Picture of the Day – Balanced Rock at Sunset

Back in December, I showed you a different sunset image of Balanced Rock in Arches National Park in Utah. This one was taken on the next night, if memory serves, and shows not only Balanced Rock, but another rock formation right next to it. Now, you must believe me when I tell you this…this image was almost exactly what my Olympus camera photographed that night with no digital enhancements added by Photoshop or any other software that night. All I did with this image is put my copyright notice on it and add a very small amount of sharpening.

Now was this the sunset I saw with my eyes that night? Well, perhaps not exactly. The Olympus, which I still take with me, has a setting called “Sunrise/Sunset” that adds a little oomph to photographs taken during those times. I like to experiment with it every once in a while to see what I get…and this is what I got that night. I like it…sort of a fire-in-the-sky effect.

The more I work with digital equipment, the more I realize that an image one takes with a camera and what comes out after post processing, are a product of the eye, the mind, the heart, and the soul of the photographer. All great photographers work with the concept of “what is” VS “what I want it to be.” There is no such thing as a pure image…there can’t be. Go back to film cameras…every kind of film, black and white, or color, renders the same scene differently.

Did you know that there is now a filter that can work inside Photoshop that can take your digital image and apply a replica image of what the photograph would look like with just about every kind of film? So you can take your image and make it appear like it was shot on Kodachrome. So what is real…what is it supposed to really look like? There is no answer to that question. So anyone who says they take only pure images and debunks Photoshop is full of you-know-what.

Photography is rendering an image the way you see it…in your heart, mind, eyes and soul (I believe I said that already). This image is what my Olympus saw that night and I rendered it that way.

Picture of the Day – The Virgin River

This is an image I took a little over a year ago in Zion National Park. I like it as it is a cornucopia of colors, including red rock, autumn leaves, and a beautiful sky.

By the way, when you see a dark blue sky like this one, it usually means that I used a polarizing filter on the camera. Unlike film cameras, where I had lots of filters…for my digital cameras, I use only two filters: a UV filter, basically to protect the lens if I fall or drop the camera or even worse; and a polarizing filter to enhance colors like the sky and red rocks…AND, to reduce glare on reflections like water or autumn leaves.

A quality rotating polarizing filter should be in every camera bag, especially if you use a single lens reflex camera. If you have never used one, the only work at their best when you are at right angles to the sun…meaning the sun is at your shoulder. If the sun is behind you, a polarizer will have little, if any, effect.

The filter is basically two layers with a rotatable top layer. By rotating the top, you can change the amount from full polarization to no polarization and everything in between. Don’t leave home without it!

Postcard from Tucson – Stranger in a Strange Land

In 1992, when I moved out of California to Ephrata, WA, it was a little different, but not all that much, at least until winter hit. But, now I’ve moved from Ephrata to Tucson Arizona…and the difference between Ephrata and here is huge.

Of course, the first is obvious….winter. If I were still in Ephrata, I would be shoveling snow, worrying about the pipes freezing, and generally wearing long pants and sweaters, even in the house.

Here, I write these words in shorts and a tee shirt. Its been in the low 70’s all day. Cools off at night, but not like the Northwest. I can sit out by the pool here and read a book and get a nice tan. It’s January, for God’s sake! And while all this seems strange, I am having a little trouble getting used to other things.

Zip Code:

I have spent all of my life having a zip code that started with 9. Now it starts with 8. I still sometimes start writing my zip code with a 9. Hard to get used to it. Of course, I am old enough to remember the time when there were no zip codes.

Time Zone:

Now this is a tough one. Right now I am in the Mountain Time Zone…two hours earlier than eastern time. So when a football game says it starts at 1:00 Eastern, I have to remember that’s 11:00 here, not 10:00 like it has been all my life. I am really having some problems with that one. But, I am slowly getting used to it. But of course, I am an hour ahead of all my friends on the West Coast.

More Time Zone:

Now, just when I get used to that, suddenly in March, I will be in Pacific Time. What? You see, Arizona doesn’t observe Daylight Savings. So, football games in August through the first of November, will start at 10:00…then in November start at 11:00. This is getting weird!

