black & blue hike

This past Thursday, I was casting about for a hike to do this weekend and I finally settled on Black Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park. I’d hiked up Glacier Gorge to Black last summer, but that was before I got my wide angle lens (Canon 10-22), so I’d kinda been itching to re-do this hike with it.

As I was perusing my RMNP map while preparing for the hike, I noticed Blue Lake up above Black and I thought, “Wouldn’t it be funny to visit both lakes and call it The Black & Blue Hike?!” So that’s what I did.

Blue Lake lies at 11,140 feet and is a 5.5 mile hike from the Glacier Gorge Trailhead. During the hike up to Blue, you’ll gain 1,960 feet in elevation and will pass Mills Lake, Jewel Lake, and Black Lake. Each lake offers remarkable views, and you’ll find yourself breaking out the camera at each one. You’ll also pass right alongside Ribbon Falls as it cascades down the steep slope below Black Lake.

I started hiking about 5:20am this morning (Saturday, August 22nd) and reached Mills Lake an hour later, just as the sun was rising. Even though the bright ball of the sun was rising far to the east across the Great Plains, Glacier Gorge was still locked in deep shade, and would be for quite a while yet. I decided to go ahead and get a shot at Mills anyway (below), since this is one of my favorite spots in RMNP. Plus, there was a halfway decent reflection and I knew I better jump on that while it lasted since any kind of reflection at Mills Lake is (in my experience) pretty rare.

A few minutes later, I also stopped and got a shot at Jewel Lake, which is Mills’ next door neighbor. It was still pretty dark, even though it was now a good twenty or so minutes after sunrise, but again I decided to go ahead and get a picture here since the reflection was too good to pass up (below). To get to this spot, I hiked off the trail just a short way, through the marshy meadow at the northern end of the lake.

In both the Mills & Jewel shots, you’re looking up Glacier Gorge toward Longs Peak. I could actually see some lights winking off & on up there as folks were heading for the Trough after going through the Keyhole and out onto the Ledges. It made me think of my climb up Longs via the Keyhole Route, a year ago next week.

From Jewel Lake, it’s still about a two mile hike up to Black Lake. The trail is kind of rough & rocky as it winds its way through the forest. When I got up to Black, there was a stellar reflection of McHenrys Peak and Arrowhead, so I hopped out on some rocks to a likely spot and fired away. I used a graduated neutral density filter to try and deal with the contrast difference between the brightly lit mountain tops and the heavily shaded lake. HDR processing also helps with this and the image below was created from five different exposures (-2, -1, 0, +1, +2).

After shooting at Black Lake, it was time to head up to Blue Lake. The shot at the top of the post is Blue Lake, looking north back down Glacier Gorge. In Rocky Mountain National Park: The Complete Hiking Guide, Lisa Foster says:

Blue Lake sits obscurely atop a large shelf below the steep northwestern slope of Storm Peak. This secluded and rarely visited lake remains neglected only because of its proximity to better-known lakes serviced by a good trail. The hike follows the Glacier Gorge Trail to Black Lake and beyond before becoming a short off-trail jaunt over tundra and boulders to reach the breathtaking setting of this high alpine lake.

And I had a bit of a hard time finding it. Just a bit. But I found it, by gosh.

The hike out was pretty uneventful. I finished the hike about a quarter after eleven. Six hours… not bad for an eleven mile hike with plenty of photography along the way. And unlike last Saturday, when I hiked up to Chasm Lake in less than optimal weather, today’s weather was grand. Not a cloud in the sky the entire hike. The temp when I left the trailhead this morning was an exquisite 42 degrees. The temp when I got back down home early this afternoon: a brutal 90+ degrees. Geez.

Anyway, Black Lake is a great hike if you want to leave behind all the people that make their way up to Mills Lake. On the hike up, and then until I got back down to Mills, I probably didn’t see more than ten other people.

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

1 hike, 3 hours, 3 lakes

After a long, joyless work week, I decided that a good Saturday morning hike in Rocky Mountain National Park would probably go quite a ways toward restoring my faith in the proposition that life is good. After checking out the weather map, my plan was to be at Dream Lake for sunrise and hopefully catch some calm water, since none of my previous visits to that spot have yielded a decent reflection shot. Also on the itinerary were Nymph Lake (which you pass on the hike to Dream Lake) and Lake Haiyaha, but I’d just play it by ear as far as going up to Haiyaha.

When the alarm went off at 3:00am I was sorely tempted just to shut it off & go back to sleep (I had worked until eleven the night before), but I figured you only live once and so dragged my lazy carcass out of bed. The caffeine-free drive up to the park was uneventful, if a bit bleary-eyed, but I managed to keep the Mini between the lines and arrived at the Bear Lake Trailhead around 4:30am. There were maybe seven or eight other vehicles in the parking lot, including a few skiers getting their gear ready as they prepared to hike up to one of the glaciers (Tyndall, I assume) and have some fun.

