Light Chasing at Stone Mountain

Saturday, December 17, 2016

The Widow's Pool

Last weekend, Toni and I headed out to Stone Mountain to make use of the forecasted, cloudy sky.  Well, all the way there, we watched the clear blue sky that never materialized more than a thin cloud here and there.  We made it to our destination of Widow's Creek Falls, but the light was just too harsh to really even try anything.  We enjoyed the trip and I did some scouting on the way back, but the camera never left the bag.

Today was another chance to try and work that waterfall again.  The forecast was for Cloudy and spotty rain for most of the day.  There was even a little ice forecasted for the morning.  Because of that, I held off going until I was relatively sure that the roads would be fine...not to mention that I don't like slipping on the ice when I have my camera in tow.  I did that several years ago, and it cost me a lens and a camera body...but I digress.  Anyway, I checked the weather one last time around 10am, and found that it was satisfactory for waterfall photography.  It was a bonus to look outside and see the same clouds that were in the hourly forecast, unlike last week.

The trip was quick, and the clouds maintained a perfect look for my needs.  When I got to the falls, I grabbed my gear and made the excruciatingly long hike to the falls.  It might have been a full tenth of a mile!!  I knew that the water level was low from my visit last week, but that wasn't going to bother me.  I have spent the last week thinking about how I could do different isolations on this waterfall.  My plan was to use a different lens entirely from what I was used to using here.  Normally, I stay on the wide side of my focal range, and use either the 16-35mm or 24-70mm.  My plan was to fit the 70-200mm lens and not to look back.

At first it was strange to be photographing here with a long lens.  I just have never done that before.  However, much of the end of 2016 has been about pushing my limits and trying new things with the camera, so I worked the scene as best I could with the lens.  What I found out (and part of why I chose this approach) was that I could actually get a nice full view of the waterfall from further away, which changed the relationship of the foreground and the background.  Since the water flow was lower than normal, I needed to increase the relative size of the waterfall to the other elements.  Shooting at the long end of my lens was making that possible, with an added benefit of staying out of the water.

Keyhole

The other nice thing about shooting with the long lens was the ability to create isolations of the waterfall.  You see, I've always really loved this waterfall because of the character it has.  Right between the two primary water slides, there are a series of holes which at times look like a face.  It has always been these holes in the rock that have caught my attention over the years.  With a minor flow of water, now was the best time to get up close and highlight these features.  Today, I even found another element that I really liked that I don't think I had ever paid attention to before.  There is a slightly gold colored rock at the base between the two slides.  It just really stuck out to me today, and it begged to get a little attention.  I framed several of my shots so that this single rock would grab the eyes, and the water would then pull them through the scene.  It worked every time, in my opinion.

The Pondering Spot

In addition to the golden rock, there was also some very vibrant moss on the wall.  This gave me that splash of color that I needed in the landscape oriented frame.  There was a nearly perfect visual balance with the mossy patches at the upper left, which posed a photographic dichotomy with the bare rock to the bottom right.  Of course, the golden rock was still doing its job grabbing the visual attention to the cutouts in the rock face.  While I do prefer this waterfall with more flow, I have to say that even with a limited flow, there are lots of great opportunities with this particular waterfall.

By this point, I had spent about 45 minutes or so photographing this waterfall from various different points along the side of the creek.  I was getting rather excited to see what I had captured, but knew I would have to wait until I got home to really see since the LCD review of my RAW images is so flat and bland.  All I could really tell was that I got well exposed images with no clipping on the extremes of the histogram and that the compositions were as I had intended.  Other than that, I was going to have to wait for the digital negatives to be processed.

Mossy Shiver

Before deciding that I was done, I wanted to try one more thing.  For those of you who know this particular waterfall, you will recognize the last image here.  Down stream from the waterfall, there are a couple of places where the water slide develops some small cascades.  I have tried to photograph these before, but never satisfactorily.  Today, I happened to notice that the spray from the miniature cascade had caused a sheet of ice to form on the neighboring rock.  Under that ice was some moss which kind of bled through in green.  Since I had my long lens on, I decided to use that, but step back away from the scene I was wanting.  Normally, I would get up close to it, and shoot a little wider.  I see now, that was my problem all along.  I had the perfect composition with the long lens, and even better was the fact that I had the ice to balance the shot.

I had shot about 40 or so pictures from this waterfall in about an hour's time.  As I had intended, I kept resisting the urge to swap out my long lens, so every one of the pictures that I made here were done between 70-200mm which was a first for me.  I was very excited about them all, and couldn't wait to get home to see what I had captured.  It was a good thing I was done because I could see that the sky was starting to clear up.  Well, the weather had forecasted partial clearing between 1 and 3 before the clouds returned.  Things were going right as planned...

But I didn't really plan for what was next.  Looking at the sky, I could see that the clouds were moving at a nice pace across the sky, and the blue was that perfect Carolina Blue that I love seeing in pictures.  Hmmm, I was wanting to go home, but I was seeing the chance to really try out some long exposure shots using my 10-Stop ND filter.  In order to do that, I was going to have to get some elevation, and get out of the trees.  Fortunately, I was at Stone Mountain, and there are some great vistas along the various trails.  I knew that I needed to work fast, and looking at where the sky had interest, I knew that I was going to need to shoot toward the North.  That meant I was going to need to get to Wolf Rock.

