thanks, grandpa

“Photography was never simply a hobby or a profession for me. Once I began taking pictures, it became an integral part of my life.” Galen Rowell in Mountain Light

(It’s not as if it wasn’t obvious before this, but…) The degree to which photography has become an integral part of my life was brought home to me recently when I flew back to Pennsylvania to visit family. My carry-on luggage was my Tamrac camera backpack (with two cameras & three lenses), and my greatest concern about my suitcase was whether my tripod would fit into it. It did.

I like to think that I came by my passion for photography honestly, since my Grandpa Berty was quite the avid amateur photographer. Maybe there’s a photography gene that got passed along to me. I’ve had one of my grandfather’s old cameras for a while now (a venerable Canon AE-1), and when I returned to Colorado from this most recent visit home, I was able to bring another one of his cameras with me… a top-of-the-line Kodak Instamatic Reflex, made in Germany, with Schneider-Kreuznach 50mm & 135mm lenses. Cool.

While I was home in PA, my family got together to celebrate my grandpa’s 91st birthday. I know, Wow! As he was opening gifts and I had my camera in hand, snapping some shots of the celebration, I couldn’t help but say a silent thanks for the priceless gift he had passed along to me: a love for photography and a passion for looking at life through the lens of a camera.

My grandfather loved to photograph flowers. Below is a photo he shot of flowers at his home in Falls Creek, PA (if you’re a local, properly pronounced “false crick”) and then below it is a photo I took at Phipps Conservatory in Pittsburgh during my visit home.

Thanks, Grandpa.

it's hard to resist a good reflection

This past Saturday morning, I headed over to Sawhill Ponds outside Boulder for sunrise. There was nothing terribly exciting going on, but I do like the above image from that morning’s shooting. It’s hard to resist a good reflection.

Before I started to get serious about photography, I have to admit that I don’t remember paying any attention whatsoever to reflections. Now I look for them all the time. Anytime I’m out & about and there’s water, I check it for reflections of the landscape or sky. Big lakes, small ponds, calm pools in streams, even rain puddles… they’re all worth checking out.

The best time to get reflection shots is, big surprise, the usual magic hours around sunrise & sunset. This is not only when you will have the best chance of finding calm water, but it will also allow you to get shots without direct sunlight hitting the water’s surface.

If the sun is up and the landscape is illuminated by direct light, but the water is still in shadow, you’ll need to think about using a graduated neutral density filter. But if you're shooting multiple exposures for HDR or for merging two exposures in Photoshop, then you’ll just need to bracket a shot (for HDR) or make two exposures for the high contrast/low contrast sections of the scene (for merging in Photoshop).

If shooting a reflection in shallow water, it’s a good idea to leave your polarizing filter off the camera since it will tend to wash out the reflection and instead allow you to see whatever is under the water’s surface (gravel, rocks, grass, mud, etc…).

Reflections are worth searching out since a good reflection can add an extra dimension to an already interesting scene (the Chapel on the Rock image), make something interesting of an otherwise dull scene (the Lake Irene shot, below on the left), allow for a different interpretation of a scene (the rock and reflection of the Indian Peaks, below on the right). Even if the landscape itself is boring, some heavenly light in the sky or some captivating clouds can make for a lovely reflection shot.

So whenever you’re out & about and find some water, check it out for reflections because they make for beautiful photos and because, hey, let’s be honest, very few things say, “I’m a serious landscape photographer” like a cool reflection shot :-)

Thanks for reading about stuff I’ve photographed. ~Rich

embracing winter's rearguard action

This is an odd ‘in-between’ season of the year when it’s not really winter any longer, but it’s not yet spring either. Here in Colorado, that means it can be 70 degrees & sunny one day, then 25 degrees & a blizzard the next.

It’s all a bit frustrating, photographically-speaking. There are beginning to be tantalizing glimpses of spring, and yet in the last ten days or so we’ve had three snowstorms. I’m wishing spring would go ahead and really start building some momentum, since I’d like to get started on my 2009 photo wish list (the twenty places in Colorado that I want to get to this year during spring, summer, & fall). I’ll admit that a good snow makes for a lovely landscape… but I’ll also admit that I’m no fan of winter. In fact, I can’t wait for it to be over.

Okay, sorry... I think I just needed to vent a bit. To be honest, winter actually does present some great opportunities for photography. You just have to be willing to get Out There in the snow & cold. And even when it’s warm and everything is brown & blah down here near Denver in early spring, you can still head up into the mountains and find beautiful, wintry scenes. Shoot, there were places I went hiking last July that still had quite a bit of snow on the ground. And in August we had a snow storm up in the mountains that resulted in one of my favorite photos ever (the shot of me in front of Longs Peak that is in the upper right corner of my blog).

This past weekend, I decided to embrace the most recent round of wintry weather that was making a determined attempt to roll back the tentative advancements of spring, and so my wife & I headed up to Rocky Mountain National Park and did some snowshoeing. We rented snowshoes at The Warming House (great folks there) and we hiked up to Dream Lake. The landscape was gorgeous. The pine trees looked especially elegant wearing their coating of snow. We had a great time and… don’t tell anyone, but… for a few hours there in the achingly beautiful, snow-covered mountains of the Colorado High Country, I forgot how much I’ve been wishing for spring.

Thanks for reading about stuff I’ve photographed. ~Rich