After changing into my hiking boots & a quick stop at the potty, I headed out at exactly 4:45am. Sunrise was around 5:40am, so I was looking good. Hiking by headlamp always seems pretty tedious to me, and if you allow your imagination to run wild you start imagining every noise is a mountain lion getting into position to pounce, so thankfully after about fifteen minutes or so, it was light enough to see & I could turn the lamp off and stow it in my pack. Passing Nymph Lake in the darkness, I could tell the surface of the lake was perfectly calm so I dared to hope the same would hold true at Dream Lake when I got up there. The hike up to Dream Lake is a piddly 450 feet in elevation gain, and since the trail is paved (for pete’s sake) until just beyond Nymph Lake, it can be considered a pleasant stroll for anyone in reasonably good health even though you’re at 9,700 feet above sea level.

The best position from which to photograph Dream Lake (in my opinion) is the eastern tip of the lake. Just before reaching the lake, when you get to the Y in the trail (left to Haiyaha, right to Dream & Emerald) take the left, go just a few yards, then leave the trail and head right, cutting through the trees & across the stream until you reach the lakeshore. When I reached that spot shortly before sunrise, there were already two other guys there. Bastards. Just kidding— there’s plenty of room for one & all. Scoping out the wind/water conditions while getting set up, my hope for a cool reflection shot looked like it was about to be fulfilled. Sweet. (see the shot at the top of the post)

When I’d wrapped up shooting at Dream Lake, there still wasn’t a breath of wind, so I decided to head up to Lake Haiyaha. I’d been up there last October, but the water in the small pond next to the lake (where you get a better shot than at the lake itself) was frozen, so I hadn’t been terribly happy with the shot I’d come away with on that occasion. So this morning, I figured that if I could get there before the wind kicked up, I stood a decent chance of capturing a nice reflection of Hallett Peak in the rocky little pond.

Let me tell you, wanting to catch that reflection, I hustled from Dream up to Haiyaha. (Okay, I did stop once to get a shot of Longs Peak & also snap a few shots of the layered ridgelines off to the east.) The hike from Dream to Haiyaha is a bit more of a workout than the section from Bear to Dream. From Dream Lake, you only gain 320 feet in elevation but most of that is in the one big switchback right after you leave Dream and it’ll get your heart pumping. The trail levels out just about where you start to have magnificent views of Glacier Gorge & Longs Peak across the way, and the remainder of the hike to Haiyaha is easy going.

There still wasn’t a breath of wind when I reached the pond next to Haiyaha, so I got the shot I’d wanted at that spot (see below). I’m surprised, though, that I got a clear shot, what with the clouds of voracious mosquitoes. I had applied a liberal amount of Deep Woods OFF before leaving the car, but it didn’t seem to make a lick of difference to those bloodthirsty little fascists. They were literally all over every square inch of exposed flesh. Yuck. I could hardly stand it long enough to grab a horizontal & a vertical shot, and then I beat a hasty retreat.

On the hike out, I stopped at lovely Nymph Lake with its multitude of lily pads and snagged some nice shots (below). Once again, I was happy to find a splendid reflection, since my previous visits to this spot had yielded distinctly substandard images.

Nymph is just a hop, skip, & jump from the trailhead, so I was back at the Mini in short order. In just under three hours, I had hit three scenic mountain lakes… and was headed out of the park before most of the tourists were even up & around yet. All in all, well worth the 3am wake up time!

On the drive down Bear Lake Road, I had to stop so a mule deer & her twin fawns could cross the road in front of me. I said a silent prayer, thanking God for that sweet exclamation point to a wonderful morning in Rocky Mountain National Park. Life is good indeed.

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

close encounters of the bison kind

As you drive back Antelope Flats Road in Grand Teton National Park you pass a warning sign alongside the road. The sign has the silhouette of a buffalo on it and warns you not to approach wildlife. Upon entering the park, you also receive the flyer you see to the left, warning you not to approach buffalo. But what happens when the buffalo approach you? Both of the mornings I spent at Mormon Row, photographing the Moulton barns, I had close encounters of the bison kind.

Morning #1: I arrived at the John Moulton Homestead to shoot the barn there at sunrise. There were four guys there already, all friends who had arrived together. After I set up tripod & camera, we chatted while waiting for the sun to break the horizon at our backs and illuminate the barn with that sweet first light of morning. As we talked, we watched a big bull buffalo drift slowly over from the direction of Antelope Flats Road, then mosey along in front of the pink house, then start to angle over toward us. Hmmm. It didn’t escape our notice that all that was between us & him was the piddling little irrigation ditch. Thankfully, just as we started to get fidgety & discuss possible avenues of retreat, the bull stopped in a little clump of trees just to the left of the barn. And there he stayed, eyeballing us, until we had finished shooting and took the long way around back to our cars.