The Wolf's Cry

The hike to Wolf Rock isn't all that long, at just over a mile I think.  That mile is a constant climb though which makes it a little strenuous compared to many of the hikes I do.  It was what I was going to have to do in order to get the elevation I needed to shoot the clouds.  Of course, as I was hiking up the trail, it appeared as though the clouds were coming back into the picture.  Since I had committed to the climb, I decided to continue on to see what I could do once I got to the overlook.  I was losing hope though, as it was getting darker and darker once again.

When I arrived at Wolf Rock, there was a small bit of blue sky right where I expected the break in the clouds to be.  It wasn't much, but enough to where I started to work on some different compositions.  For this, I decided that my 24-70mm lens would be most appropriate for incorporating foreground interest and keeping the mountains from shrinking into rolling hills in the distance.  The trick was keeping the horizon high enough to just include the small bit of interest in the sky right at the horizon.  I wasn't really happy with what I was photographing, but I kept working the scene.

Then it happened....

The sky broke open, and there was a lot of blue, and the white clouds were moving at a pretty nice clip.  This was what I was waiting for.  I found a composition that I liked, using a section of trees growing out of the rock.  I set the valley in the distance to the left as a background, and grabbed as much of the sky as I could.  Once I got the proper exposure set, 1/13 of a second with a polarizer, I fitted the Lee filter holder and added my 10-Stop filter.  I started to do some test shots and found that a minute was pretty close to what I needed for the right exposure.  However, I wanted more to show more movement in the clouds.  I stopped down to f/16 and went with a 1:30 second exposure...viola!!

I hadn't been completely sure how the clouds would display with this long exposure since I had not really used my 10-Stop seriously in the past.  What I saw was exactly what I was going for, and I almost started to jump up and down in celebration.  I didn't though, as I wanted to move to the other side of the trees and fire off another shot for a slightly different feel.

Together in Time

Well, I found the composition that I wanted, and thanks to being able to look through live view with the filter still on, it went pretty quick.  However, not quite quick enough.  By the time I had set the shot up, and dialed in the focus, the clouds were starting to clear.  There were still a few, and I had to get down very low to the ground in order to catch those.  I fired off a Hail Marry shot using the same 1:30 exposure at f/16.  It wasn't quite what I was after, but I did get the remaining clouds in the frame and they started right above the tree as if to highlight it.  It was going to have to do, because the clouds were just about gone at this point.  The sun was now out of the clouds, and was making the lighting very harsh.  It was time to pack up and head back to the car.

Going downhill is so much faster than going uphill!!!

When I got back to the car, I decided that I would head out to Pilot Mountain hoping that when the clouds came back in, I could duplicate my long exposure with the Knob as the visual anchor.  The plan was great, but the clouds came in too quick for me to have a chance to get there in time.  I diverted about halfway there to head back home.  I wanted to see what I had captured anyway.

I had a total of 69 frames which I had exposed in my few hours at Stone Mountain.  Most of the second half were tossed due to less than pretty skies in comparison to the long exposure images.  I ended up with these six images which considering the amount that I trashed from the second half was actually very good for the day.  I always have so much fun at Stone Mountain since there is something for just about every lighting possibility I could run into.  I went from total overcast, to dramatic clouds against a blue background.  It just doesn't get much better than this.

Ahhh, The Welcomed Rains

Sunday, December 4, 2016

The Softer Side

If you have been following my blog, you will know that here in NC, we have been in one of the worst droughts I can remember since October.  We have finally started to get some rain here recently, and while it is not enough to make up for the weeks without, it is a start.  Looking at the weekend forecast, it appeared that today was going to be cloudy pretty much all day, with passing rain showers in the morning and afternoon.  That pretty much makes for perfect waterfall photography in my books.  Having had some recent rains, I figured that there might actually be some water in the falls for a change.

When the morning arrived, the forecast had even more rain (and actually some snow) in the morning.  It was enough to keep me at home for a few extra hours until it slacked off.  I didn't mind because all the rain that was falling was going to be flowing over the rocks when I needed it to.  At about 10 o'clock or so, I loaded the truck up and headed out to Hanging Rock State Park which is fairly close, and when it comes to waterfall photography, it has the most bang for the buck.

All the way out there, I was getting rained on pretty steady, but it was not enough to keep me from going on with my plans.  I've done a lot of photography in light rain, and that really doesn't scare me at all.  In fact, it is better to have rain with waterfalls because it helps to keep the ground wet to help balance exposure.  The only time it really gets to be a problem is when I am miles away from the truck and a downpour catches me.  I've been through several of those as well.  Toni even got caught in one when we were photographing Roaring Fork Falls about a year ago.

By the time I arrived, the rain had pretty much stopped, so I was able to get working immediately.  I headed out to the Upper Cascades first since that is probably my favorite spot in the park these days.  I wanted to make sure I had time to work that waterfall just in case the rain returned.

