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

perspective in landscape photography

Ever wonder why your landscape photograph doesn’t have the same visual impact as the scene you remember seeing live & in person? It might be because you didn’t take into account the element of perspective. A photographer needs to understand how perspective works and how to use it to plan a composition that creates the illusion of depth.

In photography, perspective gives the impression of three-dimensional depth and distance in an image. As landscape photographers, we have to work at creating this impression because while we naturally view a scene in 3-D, photographs are a two-dimensional representation of that scene. Think of it this way: The world around us has real depth & distance, while a photograph is a representation on a flat surface (whether it’s a print or an image on a computer screen). In her book Creative Nature & Outdoor Photography, Brenda Tharp gets to the heart of the challenge we face as photographers when she says, “It’s all about translating a three-dimensional world into two dimensions while still expressing depth.”

A photographer has two major means of “creating” perspective. The first trick in our bag is to arrange a visually interesting composition that takes advantage of the spatial relation of objects. Most often, the best way to do this in landscape photography is to include some foreground interest in the shot. In the photograph at the top of this post, I didn’t just take a picture of Longs Peak & upper Glacier Gorge. I hunted along the shore of Mills Lake until I found this interesting boulder perched on the shore, and then I composed a shot that included the boulder, lake, and peaks. (Also notice how I composed the shot so that the lake makes a bit of an s-curve and therefore serves to lead the eye into the shot. I’ll talk more about that in a minute.) In the photo below, I had to do quite a bit of location searching before I found a spot where I could get some visually interesting foreground (houses) in the shot. I'd noted this general view a few times at sunset (silhouettes of skyscrapers & mountain ridgelines) and knew it would make for a dramatic shot in & of itself… but I also knew that if I found some interesting foreground to create an extra measure of depth & distance (near, middle, far), it would make the photo much more successful.

The second major way to create perspective in our photographs is to find some sort of converging lines that will lead the eye into the scene. Trails, roads, or (very visually pleasing) the s-curve of a stream or river all work well to achieve this effect, but any sort of line will do. In the top shot below, I had to search for quite a ways along the banks of the river before I found this pleasing s-curve. Notice how the eye follows the river into the shot, to the mountains in the distance. In the other shot, the eye naturally follows the trail into the shot, to the layered ridgelines.

Both of these compositional techniques require that you really think about how you’re putting together a shot, but if you take a little extra time to arrange compositions that include either foreground interest or converging lines, I think you’ll be very pleased with the results. Knowing (and utilizing) these tricks-of-the-trade will create perspective in your photos, and elevate your landscape shots to the next level.

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

the steeler nation

I’ve finally had to come to grips with the fact that I’m officially an expatriate member of the Steeler Nation. (expatriate: to leave one’s native country to live elsewhere)

My wife and I moved from western Pennsylvania to Colorado a little over a year ago, so this past Tuesday, while 350,ooo faithful descended on the capital of the Steeler Nation for a victory parade to welcome home the most storied and successful franchise in the NFL, I was heading to work in Denver. While those same Steelers faithful were bundled up against the wintry cold and the snow showers that day, it was 65 degrees & not a cloud in the sky here in the Mile High City. No, we’re not in Pittsburgh anymore, Toto.

Having lived in the very heartland of Steelers Country for so long, it came as a rude shock to move to a place where people actually root for another team. I have to give these folks in Colorado credit, they love their Broncos… but it seems as if all they have to hang onto are faded, past glories. The Steelers, on the other hand, have now won division, conference, and league championships in the 70s, 80s, 90s, and 2000s. Since 1969, the Steelers have had just three head coaches (Chuck Noll, Bill Cowher, and Mike Tomlin). Each of those coaches has won the Super Bowl. While other teams measure success in winning seasons, in Pittsburgh the standard is Lombardi Trophies.

Living in western PA, you hear about this thing called the Steeler Nation, but it never really clicks. Living in Steelers Country, where Pittsburgh’s fortunes on the gridiron are much more important than such trivial matters as life and death, it only seems natural that the whole world would be Steelers fans. But then you move away and you realize people do in fact root for other NFL teams, and so for you to be a Steelers fan is now not just a way of life, it’s a matter of pride. You become determined to make the corner of the world where you now reside into a small part of the Steeler Nation. You still wear your Steelers jersey out & about and still cherish the flag of the Steeler Nation: the Terrible Towel.

I should have known the Super Bowl was in the bag as soon as the mayor of Phoenix pretended to blow his nose with a Terrible Towel and then threw it on the ground. You don’t mess with the Towel and get away with it. Just ask the Bengals, the Ravens, or the Titans. The Terrible Towel has been to the summit of Mt Everest and proudly displayed on the international space station. Steelers fans in the armed forces have taken it with them to Iraq and Afghanistan. No matter where the Steelers play across the country, it’s a given that there will always be a few (or more) Terrible Towels waving in the stands.


I took my Terrible Towel to the top of 14,259-foot Longs Peak (the northernmost 14er in Colorado & the highest peak in Rocky Mountain National Park) with me this past summer. I’ll never forget the smiles and delight of the other people on the summit as I dug into my pack and broke out the Towel. To a Steelers fan, the Terrible Towel is much more than just a piece of cloth; it is the outward symbol of hearts that will bleed black & gold until the day we die.


I was really homesick during the exciting run up to Super Bowl XLIII. I would’ve given anything to be in Pittsburgh this past Tuesday for the victory parade. For now, I’ll have to be satisfied with being a proud member of the Steeler Nation. After bagging Longs Peak last year, I'm making it a goal to climb a couple more 14ers each year that we live here in Colorado… and the Terrible Towel is going along with me to the summit of each one!

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