Morning #2: I was back on Mormon Row, this time at the southern barn (Thomas A. Moulton Homestead) to photograph at sunrise. This time I was the first to arrive. As I scouted camera angles, I noticed a small herd of buffalo, about a dozen animals, a quarter of a mile down the meadow to the left of the barn. It was about fifteen minutes before anyone else showed up—a lady & a guy from a photo workshop, and then a college-age girl from Lancaster, PA (a fellow Pennsylvanian!). I had set up by the boards crossing the irrigation ditch up in the corner of the field by the road, and the photo workshop folks set up a little ways over to my right. The girl from Lancaster & I chatted about Pennsylvania stuff, and we all waited for first light to hit the barn.

Meanwhile—yes, you guessed it—the herd of buffalo was slowly but surely moving up the field toward us. Closer. Closer. Hmmm. The photo workshop lady quickly packed up her equipment and got in their car. The guy looked like he wanted to duck back to the car also, but was watching to see what the Lancaster girl & I would do. What did we do? Brilliantly, we huddled behind two trees, away from the herd, who had now stopped twenty-five feet away and were just standing there looking at us. There was one bull with them who was HUGE. Maybe the same fellow from the morning before. Maybe he enjoys spending his mornings terrorizing photographers. Anyway, when you’re that close to a herd of bison with just a tree in between you & them, you’re suddenly, uneasily, fearfully aware of how large & pointy their horns are. It was all I could think about. “Dang, those horns look sharp!” must’ve run through my mind a thousand times.

After what seemed like an eternity, but was probably just a few minutes, the herd started to drift back down the field away from us. They made up for scaring us half to death by crossing over in front of the barn and providing us with some cool shots. The big bull was the last to cross over the ditch and then amble in front of the barn.

So those were my two mornings on Mormon Row photographing the Moulton barns. Let me tell you, starting your day off with close encounters of the bison kind will wake you up better than any cup of Starbucks coffee!

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

why i like the doing of it myself

If my vacation photos are the reason I’m going on vacation, what exactly do I gain by heading for (what I’m reasonably certain are) two of the most photographed national parks in the country? From Ansel Adams’ famous Snake River shot in 1942 to some anonymous tourist’s pic of Old Faithful taken last week, Grand Teton and Yellowstone have been photographed ad nauseam. Why waste my time beating a dead horse? Why not just go sit on a beach for a week instead?

Okay, so even if I went to the beach for a week, I’d still be snapping photos every chance I had, so what’s wrong with me?

I think I just like the doing of it myself. When I go somewhere, whether it’s Boulder Creek or the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, it’s not to imitate the photographs of others, but to fully embrace my own personal experience of the place. I go to accept nature’s invitation to draw away and, outside under the open sky, look beyond the boundaries of my own existence.

Photography, for me, is a creative contact with nature. It’s the passionate pursuit of this contact that calls me forward, always forward, to the next photograph. Hidden in each photograph is a new experience. And each new experience gives me a chance to celebrate the gift of being alive.

I must admit, there’s a certain restlessness in this pursuit of the next photograph, the next new experience. I think that’s because deep within each of us there’s a desire to celebrate the gift of life, and we’re always searching for some endeavor that will allow us to do that with every part of our true self. For some, that may be needlepoint or skydiving or gardening or rock climbing. But for me, it’s being outside with a camera.

So why am I heading for (what I’m reasonably certain are) two of the most photographed national parks in the country? Because it’s not just about the photographs I’ll bring back; it’s also about the experience those photographs will represent. That’s why I can never be content just looking at someone else’s pictures of a place. No, I like the doing of it myself.

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

photography quotes

I realized it had been a while since my last post and that it was about time for me to get something new out... but I sat down and was having a bit of writer's block, so I thought I'd just share some photography-related quotes I've been collecting lately.

* "Being a photographer means living your whole life subconsciously considering the light, but there are worse things to be obsessed with." David Noton

* "As the light changes from moment to moment, from day to day, and from season to season, it alters the appearance of the landscape. As a photographer, you should become visually sensitive to this process and be aware of how the landscape is shaped by the light." John Shaw

* "Good composition is merely the strongest way of seeing." Edward Weston

* "At the point of capture, the photographer benefits from the entire scene, not only the light in the landscape but the scene's scale and depth. Only a small portion of the landscape can be included in the viewfinder. My vision of a final image helps me to ensure that the exclusion of the periphery of a scene does not prevent me from conveying what I saw and felt when I was there." Michael James Brown

* "Every successful photograph is a balanced fusion of subject, composition and light." David Ward

* "Luck plays its part in landscape photography. But being in the right place at the right time is not really about luck. If the location itself is spectacular, then the place, to an extent, will do the work. But the good photographer has the determination, skill and sensitivity to make photographic sense of it all, and the sense to witness those wonders when the light is at its most magical." Joe Cornish

* "The question could be posed: 'Why photograph?' This gives rise to huge debate but, essentially, the impulse that leads one to make a landscape image perhaps amounts to no more than a simple wish to please oneself. For there can be no doubt that the image-making process draws us into the essence of things." Charlie Waite

* "The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes." Marcel Proust

look more, shoot less

While driving up to Rocky Mountain National Park this past Saturday afternoon, I decided I’d only take ten photos during my visit to the park. Usually I return from an outing and I’ve filled the memory card with shot after shot. And most, many, the vast vast majority, just get deleted. Once I get them open on the computer, I cringe, wondering what on earth I was thinking. So on Saturday, I decided to look more & shoot less.