Dream Weaver

The hike was simple until I got to the bottom of the stairs to get down to ground level.  Remember when I said that rain was good for waterfall photography?  Well, there are always trade-offs.  In this case the rocks were nice and wet which made for slippery footing.  It took a little doing to get into position without falling.  Fortunately, I was all alone so nobody laughed at me being overly careful with a heavy backpack on my back.  It wasn't long before I had the camera built up, and fitted with my 16-35mm lens for an overall shot of the falls.  I've photographed this waterfall on so many occasions I pretty much know where to put the tripod.  I followed tradition for the first little bit and found my "standard" compositions.  I shot them because I wanted to try some different post processing with them, so I wanted a bit of a different rendition of my favorite shots.  I was really happy with what I was seeing thanks to a polarizer and my ND filter which gave me about 13 seconds of exposure.  

Nature's Movements

While the water was much fuller than I was expecting, there was still ample detail in the flow which caught my attention more than once while I was photographing the "postcard" shot.  Once I was finished working the broad scene, I swapped lenses to be able to use my 70-200mm which is great at pulling out the details of waterfalls.  Since I was wanting as much detail as possible, I ditched the ND filter so that my shutter speed would stay around three to four seconds for the close up shots.  I also shot with B&W in mind since there wasn't really any color present in these isolations.  There were a few different areas that really caught my eye and provided me with some compositions within compositions.

Dream Channel

By this point, the rain was coming back and I found that I was having to wipe down the polarizer after every few shots.  This was one of those times I wished that I didn't have to use a slightly oversized filter preventing me from using a lens hood.  Well, to keep money and weight down, I use a set of 82mm filters which fit my largest lenses, while I use an adapter ring on my long lens which is 77mm in diameter.  Not much difference, but enough that my hood won't work.  Oh well, it wasn't a big problem to dry the filter off occasionally, and I was getting some really good shots at this point.

Simply Complex

Intimate Cascade

Not all of my isolations called for monochrome treatment, however.  When there was color in the frame from the vegetation, I shot it with color in mind.  It is not that I prefer one over the other, but for this particular waterfall, each composition called for something specific which is why you are not seeing a color version as well as a black and white version.  Each is represented the way the scene dictates, and I felt that was enough.

In the hour that I was at the Upper Cascades, I shot some 35 images.  For the most part, each one of them was a specific composition as the lighting was so uniform, I didn't have to change the exposure except for creative reasons.  It is a lot of fun to work in this kind of light because it is a set it and forget it affair.  I get to spend all my energy finding the compositions which really increases my hit rate.

When that hour was up, I had photographed pretty much everything that I wanted to with the Upper Cascades and still had plenty of time to hit the other falls in the park.  The rain wasn't too terrible either.  I made the quick hike back to the parking lot and went to the other side with thoughts of Hidden Falls and Window Falls going through my head.

The next stop on my journey was Hidden Falls, which is...well....hidden on the trail to Window Falls.  I wasn't sure how much water flow this one was going to have since it is a small little cascade under the best conditions.  Well, when I got there, there wasn't really much to the overall waterfall.  In fact, since I have photographed it many times, I didn't even bother with an overall photograph.  What I have is already much better than what I was seeing in front of me.  However, I haven't done much with my 70-200mm lens with this particular waterfall.  Since I was already in the mindset to grab intimate shots of the waterfalls, that was just what I set out to do.

Down the Mossy Steps

There were really only two sections of this waterfall that I found particularly interesting.  There was a segment at the bottom which was visually active, but had too many distractions around the action which detracted from the image, as well as providing too many scale cues.  The section that I found most interesting was part of the primary drop.  The textures of the moss contrasted perfectly with the flow of the water.  The evenly spaced rocky steps gave me that perfect rhythm to the image, and the brown of the rock below balanced the greens along the sides.  This was the story that Hidden Falls was trying to tell today.

Having told the story of Hidden Falls the best that I could, I packed the camera up and made the rest of the hike to the Window Falls.  The hardest part of this hike was the steps that I had to go down...and back up which were wet and slippery.  I was hearing some water, but really wasn't sure the magnitude of what I was hearing.  This one is a real gamble since I've seen it all dried up, and overflowing at completely random times.  There is not usually a middle ground for this one, but I was hearing water at least. 

When I arrived, I saw that there was a slight trickle at least.  It wasn't impressive, but there was water dropping from the ledge.  Typically, I would set up the wide angle and shoot it from either the left or the right.  Not only was the water flow terrible for that, there was so much debris along the base of the falls now.  I wasn't sure I could get a pleasing composition that incorporated the actual waterfall.  I wasn't really all that heartbroken because with the slight trickle of water, the story was not in the waterfall itself...the story was in the details once again.

A Tender Moment

What my eyes were seeing was the faint spray hitting the mossy rocks below.  This was where the action was, and this was my story.  I moved into a position where I could also include the large rock in the background, keeping it positioned above the frothy water.  My 70-200mm lens was the perfect choice for the composition.  The exposure was pretty simple here since the top of the frame was in the shadows, and the light was hitting the water as it dropped.  I just had to be careful with the shutter speed which was kept at 3.2 seconds to keep from losing the detail in the water.