Architecture:

The Southwestern Adobe look is everywhere here…probably because I am here in the Southwest. I like it, in fact I live in one. It’s just different than I am used to.

Cactus Everywhere:

Not just the little cactus that people have in their homes in pots, but giant Saguaro cactus of all shapes and sizes that tower way over you. They abound everywhere here. I like them actually…again, just not used to seeing them everywhere. They can grow to a height of 50 feet and if you see one with 5 arms or more, it’s over 200 years old.

Elevation

The city sits at 2,400 feet above sea level. My son lives in Yuma, about 225 miles to the west at an elevation of 138 feet. When I travel from Yuma to Tucson, I have no idea how I gain 2200 feet in elevation. It is all basically flat!! I don’t think the elevation is bothering me, but I will never know because I huff and puff a lot more than I used to anyway.

The Big City:

I moved from a town of 7,000 and a county with 70,000 people. I now live in Pima County with a population of over 1 million. That’s a big jump. There is traffic, although it moves pretty well as Tucson has the best traffic light system I have ever seen. Fortunately, before Ephrata I lived in large cities for most of my life. So, the adjustment is not as bad as it could be. But still…

Culture Everywhere:

Now, I admit I am not having any problems here…Tucson is full of culture and things to do. Saturday, I spent time in three art galleries enjoying the art works. I have already been to one classical music concert and am going to another one Sunday prior to the Super Bowl. Of course this is a University city, so there is plenty happening here. Tuesday I am going to an astronomy lecture for the public. Wonderful. It’s just hard to get used to after coming from a culturally-starved place like Central Washington. And it is hard to keep up with all that’s going on (poor, poor Jim).

All this feels strange, but I am slowly getting used to this whole new lifestyle...and I like it. So far so good. But, you know that when spring approaches, I will get the wandering itch.

As for the photos here, none of which are very good, the first shows part of Tucson looking from west to east. It was taken very near where I live and is the view I have when going into town. All the buildings you see in the background belong to the University of Arizona. You can even see the football stadium on the far right of the campus. The mountains in the background are the Rincon Mountains.

The second photo is to the left of the first photo, but taken from the same spot. It shows the Santa Catalina Mountains. The area below it with all the homes is called, The Foothills. Tucson is surrounded by five mountain ranges and spreads out in all directions for miles and miles and miles.

The third photo shows the courtyard in my apartment building. Notice the Southwest style, even in apartments. You won’t find this kind of architecture in Central Washington.

Anyway, all this is taking some getting used to…but I must say I like it a great deal.

Photo of the Day - Two Views of Landscape Arch

As you can see, I have been busy with my photo toys…working away on more of my images from the past few month. It is so nice to have my desktop computer back with a big screen.

Anyway this is Landscape Arch in the Arches National Park. It is about a mile walk from the Devil’s Garden. I believe it is the largest arch in the park. In a blog I wrote a while ago called “Falling Arches,” I talked about how part of this arch fell back in 1991. In the color photo, the rocks you see on the right side of the photo are remnants of that day.

In re-examining all my photos of Landscape Arch, I realized that many of them don’t show the arch very well as the rocks behind the arch blend in so well. They don’t when you are there, but in a 2-dimensional photograph they do.

The best photos are the ones where you move along the trail to the farthest point towards the right of the arch. Then, the sky becomes more of an element and sets Landscape Arch apart from its background.

I wanted to do a black and white photo of it and I chose the one I did based on the wonderful cloud formation. I had to really work in Lightroom and Photoshop to make it stand out as the sun was so bright and behind the arch. I do like the way it turned out.

But after completing it, I decided I wanted a good color photo of the arch, so I chose the one you see here, again showing a fair amount of sky between the arch and its background.

I like the rock in the foreground as it mimics (sort of) the shape of the arch…and there are some other nice elements in the photo. There is also some enhancement done with the Tiffen Filter set to make the rocks pop a bit.

It is usually a tough decision whether to do an image in black and white or color. If the photo has uninteresting colors and contrast, then the decision is easy. But, something like Landscape Arch has beautiful colors, so the decision is much harder.

So, tell me, which do you prefer?