I used two of my self-imposed limit of ten before I even entered the park. As I drove down into Estes Park, I saw the Stanley Hotel sitting over to the right and thought, “Hey, how’s come you’ve never photographed the Stanley???” Two shots from two different viewpoints later, and I only had eight shots left for the park.

Once I entered the park, I drove up to Bear Lake and took two shots there. The light was all wrong in both shots, and I knew that even when I was there, so I don’t know why I took them. Grrrr. Delete. Six shots left.

I drove back down to Moraine Park and parked along the road to the campground. I’d never really explored this, the western end of the spacious meadow. I wandered around for quite a while along the banks of the Big Thompson River, exploring different compositions. I would’ve liked to take a photo looking west, including the peaks of the Continental Divide up beyond the end of the valley… but the position of the sun late in the day made the light all wrong (I’d learned my lesson up at Bear Lake!). I ended-up taking four shots (vertical & horizontal compositions) of the scene you see at the top of the post. The reddish rocks attracted me to the spot, as did the s-curve in the stream. At first, I had the camera set up very low, at knee-level, but belatedly realized that viewpoint was below the raised bank of the river and therefore cut off any view of the vast expanse of the meadow (you just saw the rocks, the stream, and then the wooded hills in the far far distance). To better the composition, and to fully utilize the incredible depth of field of the 10-22mm wide angle lens, I raised the camera up so the composition would include the rocks at my feet, the stream, the meadow beyond, and the hills in the background.

The vertical composition that you see here is my favorite image from that spot. It nicely channels your eyes up into the photo (rocks, stream, meadow, hills). The horizontal composition is also pleasing to the eye; it allows your eyes to roam from side to side and in that way conveys a sense of the vast expanse of the meadow.

On the way back to the Mini I used my last two shots (horizontal & vertical compositions) on a lone tree I’d seen up on a hill when I’d first drove back the road and parked. I set up the shot with the bright ball of the setting sun directly behind the tree (and the camera in the shadow of the trunk), intensely backlighting the branches. What can I say? I like trees!

And that was my ten shots. It turned out to be an interesting experiment. It really forced me to look around more & think about each composition. I “wasted” a few shots, but learned something even from those ones, so they weren’t really wasted efforts. I’m very happy with the photo of the stream at the top of the post, especially since I doubt I would’ve even discovered that spot if I hadn’t set out to look more & shoot less.

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

photoshop magic

While I was on my Denver photowalk this past weekend, I was excited to shoot the Holy Ghost Church & 1999 Broadway. It's such an amazing scene, with the skyscraper rearing up right behind the little church. But when I got home and opened up those shots on the computer, I wasn't happy with any of them. The compositions were okay, but the blah, washed-out, gray sky ruined the images.

So I decided to try something I'd never attempted before: using Photoshop to replace the sky in a shot. I dug out a book I have on Photoshop Elements 6 (The Missing Manual by Barbara Brundage) and went to work. I used the sky from another one of my Denver photowalk locations (the St Cajetan Church photograph). After much trial & error, I finally had an image I was happy with.

I'm still not sure how I feel about doing something like this to a photograph, though. I can't decide if I've crossed some line and destroyed the integrity of the original image, or if I've simply creatively enhanced the scene that was before me.

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

my wide angle denver photowalk

date of activity: 3/7/09

I went into Denver yesterday to try out my new Canon 10-22mm lens. I’ve seen some interesting cityscapes & architectural shots taken with this wide angle lens (on different Flickr groups), so that’s why I decided to head into the big city for the lens’ initial outing.

I got a book from the library called Getting To Know Denver by Francis J Pierson, and used it to cobble together my own photowalk through the Mile High City. There were several places on my itinerary that I didn’t get to, but after three+ hours of walking around & shooting, I was starting to get tired and I’m always kinda stressed in the city anyway, so I decided to head back to the car without hitting the last few locations.

The spots I did get to, in order, are:
*Millenium Bridge
*Union Station
*St Cajetan Church
*D&F Tower
*Federal Courthouse
*Holy Ghost Church & 1999 Broadway
*Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church
*17th & Broadway
*Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception
*State Capitol Building
*Denver Art Museum & Denver Public Library

And I have to laugh because while I was making my way around the city on my little photowalk, I was asked on three different occasions if I would use someone’s camera to take their photo. Each time, it was with some variation of, “You look like you know what you’re doing.” I tell ya, all you have to do is carry around a tripod and people think you’re Ansel freakin’ Adams! (I wish.)