I tried some other compositions as well, but none had quite the visual balance of this one.  Once again, the photograph was actually deep inside of the subject.  That is one of the things that I am enjoying in my current interpretation of photography.  I am trying to go for the different pictures, especially since so many of the subjects I'm shooting have been shot so many times in the past.  My workhorse lens is quickly becoming the 70-200mm which is one that I would rarely use years ago.  I'm finding that narrowing the view is the best way to unlock so many creative doors.

I had wanted to check out the Lower Cascades, but decided against it.  I wanted to get home and start processing the 63 images I shot so that I would be able to have a relaxing evening before going to work tomorrow.  I was very excited to find that I had eight keepers from that batch which is well above my average.  Now I have to figure out which ones will be a part of the gallery which is always a fun task.

Well, I got lost again

Saturday, December 3, 2016

This is an odd time of year for a landscape photographer, and I'm no different in that respect.  The bright colors of Autumn are gone, the lush green of Summer has long since expired, and we are waiting on Spring to come.  Many landscape photographers will shelve their cameras until the new growth starts, but that is where I differ.  Winter is an interesting time for me photographically speaking.  I tend to stick close to home and work on my barns and old cars, and will occasionally venture out for waterfalls when the weather is right.  Well, I'm really wanting to do some waterfall photography right now, but the water tables are still too low for what I am really after.  That leaves driving around and trying to locate some interesting old cars, or barns.  This is hardly an efficient use of time as a photographer since only a small fraction of the time spent is actually making pictures.  But in lieu of having a subject in mind, scouting is the only viable option.

Today, I was looking at the weather, which was forecasting mostly sunny skies all day.  This was not ideal, and the threat of rain and clouds tomorrow sounded much better.  However, when I woke up, I saw an amazing sunrise which wasn't what I was expecting based on the weather report.  Well, I didn't get a chance to photograph the sunrise, but I did start looking at the sky which was pretty much consistently more cloudy than I had been lead to believe.  The clouds never really cleared, but there was still some very good light to work with.  It was too much light for intimate landscape work, but was pretty good for doing the rustic scenes...so that was what I set out to do.

My plan was to putter around in Davidson County for a bit and then ultimately head out to Pilot Mountain to catch a sunset.  I went by a barn in Forsyth County that I had photographed before, but it showed no character today.  I went down into Davidson County to check out an old Apache truck I had photographed before, but it was gone.  Hmmm, I wasn't really doing all that well so far.

I kept on driving, and ended up in Randolph County near Uwharrie which I had never been before.  i have to say, there is a lot of great stuff out there to photograph, but none of it was jumping out at me today.  It was all just so blah in the current conditions.  I got out on a few old buildings, and for one reason or another decided against setting the camera up.  I got so lost since I was proceeding without GPS going, and was just turning randomly at intersections.  All I knew was I was South and East away from home, beyond that I had no idea where I was.  I even found a few unpaved roads which were kind of fun to explore in their own right.  I just wished I was able to find that right scene that spoke to me.

One of the intersections that I came to held a little surprise for me.  After going miles without seeing much at all, I looked to the right (actually planning on turning left), and saw a tin roof and a silo.  It also appeared to be set off away from surrounding clutter.  This could be it.  I pulled the truck off of the road, and was happy that I had the ground clearance that I did considering the ditch I was parked on.  I went ahead and grabbed the bag and the tripod from the cab and started to walk closer to the barn.  I parked well away since I wasn't sure where my composition would be, and I didn't want my truck in the picture.  As I got closer, I could see that there was a wooden fence that I wasn't too happy with at first.  I could deal with the barbed wire a little bit better than a large wooden slatted fence.

As I got even closer, I found that the fence just had a small section facing the road, and the rest went to the barn.  The barn was actually opened up from the road with no barriers to face.  This would be fun since I could get up close and personal with the barn.  However, the more I tried to get in close, the less appealing the pictures were.  The further back, the more unbalanced they were with the fence on the right side of the frame.  I also didn't like the full on frontal look of the barn.  I tried to move over to the right and get the fence in the frame, but it became too jumbled, and I was unable to get enough altitude on the camera to keep it from blocking key elements on the face of the barn.  I seemed to be an an impasse with compositions.  I was using my 24-70mm, and found that the focal lengths were just fine, but my location wasn't quite right.

Well, I decided to throw caution to the wind and set up square in the middle of the road.  On the double yellow line to be exact.  Yeah, I'm doing exactly what my Mother told me not to do, and what Toni would be yelling at me for doing, but after spending 17 years in a job where I've walked in the middle of the highway at rush hour, I somehow felt pretty comfortable doing this.  I composed a shot, which I really liked, and I dialed in the intensifying polarizer to bring out the color in the scene, set my exposure, and tripped the shutter.

Guarded and Weathered

This was the shot I was looking for!  The fence didn't interfere with the face of the barn, I got a leading line that made sense in the scene, and got a nice quarter view of the barn instead of a static front view.  I even got a nice balance with the bare trees on either side of the frame.  I moved the camera around a few times, and got out of the way of approaching cars a couple of times before figuring that I had the shot that I wanted.  The sun was starting to dip behind the clouds, and it was looking like I was running out of light for this scene, so I went back to the truck and broke everything down.