Picture of the Day – Leavenworth

A short time ago, I wrote a couple of blogs about Tombstone, Arizona. In one of them, I called Tombstone, “Leavenworth with Spurs.” It occurred to me that many of you who read that blog have never been to Leavenworth, nor seen any pictures of it.

So, I decided to show you one of my favorite pictures of Leavenworth. I took it about 3 years ago. The building you see has a cuckoo clock just towards the top. You can see the doors as they are about ready to open. When the clock strikes at the top of the hour, a cuckoo does not appear, but rather music plays and some Bavarian dancers (statuettes of course) come out and twirl around. Its kind of fun and first-time Leavenworth visitors just love it.

But, I love the picture because of the clouds in the sky and the flowers in the foreground. Again, as I have explained here before, the photo works because you have a foreground, a middle ground and a background…and the eye flows smoothly through the progression.

Hope it pleases you.

Picture of the Day…The Little Painted Desert

Sorry I have not done more writing about some of my road experiences lately, but have been doing a writing job for a new client which has gobbled up much of my time. But, a least I still show you some interesting pictures from my journey.

Anyhow, this photo is of the Little Painted Desert (yes that is the name). It is a small county park about 15 miles north of Winslow, Arizona. It is called little not because of its size, but to differentiate it from the Painted Desert National Park, several more miles to the east. It is quite lovely, especially when seen towards sunset which of course is when I was there photographing.

I will admit to some enhancements here to make the colors pop, and on a good day with a good sunset, this image would be really close. The one sunset when I was there was not particularly good, light-wise. So I made it a little better…but I admit it freely. But, good or bad light, you should make an effort to go off the main highway and head up to see this park if you are ever in the vicinity. The colors are quite wonderful…as are the colors of the other national park of the same name.

If you go back many blogs to October 2008, you will see a strong resemblance of this desert to the Painted Hills of Oregon.

Picture of the Day – Rock Caves in Bryce Canyon

I photographed this image over a year ago, Thanksgiving morning in 2007 in Bryce Canyon. There were few people around that day as it was Thanksgiving…and the temp was around 10 degrees.

It is always fun having a beautiful place like Bryce all to yourself, then wandering all over clicking away like crazy. I think I took over 400 photographs just that one day. I arrived just as the sun rose in the east.

Anyway, notice the caves at both the top and bottom of the picture. And the different colored layers. I like this photo a lot and was hoping to get back to Bryce this last November, but as I mentioned here in another blog, the cold wintry weather closed in on me and I had to flee south. Maybe later this year.

Picture of the Day – Moon Over the Desert

I photographed this image at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in December of 2008. The cactus on the right in an Organ Pipe, the rare species I talked about in a previous blog. The sun was just beginning to make its presence known and was behind me. Because of the low light, I used a tripod.

While I was lucky to have such a beautiful moon that morning, the image came out a little flat for my taste. So I started working on it in both Lightroom and Photoshop. So, indeed, the image has been “pumped up” a little bit and looks a little better than it actually did…still, it is not that far off.

Being in Tucson has afforded me the pleasure of going to the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona. While there, I learned that several revered photographers from our past, including Ansel Adams, pumped up their images quite a bit while in a darkroom. I saw the original negative and first test print of a very famous image by Adams, and, let me tell you, the final print was so very different than the test print.

So while I used to be skeptical of too many enhancements in my images, I am not anymore, although I will always confess to it when possible.

I am working on revising my current Web site and am going to have a special section on enhanced images. This way, I can do any crazy thing to an image I want as I will be proudly telling the viewers that is exactly what I did.

Picture of the Day – A Russian Mig

There are two places here in Tucson that are must visits if you are an airplane or history nut…that would be the Pima Air and Space Museum and Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. The good news is that they are right next to each other.

What makes Davis-Monthan so interesting is the “Boneyard,” a little misnamed, but still somewhat accurate. The Boneyard is where thousands of aircraft are stored in the open air awaiting various fates. At the present time there are approximately 4,500 aircraft stored there. I will write a separate blog about that soon.