I’m glad I did the photowalk in Denver as the first outing with my new lens, but I just don’t get cities. I’ve been in my share of big cities, and as far as urban craziness, Denver is admittedly pretty mild… but still, I’d much rather be up in the mountains than walking around a city any day. Being in the city absolutely drains me, while being out on a trail somewhere makes my spirit come alive. Soooo… I think it’s pretty safe to say that the next time I take my new lens out & about, there’s probably not going to be a building in sight in any of the photos I bring back :-)

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

the scene & the moment

“To isolate any tree imbues it with stateliness and nobility.” Charlie Waite in Landscape: The Story of 50 Favorite Photographs

We passed this spot while we were on our way to eat with my wife’s family a couple of weeks ago. Several trees out in the field caught my eye and I immediately imagined a photograph made later in the day, at last light, with the bare branches silhouetted against a clear sky as if they were etched upon it. It was only when I returned to the spot this past weekend that I realized I’d be able to arrange a composition that included Longs Peak… so getting my favorite 14er in the shot turned out to be an unexpected, but very welcome, bonus.

One of the things I enjoy about photography is how we, as photographers, are able to not only capture a scene, but capture a moment… and, more than that, help shape the scene & moment that are preserved in our image.

The time of day we choose to photograph a scene helps shape the image we capture. I got this shot at sunset, and this would have been a totally different photograph at any other time of the day, in different light.

The season in which we choose to photograph a scene helps shape the image we capture. I love the stark, bare branches of the tree silhouetted against the empty sky in this image. If I’d taken this shot in summer, with the branches full of leaves, this would be a totally different shot.

How we choose to compose a shot helps shape the scene we capture. I chose to isolate this tree in the frame, along with Longs Peak, so that it’d be a very simple composition. There were other trees just out-of-frame to the left and right, and a barbed wire fence immediately in front of me, but this photo is simply about a tree and a mountain, captured in a moment of time.

Of course, there are other factors/tools/choices that can help shape the nature of the image we capture: things like the lens we choose to use, or our choice of aperture or shutter speed or focus or filters. Any post-processing & editing we do once we have the shot opened up on the computer is important, too.

To me, when you get right down to it, photography is about Being There, about capturing an interesting scene in an unrepeatable, unique moment of time. As landscape photographers, we of course have to work with the raw material which nature gives us, but that we can help shape the scene & the moment we capture is, to me, very cool and very humbling.

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

alpenglow

It’s the last Saturday morning of January and I’m on my default setting: standing by my tripod, somewhere in Rocky Mountain National Park, waiting for sunrise. In this instance, I’m perched on a hillside below the Gem Lake Trail, marveling at the view of Longs Peak across the way… and please please please let there be some alpenglow along with the dawn’s early light.

I’ll let John Fielder (one of my favorite landscape photographers) explain alpenglow… In his book Mountain Ranges of Colorado, he says: “Of course, sunrise makes for the best photography, especially on clear days when the sun breaks the horizon at a very low angle over the Great Plains. Thanks to a property of physics that causes the Earth’s atmosphere to absorb, or make invisible, the ‘cool’ colors (blue, green, violet) in the spectrum of light, this low-lying sun turns peaks red.”

This phenomenon lasts only moments, but to view it in person here in the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado is a wondrous, breathtaking experience. Well worth the rolling out of bed at an ungodly hour, the drive in the pre-dawn darkness, the hike by headlamp to just the right spot, and the waiting for sunrise on a cold hillside once you’ve arrived at just the right spot. As the light begins to paint the peaks, you can't help but think that life is very good indeed.

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

sensor cleaning

After noticing dust specks on some shots over the past month, I finally decided to bite the bullet and clean my sensor. The dust spots were very noticeable in the blue of the sky in my landscape shots, and were most obvious in shots that were made with smaller apertures (I usually shoot my landscapes in the f/16-22 range). After doing a bit of research on the internet, I found that beginning to notice specks in these instances seems to be fairly normal once dust is on the sensor.

Note: The Canon EOS 40D has one of those fancy-pants automatic sensor cleaning units that operates when the camera is turned on & off, and is supposed to shake off the dust from the front of the sensor. This feature works as advertised, but sooner or later you will still have to expect to get in there and manually clean the sensor in some form or fashion.

Soooo… after noticing the undeniable evidence of dust-bunnies on my sensor, I had a couple of choices open to me. (1) I could ignore the dust and use the Canon software’s “dust delete” function to erase the specks in each shot. But the thought of leaving the dust on the sensor didn’t sit well with me. (2) I could send my camera to Canon and have them clean the sensor for me. But from reading some accounts on internet forums, this sounded like it’d be a bit of a hit-or-miss proposition… since some folks have got their cameras back with the same or even more dust specks on the sensor. (3) I could clean the sensor myself.