I ended up with 27 frames that I shot of this old barn.  In that time, I had tried about 20 individual compositions to get everything to line up just right.  I was probably there for about 35 minutes or so as the light was falling.  Once I left there, I hunted for a good location for a sunset, but found that hunt to be a moot point since the clouds were building so fast that there was not going to be any color in the sky to worry with.  I pulled out the GPS and told it to take me home.  I wasn't upset that I missed Pilot Mountain since the color and sky that I was hoping for didn't happen.

Once I started to edit the pictures, I found that most of them were not that good.  The sky wasn't right in most, the fence was in the way in others, and the composition boring in several.  There were about four pictures which really caught my eye.  Three of them were shot from the street, and the fourth was shot from the barbed wire, but lacked a strong leading line since the wooden fence exited to the left of the frame.  When it came down to it, there was a single picture that really jumped out at me.

The leading line was nearly perfect thanks to the "L" shape of the fence.  The barbed wire became insignificant to the composition.  The wooden fence skirted right under the barn, and strait to the silo.  The sky had a nice contrast to it, and nice blue tones thanks to the polarizer.  I was really happy with how this one turned out, and thanks to this one image, my driving all afternoon was well worth it.

Guarded and Weathered in B&W

Since a good many of my Winter photographs are shot with monochrome in mind, I had a pretty good idea that this would convert nicely to Black and White.  I moved it from Lightroom into Photoshop where I did the conversion.  After playing with some of the color channels, I had a really nice base for the conversion.  I tweaked some of the curves for the final presentation, which resulted in a very nice Black and White image.

Honestly, I'm not sure which I like better between the two pictures.  I'm always a fan of color photography, and like the deep saturated hues.  However, a dramatic sky is always made more appealing in monochrome.  The subject matter also lends itself to a more rudimentary presentation.  The way I see it, I have two different versions of the same image that stand equally well on their own, and that is how I will represent them in the gallery.

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.

Getting Lost on the Road

Thursday, November 24, 2016

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  Since Toni had to work today, and I was off, I decided that I would go out for some pictures.  I'm still wanting to do waterfalls, but there just isn't enough water in the state to really make that a possibility right now.  Ironically though, the weather was calling for rain, and clouds through the morning with clearing skies after 11.  This was actually pretty good news for me, and I was looking forward to taking a little road trip up through Danbury, NC to work some of the old vehicles I had come across last weekend.  I also wanted to try a creative composition with a 57ish Chevy I've located that is in a particularly lousy setting to photograph.

I set out before sunrise in an attempt to get the first light in the sky for a background, and to be able to light paint the actual car.  There was a little bit of rain falling, but the hourly showed that I would be OK once I got where I was going.  Well, the forecast was right, and the rain stopped when I got there.  However, the sky was way too blah for the long exposure that I was wanting to do.  I needed a much different sky for my idea to work.  The good news was, with the right sky, I think the picture will come out quite nice in the end...if I can get what I want in the right combination before the car gets moved.

Not wanting to admit failure before the sun even came up, I plowed on to the North headed to Danbury.  When I got there, the lighting was really good with the clouds, and the recent rainfall on the ground.  I even found a subject that I wanted to photograph with the existing light.  I stopped the truck and started to consider my options as the rain started to drizzle.  That wasn't going to be a concern though, as the angles would be such that the front element would be shielded by the hood.  What bothered me was the two dogs that were coming down the street with a purpose towards my truck.  They had that look in their eyes that indicated I was going to be their Thanksgiving Feast if I got out of my truck.  Not wanting to be an early meal, I cut bait, and started to drive on down the road.

Well, I had two ideas for the morning, and both of them have failed to materialize.  Such is the luck of a photographer I suppose.  Well, I was out, so I decided to throw caution to the wind and get lost.  I don't mean a little lost...I mean crank the GPS up to get home lost.  I went down roads that I've never heard of before, and entered townships I never knew existed.  This was what Toni had suggested I do a week or so ago, and today was as good a day as any to do that.  The the lighting was still really good as the clouds were thick and low in the sky.  I just wasn't having much luck in finding that perfect subject to work with.  There were plenty of barns and old houses, but none of them spoke to me this morning.  There were issues with the compositions for every subject I found.  To make matters worse, the clouds were starting to break up, and I could see that the sun was going to be poking through soon.  This could be a very good situation with the right subject, but it also meant that the good light was going to be short lived from this point on.

Under Cotton Skies

This was going to be magic light time if I could find the right subject.  The sun was now clearly out in the open and the sky to the West was still covered in clouds with a nice texture.  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw three different barns down a side road.  I made a quick U-turn and went down the street.  It looked more like a driveway than a street, but the sign indicated it was a public roadway.  I pulled over to the side of the road and got the camera out.  Wanting to work fast, and knowing that I wanted some depth to this one, I used my 24-70mm lens with a color intensifying polarizer.  I worked from several locations to try and get the best composition from the three barns.

