate the other.  There is a level of complexity here that is just not normally seen in trees around here.  Because of that, I really wanted to focus on just that quality.  To do that effectively though, I needed to get low to the ground and shoot up.  Obviously, the sky was shining through the leaves above which during the day would have left me with bright white areas that were blown out.  In order to get the sky to appear blue, and to have a good exposure on the trunk, I was left with only one good option, and that was to wait until the blue hour (the hour after sunset) to paint the tree with light, while exposing the sky as a deep blue color.

It took several exposure to figure out just where I needed to put the light, but once I did, I was able to get the image that I had in mind with about a minute exposure.  In that 60 seconds, I lit the tree from two different places, one on either side of the camera.  This is another benefit to this type of photography, I choose the direction that each element gets lit from.  Talk about complete control!

From there, once I was satisfied with my image, I moved to my secondary location which took in much more of the scene.  The tree was now going to become just an element in a larger composition as opposed to the sole focus of the composition.  For this, I wasn't as concerned with the sky because I would be shooting from an elevated position, and there would be much less sky showing through the branches.

Ghostly Greetings

As you can see here, the tree has a nice little platform built out to the front of it.  With the long reaching branches on the right, I chose a position to the left of the entrance to let the platform balance out the longer limbs.  When I framed the shot, I knew I had it spot on with what I was seeing in my mind.  It was getting quite a bit darker, so my exposures were getting longer and longer.  I shot as long as 90 seconds on some of the shots, but nothing was under a minute.  This gave me time to really paint the scene slowly and meticulously.  One thing that I realized about midway through my session from this location was that the tree seemed to benefit from me lighting it off to the right.  This provided a strong sense of side light, and a lot more visual drama.  I was going for an image that send shivers down a spine, and this lighting was looking to give the best chance.

When I got home, I started to fight with color temperature and such, only to find that I wasn't overly happy with any of them.  Something was missing, I just wasn't sure what.  On purely a whim, I decided to go in and do a monochrome conversion to bypass the whole color dispute I was going through with myself.  At first, I was mildly excited with the outcome, but when I started to adjust how the tonalities were relating to each other, I saw much more potential.  Ironically, I applied a preset for infrared to the image, and the tree and stone steps seemed to jump from the background.  The shadows became much more intense, and the feel of the picture....well....gave me shivers.  This was what I was going after with the image all along.  I abandoned my color information and decided to make this a dedicated monochrome image.  Of the two images that I shot tonight, I think that this one is my favorite of the two simply because it captured the mood so well.

It wasn't a long trek, and it was one that kind of fit in with other things going on today, but I have to say, I'm glad that Toni and I decided to give it a try on the way home.  We both had a lot of fun working the scene, even though there was a lot of just standing around waiting for the sun to go down.