The thought of mucking about in my beloved 40D’s innards spawned a few moments of anxiousness, but this is actually the course of action I decided upon. I had been in there once before, shortly after purchasing the beast, to change the focusing screen and that had gone well… so surely I could handle this?

After doing some more research on the internet, I settled on wet cleaning the sensor using the “copper hill method.” This essentially consists of ordering a kit from Copper Hill Images which includes a SensorSwipe tool, PecPads non-abrasive wipes, & Eclipse (E2 for the Canon 40D) optic cleaning fluid. I also picked-up a Giotto’s Rocket Air Blower at Mike’s Camera in Boulder.

The sterling service from Copper Hill Images was noteworthy, and the directions that accompany the materials (there’s also an on-line tutorial) were clear and detailed.

So yesterday morning, with just a bit of fear & trepidation, I arrayed everything close to hand on our dining room table, positioned a desk-lamp at my elbow, and sat down to do this.

In the 40D’s menu there is a selection for manually cleaning the sensor (it locks the mirror up out of your way until the camera is turned off), and after finding this & activating it, I got down to business. And I’m still alive to tell the tale! More importantly, I don’t seem to have done any irreparable damage to the sensor and, in fact, seem to have slain the dastardly dust bunnies which had started breeding on my sensor.

Actually, it was very easy. I think I’ll need to do it a few more times to feel completely comfortable with it, but the process itself was simple. From mirror lock-up to replacing the body cap, maybe three minutes had passed. If that.

Thanks for reading about stuff I’ve photographed… or in this case, stuff I’ve cleaned. ~Rich

you just never know

When you take a photo, you just never know what kind of reaction you might get to it. For instance, take this picture of a rhinoceros hornbill. I spent waaaay too much time photographing the two hornbills at the Denver Zoo (I think my wife was ready to bodily move me along) simply because I was so fascinated by them. But since posting this photo on Flickr, zoos in Texas and Pennsylvania have asked for permission to use it.

I didn't set out thinking that if I photographed this bird, I'd have zoos across the country asking to use it... I just got some shots of the hornbills because I thought they looked cool & because I was enjoying a day at the zoo. The lesson I've taken away from this experience is that it's important to photograph what interests you, have fun while you're doing it, and not worry about what kind of response you might get to your photos. Some of my favorite photos haven't received many looks at all on Flickr, while photos I thought were just so-so have been raved over and got hundreds of hits. You just never know. So what's most important is to be present in the moment, have fun with the experience, and to hopefully maybe learn something new (technically) from each outing (what could I have done differently with the camera settings? could there have been a better way to compose the shot? would the light be better if I went back at a different time of day? etc...)


And just between you & me, this baby giraffe is actually my favorite photo from that day at the Denver Zoo:


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

pawnee national grassland

date of activity: 1/11/09

If you ever want to know where the middle-of-nowhere is, then just visit the Pawnee National Grassland in Weld County, Colorado. Okay, the grasslands aren’t actually so terribly remote… it only took me a little over two hours to reach the Pawnee Buttes from our home in the Denver-area, BUT it sure felt like the back-end of nowhere. The buttes themselves are pretty amazing, rising up as they do 250 feet above the surrounding prairie. You can see them from miles away. The entire area has a wide-open, desolate beauty. And also a very lonely, isolated feel since I didn’t see another person, or even another car, once I left the paved road (CO 14) and started winding back the rough, gravel roads into the heart of the grasslands.

I returned from this excursion with two photos that I’ve wanted to get for quite a while.


For some time now, I’ve wanted to get a shot of a remote stretch of road, straight-as-an-arrow, disappearing off into the horizon. I thought I might be able to get a shot like this when I was out in Utah, but never found just the right stretch of road that matched the image in my mind’s eye. This past Sunday, however, when I was on CO 14, somewhere past the town of Ault, I found my perfect road. I was heading east, topping a rise, when I looked in my rearview mirror and realized the stretch of road I’d just travelled over might just possibly be what I’d been seeking for. So I found a place to turn around… and sure enough, there it was—my perfect stretch of road! I tried out a few different compositions… some with more road than sky, some with more sky than road. This is my favorite. I really like this shot. There are no telephone poles or road signs or anything else to distract the eye from the clean, straight lines of the road and horizon. I’m also glad that it was a bit overcast that day, since the haze off to the west (masking the Rocky Mountains) seems to powerfully imply journeying into the unknown. As always, I used Photoshop Elements 6 to process the RAW data (digital negative). After my usual editing workflow in Elements, I also ran it through the Poster Edges filter.