The more I worked the scene, the more I realized that there was only one barn that I really liked out of the three, and it was the largest.  There just wasn't much space between that one and the neighboring structure.  I wanted the sky in a large portion of the frame, but I didn't want the barn to show too much perspective distortion, so I had to really balance how close I got to the barn, and what focal length I used.  What I ended up with was using about 30mm worth of lens, fairly close in to the barn.  Once I was happy with my composition, I had to sit there and wait for the sun to do it's thing.  Slowly, it came out from behind the clouds and lit up the barn with a wonderful, warm light.  I had already worked out everything except for the shutter speed, which I dialed into get the proper exposure on the barn.  That actually ended up underexposing the sky, which for my tastes was a perfect combination!  Within a minute, the clouds started to clear, but not after I got my shot.

I had taken about a dozen or so frames from this location, and while I liked some of the ones that included the other two structures, they all seemed to fail in comparison to this one.  The lighting was dead on, and the composition followed one of my new rules for myself--Fill the frame with what you want.  There was a nice flow, and balance as well.  I found no need to process the other shots, and I was satisfied with the results of this one for the location.

Now the clouds were all but gone in the sky, and the sun was steadily climbing.  Normally, this would mean that I was done for the day as the quality of light was lacking.  However, I was coming off of what I thought was a pretty successful subject, and I wanted to use that as motivation to keep going.  I continued North into Virginia on a road I probably could never find again.

Three Old Friends

I was starting to come off of my photography high....OK, I actually had.  I was squinting in the sun, and losing interest in the light.  Then I passed a house with a red Ford Fairlane 500 in the yard.  It was in decent shape, but I could tell it was not an operable vehicle.  It caught my eye, and my imagination.  It wasn't perfect, but it was the best option I had seen in a while.  I turned around and went to knock on the door of the house.

This is one of the most nerve racking parts of doing this type of photography.  Normally, I'm met by the owner who has come out of the side of the house with a gun pointed at me.  I'm not sure if this guy was armed or not, but he answered the door I knocked at (nice change of pace), and allowed me to explain the reason for my holiday visit.  Surprisingly, he gave me full permission to go and play among his vehicles.  I was now looking further into the property, and the vehicles no longer were just the Fairlane and a Bronco.  There were several old rusted shells in the woods.  Yep, I was glad I stopped here!

I found three of them to be my favorites based on location, surroundings, and general condition.  I started to set the camera up, again using my 24-70 with a intensifying polarizer attached.  I started to work on the group of vehicles since they were so close together I didn't feel comfortable trying to separate them in the frame.  The lighting was harsher than I like, but I was able to make due, and compose using the lit side to keep out of the shade as much as possible.

A Close Race

One thing that I have learned over the years is that the position of the camera can make or break an image.  That really holds true for these vehicles.  By adjusting the angles of the camera, I was able to eliminate the middle vehicle and concentrate on these two that were very similar in appearance.  I also benefited in this composition from the shadows cast by the sun coming through the trees to my back.  These shadows created some very strong leading lines that I thought really strengthened the image.  The primarily blue sky above, helped to bring out the remaining blue tones on the panel truck as well, which helped to balance the image with color tones.

Coming and Going

In an attempt to make sure I got every possible composition, I swapped out my lens for the 70-200mm.  Now, I had some other compositional tricks I could use.  By stepping back a little bit, I was able crop out the closer jeep, and increase the relative size of the green Jeep that was further away.  The trick here was to cover the background clutter with solid parts of the panel truck, which I was able to do by paying very close attention to the height of my camera on the tripod.

Empty Eyes

Before leaving, I decided to try and isolate what had become my favorite vehicle out of the bunch.  I flipped the camera on its side and got down pretty low to the ground to reduce the impact of the green Jeep to the rear.  It is still visible, but with the exposure difference, it is not distracting at all.

As you can see, I had a great time at this property, and am very appreciative to the owners who allowed me to get a few photographs.  I really do enjoy photographing these old cars, but I'm a little gun shy after several really negative experiences talking to property owners.  I don't fault them for being cautious as i would be with strangers asking to get up close and personal with my property.  However, as a photographer, I love these opportunities, and am always looking for "Old Iron" sitting on folks' property.  If you have anything like this on your property, shoot me an email (gkiserphotography@gmail.com) or call me (336-681-0220) and I'll do my best to create some art for you!

Where Did All the Water Go?

Saturday, November 19, 2016

It feels like it's been forever since I've gone out on a Trek!  Between work, travel, and the fact that the weather has not cooperated with me over the last month, I just haven't been getting out at all.  But wait...the weather has been beautiful.  It's been warm and sunny which is very odd for November in NC.  Well, those sunny days don't really do a photographer any favors.  We typically enjoy when the weather turns bad.  Clouds and strange weather patterns are our bread and butter, and my plate has been empty for a while now.  The lack of clouds and rain also have brought about another problem....drought.  What was working into a nice and colorful Autumn, has turned into something less than colorful over much of the state.  Add to that, most of the rivers and streams are drying up.  With my motivation being waterfalls here recently, this was a huge problem!

