Patterns in eroded shoreline sandstone rocks at the Point Lobos State Reserve, California.
The rugged Point Lobos shoreline in places exposes some very interesting rocks, including sections like this one where layers of different colored sand stone are gradually worn away, revealing underlying layers of different colors and textures and sometimes exposing surprising color contrasts. On days when the light is very soft (or very boring!) I may seek out some of these rocks and photograph them since the softer light lets details appear that might easily be washed out in harsher light.
Detail photograph of the patterns of overlapping gullies near Zabriskie Point, Death Valley National Park.
I have been working on a sort of informal project to photograph small details at Zabriskie Point that do not necessarily reveal the larger, familiar, and very iconic landscape of the place. A few years ago I noticed – almost by accident – that certain features of the surrounding landscape can be photographed in conditions quite different from the “standard” dawn and very early morning lighting. In fact, some of the geology can, I think, be photographed in interesting ways even during unusual times of the day when there is full sunlight. A bit later in the morning the light, which tends to glance across the tops of some features earlier in the day, begins to penetrate down into the little valleys and gullies and reflect into them from some of the brighter surfaces. While it can work in full sun, it may work even better when there is a bit of overcast, as there was when I made this photograph and a couple others in the series.
With this specific subject I also tend to work from a bit of a distance using long focal length lenses. This one was shot at 400mm! This poses a problem that we don’t encounter as often when using more (supposedly) typical landscape focal lengths, namely that it is hard to get the whole subject in focus due to depth of field issues that become more apparent with such long lenses.
Also, when photographing these rather pale and pastel formations, it is very easy to succumb to the temptation to jazz things up a bit. To be honest, I have seen some very good and interesting work that relied on amplifying contrast and the subtle colors. However, I’m trying hard to not go too far with this. I certainly do some work in post to balance things out a bit and to get the effect that I think best evokes what I recall of the scene, but I’m avoiding the inclination to, for example, adjust curves to the point that I get a lot of pure blacks and whites in this subject that mostly contains bright mid-tones.
Intensely colorful red and orange autumn aspen leaves in the eastern Sierra Nevada.
Late in the day on this rainy eastern Sierra fall day I headed for a small dirt side road that I know of in the Bishop Creek drainage. Along this road are a few special aspen groves that I have photographed in the past, including one with very slender trees and sometimes fiery colors. This time I was there a bit earlier than in the past and, ironically, the leaves on these trees were so thick that they didn’t lend themselves to the photograph I had in mind. I did make a few photograph of these trees – one of which will likely appear here before long – but then I decided to try something other than what originally brought me to this spot.
I put the 135mm f/2 lens on the camera – perhaps not a typical landscape lens, but quite nice for shooting close images of leaves and creating soft background blur – and went hunting for small groups of leaves with appropriate backgrounds. Because it was late in the day and in an area where the sun drops behind ridges fairly early and overcast and raining intermittently, the light was really interesting. While this light can mute some colors, it also fills in the shadows a bit and can intensify the colors of bright subjects like the aspen leaves.
This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.
A broken window in a brick wall with cinder blocks behind, High Line Elevated Park, New York.
This odd window set against a solid cinder block wall was alongside the High Line Park in the Chelsea area of Manhattan. I am always intrigued by odd brick patterns, including those where someone has painted the bricks. The image of the smashed window “opening” to a solid wall was also compelling, and in a larger print there are some very interesting patterns, colors, and textures in the broken glass and the bits of paint on the window.
This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.
Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.
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