For even longer than I’ve wanted a ‘road shot,’ I’ve wanted a ‘fence shot.’ I’ve taken plenty of pictures of fences, but have never been able to get a shot I felt good about. On this particular day, though, it was all coming together for me because after I got my ‘road shot’ and made my way back to the Pawnee Buttes, I got my ‘fence shot’! I had hiked out to the cliffs that are just south-west of the buttes and got some shots, then was heading back to the car, just about to pass through the gate at this fence, when I looked around… and sure as I was standing there, I knew this was going to be my long-awaited ‘fence shot.’ I backed up a few steps, explored a few different angles, and finally decided on this spot. I set the tripod up without unfolding the legs (so it remained about knee-high), since this would give me the perspective I wanted. I used a large aperture (an f/stop of 4.5 did the trick) since I wanted the closest post to be in sharp focus and everything else off into the distance to be less so. Since I don’t have a wide-angle lens (yet) I use the photomerge tool in Elements a lot for landscape shots, and that’s what I did here. I stitched together two vertical shots (near/far). This is also an HDR image, so I shot multiple exposures which I ran through Photomatix. The last thing I did in Elements was convert it to black&white. I used the infrared setting and then played around with the contrast a bit until I was happy with the result.

Needless to say, finally getting both my ‘road shot’ & ‘fence shot’ made my weekend. I’d like to return to the Pawnee National Grassland this spring and get some shots of the buttes with wildflowers in the foreground, and there’s also another shot I’d like to try from a spot farther out to the north-west. So stay tuned!

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

doudy draw sunset

I was really hoping for some jaw-droppingly dramatic color in the clouds this particular Friday evening. I had banged-up my arm at work earlier in the week, and by Friday I had a bad case of cabin-fever from not getting out for a few days. So I decided to run over to the Doudy Draw Trail for sunset, and try to get a few shots with one or two trees I’d scoped out when I’d been there before. It’s not a terribly exciting spot, but it’s easily accessible (which I had to take into account because of my arm), and I’ve always liked the stately, barren emptiness of the landscape there… and I figured some Technicolor in the clouds would make for a cool photo.

Well, as you can see, I got a bit of color in the clouds, but nothing anywhere near jaw-droppingly dramatic. Still, I like this shot a lot. I enjoyed the quiet solitude here as I waited for the sun to set.

While I was waiting, I thought about how each day is made up of a rich variety of circumstances—whether I’m at work or at home, at the grocery store or watching a sunset, in a room full of people or driving alone in the car. And each set of circumstances I encounter are like crossroads marked by signposts. Go this way to choose joy, this way to choose discontent. This way to choose hope, this way to choose despair. Go this way to choose love, this way to choose selfishness. This way to choose adventure, this way to play it safe.

The great thing about these crossroads & signposts is that they remind me I have a choice. In a very real way, I can contribute to the creation of each moment. In all the people, events, and circumstances we encounter, the greatest gift we can give the world is to choose our contributions wisely and with integrity… and with a healthy dose of fun and adventure.

Anyway, back to this photograph. I initially found myself very disappointed in the sunset this Friday evening. I had set out wanting to photograph a dramatic sunset. What I was given instead was a moment of subtle beauty and quiet solitude. And so rather than walking away disappointed, I instead chose to enjoy the gift of that moment.

And I think I still got a pretty cool photo out of the whole deal!

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

loch vale hike

date of hike: saturday, 11/1/08

“The land here is like a great book or a great symphony; it invites approaches toward comprehension on many levels, from all directions.” –Edward Abbey

For those who enjoy being outdoors and also love photography, there’s no better place to be than Colorado. At least that’s my humble opinion, after moving here late in 2007. And my favorite place in Colorado to fuel my twin passions for hiking & photography is Rocky Mountain National Park.

My first visit to RMNP was this past June, and since then I’ve made fifteen return visits. (The annual pass I purchased on that first visit was a wise investment!) In those sixteen trips to the park, I’ve hiked over 100 miles & shot many hundreds of photos. No matter how many trips I make to RMNP, I hope I never forget the genuine thrill I felt on my first visit, as I thought “Wow! I’m in Rocky Mountain National Park!!”— and I hope that, despite a growing familiarity, I’ll never become blasé about paying a visit to one of America’s premier national parks.

On this particular visit, my destination was Loch Vale. I had been on hikes up Glacier Gorge on several occasions (as far as Black Lake), but I had never before been up Loch Vale. I lost count of how many times I’d be hiking & photographing in other parts of the park, and someone would ask me, “Say, have you been up to The Loch?” I got really tired of always having to answer, “No.” So before the weather got too bad this year, I decided to go ahead and get this hike under my belt. And now when someone asks me, “Say, have you been up to The Loch?” I can smile and answer, “Yep!”

When I pulled into the Glacier Gorge parking lot about twenty after six on this first Saturday morning in November, there was only one other car in the parking lot. It took me just a few minutes to gather my gear, shoulder my pack, and head up the trail. On most hikes, I’ll have my pack with both cameras, assorted filters & lenses, 32 oz. of water (this varies, depending on the weather & length of the hike), some kind of snack (most often trail mix & an apple), and also my tripod. All told, this adds up to about twenty pounds of stuff I’m lugging along with me! I have a Tamrac Adventure 9 backpack & I’d recommend it without hesitation. It has certainly performed yeoman duty on all my hiking adventures, and even went to the top of Longs Peak with me.