Looking at the weather for the weekend, it seemed that I had a good chance of getting some good cloud clover in the mountains, while it was still supposed to be mostly sunny here around the house.  The weather was right for waterfalls, but the lack of water was going to cause many problems with finding waterfalls that still had water flow.  Add to that the wildfires that are burning up a good portion of the Western portion of the state.  I knew of one place that was likely to still have some decent water flow, and it happened to be one of my favorite places to go...Big Creek, in the Great Smoky Mountains.  There are two named waterfalls along the trail, and lots of rapids that are pretty deep for the most part.  There is even a Duke Energy plant on the river which indicates that it should have water in all but the most severe droughts.

Not So Big Creek

As I tend to do, I started my day very early at 4am, and I was on the road by 5.  The trip to the trail takes just a tick over three hours from home.  This is a huge investment of time considering that I didn't know how much water was there, and whether the wildfires would cause me any problems.  Add to that, the sky here at home was completely clear for as far as I could see.  I trusted my instinct that this was where I needed to be heading though, and drove West.  It wasn't until I was past Hickory that I started to see clouds above.  Not until about 30 miles from Big Creek did I see the rain that was forecasted.  It was actually a nice soaking rain, but I was sure it was not lasting long enough to do any good for the fires, or for my purposes.

When I got to the exit off of the highway, I was quickly greeted with a sight that I wasn't familiar with...Instead of aqua colored rapids, all I saw were lots of large rocks.  There was some water running, but it was very low.  I was really hoping that this was not indicative of what I was going to find inside of the park.  I continued down the road, not seeing a sign at all of the powerful river that usually paralleled the road.  I was getting nervous, and was thinking that I just wasted my day, but I was here, so I was going to go hiking at least.

Once I started in on the trails, you can see above, there was precious little water in the riverbed.  There were bits and pieces of rapids that I could see from the trail, but early on, I was unable to hike down to get to them.  it was not until about a mile in that I was really able to scramble safely down to the water.  Gone were my big rapids with the awesome aqua colors.  Instead, the water was replaced by a riverbed of large rocks.  The landscape was completely changed, and I wasn't sure quite what to do with it.  The more I considered my options, the more I realized that I was going to be shooting a good deal of intimate shots, rather than all encompassing landscape shots like I enjoy with this location.

Stones of Bronze

Most sections were no more than three feet to six feet in size.  I had to get creative with my compositions, and focus on using my 70-200mm lens.  I tried to get reflections where I could, and I played with the white balance a bit to achieve some different effects than what I normally get.  As you see above, there were some interesting textures in the water, but I wasn't really satisfied with what I was seeing.  I was starting to think that I had chosen the wrong location to shoot today.

Copper Falls

One area that I was working for a bit held a surprise for me, just over my shoulder.  As I am in the habit of doing, once I was finished with a particular scene, I start looking around to see if there are other subjects that I could work with.  I happened to find this one just downstream, and I didn't even have to change my vantage point which was a very good thing.  you see, I was perched atop one of the many rocks in what was left of the stream.  By just rotating the camera, I was able to capture this abstract shot.  The best part of this one is that it is about the only one that shows the aqua color that I love so much with this water.  I was fortunate to have the leaf on the one rock for scale.  It adds a little more to the "what am I looking at" quality.  I also liked the rich tones in the surfaces to the lower right.

This was just about to be the last picture taken today as well.  The angle at which I was operating, and the fact that I was right on the edge of one of the rocks caused me to lose my balance ever so slightly.  With nowhere to fall that would end well, I grabbed onto my tripod and the long lens on the camera.  Fortunately, that gave me just enough balance to keep me from falling off the rock.  Water photography is tricky sometimes!

The Lounge

I was lucky enough to find some areas where the water flow was significant enough to allow for some more typical landscape shots.  I found this scene which showcased a small group of rapids, and they were balanced out by this one rather large rock to the left.  In the shadows, you can barely make out the aqua hue in the water.  I tell you what, when the conditions are right, this is one of the prettiest places around for water photography.  When water is scarce, there is still a certain character that remains here, and I was starting to get in that frame of mind.

Part of my photography has always been previsualization.  Simply put, I have certain pictures in mind before I even get to the location.  I know what types of pictures I will be looking for based on my destination.  Today, I was caught off guard by the lack of water, and it took me a while to get in the right frame of mind for Big Creek.  Once I got there, and knew what I was looking for, things started working out much better than I was thinking they would.

Mouse Creek Falls

One of the areas I was looking forward to was Midnight Hole, which was a small waterfall about a mile or so it.  I found it...what was left of it.  I had never even knew that the falls were obscured by rocks before.  The flow is usually strong enough to be much more prominent making me think that it wasn't actually obscured.  Well, this time, I could barely see it, and was unable to get out in the middle of the stream enough to photograph it.  I had to chalk this one up as one that got away.  The other waterfall on the trail is the major attraction for the park, and it is called Mouse Creek Falls.  I have photographed this once before, but never really liked the result.  I wasn't expecting much different this time with the reduced water flow.