At the Pima Air Museum, you walk around and see (and touch) hundreds of different kinds of aircraft ranging in age from the First World War to nearly the present. Some of the aircraft on display include the SR-71 Blackbird spy plane, bombers of all size from WWII, the NASA “Pregnant Guppy,” President Kennedy’s Air Force One, and many, many more. Some are inside hangers, but many, many of them are on display outside.

There are also some foreign aircraft on display, including this Korean War vintage Russian Mig, probably flown to a US facility by a Russian defector.

From time-to-time, I will show you pictures of various aircraft at both the Pima Museum and the Boneyard, but just occasional as I am sure a lot of you have no interest in vintage aircraft (I know…boys and their toys).

Picture of the Day – Devil’s Garden in Black and White

It has been a while since I had a chance to sit down and play with Photoshop and Lightroom. Specifically, I wanted to do some more black and white images using some of the tools and skills I acquired before I left Washington.

Well, today was the day…I picked this image because I liked it for the composition and because there were clouds in the sky. So, I played for a little while using both programs and came up with this black and white print.

The picture was taken in the Arches National Park in the morning very near where I camped. The rock formation naturally leads your eye through the opening in the rocks to the Devil’s Garden rock formation in the distance…and the clouds make the whole image just pop right out.

I think this is a good one and I hope you like it too.

Postcard from Tombstone – Legend of the OK Corral

There is no more publicized and romanticized event in the days of the wild west than the Gunfight at the OK Corral. It is the stuff of movies, of legends, of exaggerations, and stories handed down from generation to generation. It has been wildly overblown as an event in our history, but still it holds us fascinated.

The OK Corral is located at the very end of the main street of old Tombstone, just where a horse corral should be. When one visits, you will find it surrounded by a tall, impenetrable wall…you see, you have to pay $9 to see it. For your nine bucks, you get to see the rebuilt corral, the Fly Photography studio (most interesting), the actual location of the gunfight (an empty lot behind the OK Corral), and a 1/2 hour re-enactment of the gun battle.

Being somewhat resistant to tourist traps, I wasn’t going to do it, but my curiosity got the better of me, so I slapped down my dollars and headed in. Couldn’t resist.

In the first photo, you can see the actual site where the gunfight took place, complete with some animatronics figures and a voice-over coming through speakers that tell the story of the gunfight itself.

Interesting, but the real bang for your buck comes from the re-enactment with real actors. There is an outdoor set complete with tourist seating where the drama unfolds. What makes it different is the story is told from the point of view of the Clanton Gang (also know as Cowboys) rather than the Earp’s.

The re-enactment is not actually what really happened on October 26, 1881...close, but just off a bit. In a nutshell here is how it is portrayed: Wyatt Earp, brothers Virgil and Morgan, and that most colorful of characters, Doc Holliday, go to the corral area to confront members of the Clanton Gang for carrying weapons, a criminal offense in Tucson. Virgil was the city marshal and Morgan a deputy. For that day, Virgil deputized Wyatt and Doc Holliday. The Earp faction had to be careful as the Clanton’s were part of a much larger group of outlaws called “Cowboys,” of which there were about 50 members who came in and out of Tombstone

Near the corral, they run into members of the Clanton gang…Ike, the leader, his younger brother Billy, two brothers, Frank and Tom McLaury (Billy Claiborne was also there in reality, but not in the re-enactment).

The Clanton gang goes for their guns, but Marshall Virgil tries to stop it before it gets out of hand. He almost succeeds, but Doc Holliday fires his shotgun into the air and the gunfight proceeds. First Ike Clanton runs toward Wyatt to try and stop it saying he is unarmed. He then proceeds to run away into Fly’s Photographic Studio. Then, in a hail of bullets, the two McLaury brothers are killed along with Billy Clanton. Virgil is shot in the leg, Morgan in the arm, and Doc Holliday receives a slight flesh wound. Wyatt is unscathed.

Of course, there is much, much more to the story, both before the gunfight and the aftermath that is worth reading in a very detailed entry in Wikipedia. Fascinating stuff.

Interestingly, the re-enactment is based on the movie, “Tombstone,” an excellent movie released in 1993 starring Kurt Russell as Wyatt, Sam Elliott as Virgil, and an amazing performance by Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday. The characters in this re-enactment are based completely on the actor’s performance in the film, especially Doc’s. Also, the Cowboys are wearing red sashes, just like in the film…only that is not the way it was. The director of the film dreamed up the red sashes so the audience could tell who the bad guys were.