I passed Alberta Falls about twenty minutes into the hike, and ten minutes later (about 7am) it was light enough that I didn’t need my headlamp any longer. At the major trail junction between the Loch Vale & Glacier Gorge Trails, I bore right and headed up into new territory for me. The trail gained elevation pretty steadily, and then- after negotiating a few switchbacks- I found myself at the famed Loch. It’s definitely a location that has the scenic-thing going for it, but I found myself disappointed for two reasons. First, because on the hike up, there had been absolutely no wind at all, and I had harbored high hopes of getting a nice reflection shot once I reached the lake—but once I got up to The Loch the wind was blowing VERY hard. I thought perhaps it’d die once the sun came up (since this has been my experience on other occasions), but it just never let up. My second reason for disappointment was in the lackluster light that accompanied sunrise. With the dawn, there were a few scattered clouds off to the east, but over RMNP there was almost solid cloud cover. This cloud cover was being carried very quickly from west to east, and within a few moments of sunrise it had completely doused any direct light from the sun. As a result, the light was very flat & washed-out, not just at sunrise but on the entire hike. I don’t think I saw my shadow the entire time I was out on this hike. Not so great for photography. I wished the clouds would’ve at least been photographically-interesting ones (big, billowing, stormy ones maybe), but this was just a grim, solid, gun-metal gray cover blanketing the sky.

The photo that accompanies this post is a four-shot HDR panorama. After scouting along the shore of the lake a bit, I settled on this spot because I thought the trees on each side might frame the shot nicely and also provide a bit of foreground interest. I really would’ve liked to wait until the sunlight crept down the peaks quite a bit farther, but this simply wasn’t an option since those darn clouds were racing east to extinguish the dawn’s early light. Moments after I got the shots for this panorama, the direct light was cut off.

All in all, this wasn’t such a great morning for photography, but I did get in a nice hike. AND now I can finally say I’ve been to The Loch!

Thanks for reading about stuff I've photographed. -Rich

south boulder peak hike

date of hike: sunday, 10/26/08

After hiking up to Bear Peak back in April, I'd had it in the back of my mind to return sometime and also bag its next-door-neighbor, South Boulder Peak. The diverse sprawl of land that makes up The City of Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks includes six "major" peaks, and South Boulder Peak (8549 ft) is the tallest.

On the hike up, by the Stockton Cabin, there was a small pool of water alongside the trail. I broke out the PowerShot and took 5 or 6 shots of the leaves which had fallen and collected in the water. I thought the disorderly variety of shapes & (muted) colors might make for an interesting photograph. And this turned out to be my favorite photo from this hike. I titled it "The Fallen." As I was taking the photo, I was consciously trying to compose it so that the entire frame would be filled with leaves, and so the yellow leaf (a splash of brighter color) would be in the center of the shot. After I got home and had the JPEG opened up on the computer (the PowerShot doesn't have the capability to shoot in RAW), I went through my usual workflow in Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 to tweak the shot. Depending on the shot, my 'usual' workflow includes: levels, brightness & contrast, saturation, sharpening, lighten shadows/darken highlights. With this shot, I also ran it through the Poster Edges filter. There are quite a few features & tools in Elements that I still don't quite get (like layers), so I usually just stick with the basics when I'm editing a shot.

I like photos such as this- ones that focus on intimate details of the landscape that you'll most likely miss if you are not actively searching for them. One of the things I enjoy about photography is that it's teaching me to see the world differently. John Fielder (an amazingly talented landscape photographer who lives here in Colorado) said, "Photography is 90 percent seeing and 10 percent photographing..." And I've found that to be so true. I look at the world differently when I have a camera with me. I constantly scan near & far, on the look-out for interesting contrast and light, color, line and shape, texture.

I shot quite a few other photos on this hike (let me tell you, finding a place to set-up the tripod on the jumbled rocks of the summit was tricky), but as I said before, this is my favorite. I'm not sure I can tell you why, except maybe that it's the most 'intimate' landscape I shot that day.

Thanks for reading about stuff I've photographed. - Rich

getting started

Although I have a Flickr account (I'm seriously addicted to Flickr), I decided to start this blog so that I could begin to write a bit more about stuff I've photographed. I have two digital cameras: a Canon PowerShot S5 IS and a Canon EOS 40D. I mostly use the S5 for close-up/macro shots, and the 40D for everything else. Both cameras are great. I bought the 40D after doing some research on DSLRs and finding a review where the guy said the 40D is the camera he'd take to Everest base camp with him. I use Photoshop Elements 6 to edit my shots. I also use Photomatix Pro 3 for HDR.