However, when I got to the second falls, I was pleasantly surprised with what I saw.  There was not much water, but what was there, had a lot of personality.  In fact, this one looked better than when the water flow was generous.  I was unable to get the vantage point that I wanted from the trail, so I started to scramble down to the base.  When I got there, I realized that the boulders at the base obscured my view, and made a good photograph impossible.  I started to work my way up the embankment, and found that about half way up, I had a great view.  In fact, I was even able to put the lower section into the "V" of the rocks.  I set the camera up as carefully as I could considering I was on a very steep hill.  It was another awkward position, but I made it work.  I was able to place each element in the photograph in exactly the right position.

Freshly Fallen

Not only was I able to get the entire waterfall, I was also able to zoom in and get a few intimate sections like this one.  While I normally prefer my waterfalls to be full, this one seems to work very well with only a trickle cascading over the rocks.  The trick here was waiting for the wind to die down so that the branches weren't moving enough to blur in the picture.  I believe that this was about 8 seconds worth of exposure.

While I was working on intimate views of this waterfall, I had the crazy idea to flip the camera over to horizontal and work a composition that included some of the landscape around the waterfall.  As I mature as a photographer, I've found that waterfalls look really good with some context around them.  Not only does it give a sense of scale, it also gives a sense of place for the falls.

An Autumn Blanket

In a surprise twist, I found that I liked this version much better that the entire falls, or any of the isolations I shot.  Again, the biggest challenge was waiting for the wind to die down enough to make the branches stop moving.  The trunk to the left frames the shot very well, and it adds the much needed third vertical element to the image for a nice balance.  The fallen leaves provide the color balance to the green moss, and the water gives great visual interest.  At this point, I knew that I had a keeper from the day, and I could tell that my eye was in tune with my surroundings.  That motivated me to continue moving along in search of other scenes.

Creek Textures

With my recent success with Mouse Creek Falls, I started looking for more large vistas, but they were few and far between.  I did find a number of isolations that I was able to frame and photograph.  Doing these intimate shots in a very random rock garden is harder than it appears.  Creating order and balance becomes the biggest consideration.  First, you find a potential subject that has visual interest.  Then you look at what is around it, trying to find complementary elements.  From there, you position yourself so that you can include only what you intend on having in the frame.  One advantage of doing these types of images is that you really get a feeling for the textures of nature.  Getting in this close makes it look like you could just reach in and touch the soft moss, feel the spray of the water, and bump up against the rough rocks.

A Bit of Drama

Every once in a while, I get a good idea.  Today was one of those times.  Normally, I Turn around at the carriage bridge, but today, I decided to continue on.  I did not have any particular need to get on the road quickly today, and I was enjoying the very Fall day.  Not long after passing by the bridge, I came across a fairly nice sized cascade in the middle of the stream.  It was not exactly easy to get to though.  If memory serves, I took about five minutes of scrambling to make it down the bank to get into position to be able to see this.  Of course, I had to make my way back onto a rock which got precariously small once I got the tripod set up.  I was finally in a great position to use my 24-70mm lens to capture the background and to really show a sense of depth.  I would love to say that this took a lot of trial and error to produce, but I shot a total of 10 versions of this scene, and the one that I liked the best was the first trip of the shutter.  It had everything that I wanted in the picture.

Of course, my favorite aspect of the shot is the cascade in the foreground.  This was what drew my attention in the first place.  In order to contain the eyes, I used a bit of the rock in the lower right corner.  Because of that rock, the eyes are forced back into the frame, and then they are lead back up streak to what appears to be a tunnel in the bare trees.  I'm not sure what this setting would look like on a normal day, but I think that the reduced water flow actually made this one possible.  With a normal amount of water, I'm pretty sure that the drama would not be here, and there is a good chance I would be unable to get on top of the rock I was shooting from.

Cairn on the Trail

While I was shooting the previous scene, I happened to find some stones stacked on a neighboring rock.  While I had seen a few of them out on the trails today, this one caught my eye.  It reminded me of a snowman with sticks for arms.  There was a nice balancing element with the yellow leaves to the left, and I thought that it was worth a shot.  Knowing that I was going to want to really make the cairn stand out, I shot with the lens wide open at f/2.8 to blur the background.  Once I started to process it, I did a good bit of dodging and burning to get it just right.  I wasn't sure whether or not I would like this picture when I shot it, but I have to say...it has grown on me.  It is definitely something different from what I normally do.

Rock Hopping

Another one of my favorite images from the day came from the return hike.  I had passed by this location a few hours before, but it didn't speak to me.  I'm pretty sure that was because the sun was poking out of the clouds when I was in this section, and that ruined the lighting that I was after.  on the return trip, however, the lighting was perfect once again.  I decided to work my way back out in the riverbed and try to frame something up.  Once I got into position, I saw the one element that I really wanted to put in the shot.  There was a tree with bright orange leaves still attached in the distance.  I worked on positioning myself so that the small cascades would lead the eye right to the tree in the background.  I shot this also with a vertical composition, but I felt that I liked the open feel of the horizontal with the complementary elements to the left.

When it was all said and done, I had shot 107 frames, and decided on keeping a total of 11 images.  This keeps me in my target 10% hit rate.  Considering the lack of water, I found a lot more scenes than I though I would.  I would have liked having a lot more water, but overall, I'm pretty happy with this Trek.