If you have not seen the movie Tombstone, I heartily recommend it. You will find other flights of fancy in the film, but it is pretty close to what really happened. By the way, the gunfight takes place fairly early in the film as there is much more that happens later.

I did enjoy this part of my Tombstone adventure and am glad I spent the nine bucks. As mentioned above, the first photo shows the actual location of the gunfight, the second photo is of the actor playing Wyatt Earp, the third is Doc Holiday addressing the audience, and the fourth shows Doc firing his shotgun in the air as Virgil tries to stop any gunplay.

For your further amusement, have put together a quick slideshow on my web site showing more pictures of the re-enactment with captions. I hope you will take a few more minutes and enjoy them (warning: it takes a minute to load…but worth it).

Postcard from Tombstone – Leavenworth with Spurs

A few days before Christmas, I drove 45 miles southeast of Tucson to visit that legendary town from the old west, Tombstone, Arizona…”the town too tough to die.” I really picked a good time to go as there were very few people in town that day. One employee there told me that had I come just a week later, the town would be jam-packed full of tourists.

Tombstone is built for tourists…or as it is sometimes called, a tourist trap. Within five minutes of my arrival, I was laughing to myself as it reminded me so much of Leavenworth, WA…a tourist town in the Pacific Northwest where I spent a great deal of time in the last few years exhibiting my art. If you have not been there, Leavenworth a Bavarian-theme town set in the mountains that look similar to those in Bavaria.

The difference between Tombstone and Leavenworth (besides the obvious) is the former has a long history as an old west icon…whereas the latter was built from scratch from an ex-lumber town that was dying. Both attract lots and lots of tourists and their dollars. One friend of mine referred to Leavenworth as a cheap date for people from Seattle. I am not sure the same can be said for Tucson residents.

It’s obvious that downtown Tombstone was remodeled to present the downtown you see today, although a great portion of the old town still remains. You can still go into the Bird Cage theater and see the bullet holes from when cowboys shot their pistols in the air to show their approval.

Old Tombstone is three long blocks long and offers all kinds of old-west style shops for you to spend your money. While shop workers in Leavenworth wear Bavarian costumes, folks in Tombstone wear cowboy outfits. And there also any number of cowboys wandering around town along with horses, stage coaches and buckboards. It’s kind of fun, actually.

Here are a couple of observations I made while there:

There are two art galleries in town featuring paintings and photographs of mostly western themes. In a word…the art shown there was God-awful…along with the prices. While not being an trained art critic, I know bad art when I see it. And the photographs…I would be completely ashamed to show such terrible photos if I had taken them…and they were so overpriced. Talk about a holdup (that’s a joke)…

There is also at least one photography studio that I saw where a family can go in and dress in Old West outfits and have their picture taken. The pictures turn out well and I am sure that the families who have done this still enjoy them…except when you stop and think about it…the men pose as cowboys and the women pose as saloon gals…who, in those days, also doubled as prostitutes. Now, I am not sure I would want to have a photo of my daughters posing as prostitutes. Just a thought.

I enjoyed some of the town’s employees wandering around the town dressed as authentic cowboys…but it should be a policy that they must go somewhere less public if they want to use their cell phones. Sort of spoils the illusion.

If you like history, you will enjoy wandering around the office of the Tombstone Epitaph newspaper. It also has a permanent place in the history of the Old West. The same can be said for Fly’s Photography Studio.

I hope I didn’t sound too negative here as I enjoyed my brief time there even though my wallet stayed mostly in my pocket. I would like to go back again and focus on some close-up photo opportunities.

Now, you may have noticed that I have not mentioned the town’s most famous event…the gunfight at the OK Corral. Well, that is because I am saving it for my next blog. Stay tuned.

Pictures of the Day – Playing with Filters

Every once in a while, I like to play with all kinds of different filters and plug-ins that I have installed in Photoshop. I don’t normally show them as I prefer showing the image as it presented itself to my camera.

But today, I did some playing and really liked the results, so I am compromising my normal policy by showing you both the original photos (which I also like very much) and the new filtered version.

The picture is one I took at Siesta Lake in the Yosemite High Country. Siesta Lake lies right along the Tioga Road. It is much more a pond than a lake…and in fact when I was a young boy and camped with my family in the high country, this pond didn’t even have a name. It was just a pond that we passed on our way to our camping site.

The first picture is the original imaged processed normally in both Adobe’s Lightroom and Photoshop. The second image is one I did using a plug-in from Tiffen that offers all kinds of filters, each with hundreds of variations. Tiffen’s plug-ins are digital simulations of their glass filters that go in front of film camera lenses.

There was just something I really liked about this second image…probably the introduction of more blues and reds. I may do more of this fun filtering in the future and share them with you, but will always showing you the original image also.

Comments?

Picture of the Day – Dead Tree in the Needles

Sometimes you just get lucky. You get the right light, lots of color on the ground, a great sky with clouds, a good subject, and a good background. That is what happened here.

This was taken early in the morning while I was in The Needles section of the Canyonlands National Park. My photo guidebook said the best time to photograph the Needles themselves was early in the morning, just after sunrise. I headed out on the trail, which fortunately was directly across from my campsite.

After hiking on desert ground, scrambling over large rock formations and even going through a cave, I eventually got to a great location to photograph the Needles at sunrise. But, there were plenty of great photo opportunities along the way…and this was one of them.

Like I said, all the elements are here for a very good photo. All I had to do was compose the subject effectively in my viewfinder…and I believe I did. One thing I remember about this morning was that it was the first time in many, many days that I had clouds in the sky. And I took advantage of it.

On this entire trip, I photographed many dead trees in many settings. I think they make for interesting subjects as elements in a quality photo. You will see more of them over time. But, for now, enjoy this one.

Picture of the Day – Moon over America

Since we are talking about the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, I thought I would share this photo with you. I took it at sunrise, which was happening behind me.

I was lucky on this trip as I had a full moon. It was setting as the sun was rising, which only happens perhaps 2 days a month. So, I had great sunrises and great sunsets…just what a photographer wants. I have a few more shots with the moon in it which I will sneak in here from time to time.

Enjoy.

Postcard from Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument

This special and unusual national monument is located about halfway between Yuma and Tucson, but unlike Tucson, Organ Pipe is right on the Mexican border. It is quite large, consisting of some 330,000 acres. But more than that, it is the quintessential Sonoran Desert. When you stand on one of its many hills and survey its landscape, all you see is green desert, filled with 23 different kinds of cactus and many other desert plants, not to mention a whole host of desert animals.

The park is named after a very rare species of cactus, called, of course the Organ Pipe. Photo #1 shows a good sized example of an Organ Pipe. This is one of the very few places in the U.S. where it grows, in fact almost all of the Organ Pipes in the U.S. are located within the park boundaries (It can also be found in Mexico).

The Organ Pipe cactus is found all over the park, especially on the south side of the park’s many hills. It needs abundant heat and light and is very susceptible to frost. It blooms once a year, for one night, anytime from May through June. Cross pollination is accomplished by bats, which, of course, only fly at night.

The other primary cactus here is the Saguaro, the tall one that can be seen in photos. They are all over the Southwest, especially here in Tucson. There is one growing just a few feet from my home here. But there are many others, to be sure, all visually different.

The park has a wonderful campground that is part and parcel of the desert environ. After picking my spot, I walk around and had the distinct impression that the campground had been professionally landscaped to show off all the different types of flora that can be found here. It was so beautifully laid out and easy to walk around in.

After some later explorations of the park, I found out that there was no need to landscape…this is the way this desert is laid out by nature. It looks the same everywhere you look.

The campground is located 5 miles from the border and is elevated so you can see thousands of acres of Sonoran desert as well as Mexico. This is the perfect time of year to visit there as summer temperatures, as you might guess, go well above 100 and drop down between 75-80 at night.

Photo #2 shows the south side of one hill where the Organ Pipes thrive. Picture #3 show an Organ Pipe and a Saguaro at sunset. Oh, and did I mention that the sunsets are incredible here?