For me the best things in life are traveling and taking pictures. This April, for the first time in four years I have the opportunity to go on a international photo trip. I spent a lot of time thinking about possible destinations: I could go somewhere iconic in the photography world like Iceland, Patagonia, or the Himalaya but I don’t like the idea of traveling to these highly-photographed locations to take the same pictures as every other photographer who goes there. But it occurred to me that there is a place just as beautiful which has somehow managed to stay off the world’s photography radar: New Zealand. I’ve been there a few times before and always been blown away by the sheer grandeur of the place. Yet I’m baffled by the lack of quality photos from this gorgeous country. So I’m going there for the entire month of April not only to create new and beautiful imagery from this spectacular place, but also to help put it on the photography map.

But in order to produce the best images I possibly can I need to take advantage of as many opportunities as I possibly can, which is where I could use your help. I’ve already got the trip itself paid for but since this project is about photography I want to make sure that the images I come home with are really special. I plan to charter scenic flights, go on glacier hikes, and hire outfitters and guides to take me to remote locations in order to get the best photos possible. I’m gathering support to help me cover the costs involved in taking advantage of these special opportunities. Every little bit of support means one more chance to create a killer photo. But I’m not asking for a donation or for charity. In return for helping support the project, you will receive fine art prints of your favorite photos from the trip. Which means not only are you supporting a fantastic adventure and arts project, but you’re also getting unique and beautiful fine art photography at a great price. Any amount of support, even $1, helps me make this photography adventure as good as it can be.

But there is a catch: since I’m raising funds through Kickstarter, it’s an all or nothing effort. In other words the project only gets funded if I meet or exceed my goal of $3000 by the funding deadline, which is coming up in only a few short weeks on March 18th. If I don’t reach the goal by then I don’t get any funds at all. So please support if you can, tell your friends and family, and with your help this project will be the experience of a lifetime.

You can find out more about this New Zealand photography adventure here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/593851074/new-zealand-grandeur-a-photographic-journey

My sincere and never-ending thanks,

Josh

Not everything is Epic, and that’s okay. Are we in such a rush to produce The Next Great Image that we forget that conditions aren’t always astounding? Lackluster sky? No problem, we say, I’ll just add a heaping helping of contrast in photoshop. Now it’s Epic! Forest colors aren’t quite as rich as we hoped? No worries, I’ll just bump the saturation slider. Now it’s Epic!

I have no problem in creating beauty, or in processing a good photo to make it great. But when everything is always forced to be Epic it desensitizes us to the moments that actually are. Think back to 2011. How many other photographers’ photos instantly spring to mind? How many images actually made such an impact on you that can picture them as vividly and clearly as the day you first saw them? Forget photography for a second. What about sunsets, how many from the past year left such an indelible impression on you that when you think “sunset” that’s what you think of. For me, it’s maybe two or three in the past 18 months.

So be ok with sunsets, sunrises, conditions, and photos being Not Epic. In the end you’ll have a greater appreciation for the few singular moments when things truly are.

Hope this doesn’t sound pretentious or ranty, as that’s not my intention. I was just noticing that I hadn’t posted anything in awhile because I haven’t had great conditions lately. I thought about trying to spit-shine one of my recent lackluster shots into something better and it got me thinking about this topic.

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This photo is one from one of those special moments for me. When I think “sunset” I think of this night, the insane light show, the great wave action, and the good company. This is another take on one of my most popular images: Arch Angel. This shot was taken a little later than that first shot when the sunset colors got a bit pinker and slightly less glowy.
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Tech notes on this photo
———————————–
Nikon D300s
Tokina 12-24 f/4 at 12mm
ISO100
f/8 – Sharpest spot on my lens, still adequate for full DOF with my crop sensor
1/1.6 sec.
Cloudy white balance
Lee soft 3-stop GND filter

Post-Processing
———————-
In Raw Converter (Nikon Capture NX2)
- Processed single raw file once
- Global curves adjustment to add contrast and pop
- Local contrast adjustments to enhance shine and streaks in the foreground

In Photoshop:
- Noise reduction via Neat Image plug-in
- Selective sharpening of the arch
- Soft light burn / dodge layer, dodged sky in upper left, used luminosity mask to dodge water streaks, and dodged arch. Burned reflections slightly
- Levels adjustment layer to improve contrast on arch

Until next time

~Josh

Before the shot

In order to make good photos, you have to have good light, so I usually don’t go out to shoot unless there’s a very strong possibility for some sunset color and interest in the sky. I’d been watching the clouds all day and about an hour before sunset I observed lots of clouds overhead but a break near the horizon to the west.  I knew this meant a good chance that the sun would slip into that break as it was setting and light up the clouds overhead, so I headed out to shoot. When I got to the coast I found that there were almost no clouds to the west and north, but plenty of clouds to the south and east, so I knew to get the best color I’d want to be facing somewhat southeast. I’m very familiar with the Santa Cruz coast and I knew that because of its orientation, Four Mile Beach would provide a perfect opportunity to shoot in that direction.  Arriving at the beach, I saw that the clouds to the southeast were indeed starting to color up, and that they lined up nicely along the beach.  This was perfect because it meant I could create a composition that included the beautiful Four Mile seastack as a background element.

During the shot

The clouds let me know exactly in which direction I should shoot, so now I just needed to find a composition that pointed that way. I found these mudstone rocks poking up out of the sand right in the surf zone and decided to use them as my foreground element to anchor the composition. There was lots of mudstone to choose from but I liked this little formation the best because it had some really nice directionality to it, which meant I could use it to point into the frame, which is a great way to direct your viewer’s attention into your photo.  And the little spit of rock in the lower right also pointed into the frame and helped balance the rocks on the left. I decided to go with a vertical composition instead of a horizontal one for three reasons: 1) I was able to exclude a big, dark, distracting shelf of rock just out of frame to the right. 2) The vertical let me add more emphasis on the foreground rocks. 3) The color reached up pretty high into the sky so going vertical let me include more of that.

Of course, a big part of the impact of the photo comes not only from the vertical comp, but also from my ultra-wide angle lens. By shooting at 12mm (on a crop sensor), I added a huge amount of depth to the photo.  Then by getting close to the rocks in the foreground I could really exaggerate them for a big visual impact.

But back to the overall composition.  I had my foreground element in the mudstone, and my background element in the seastack, so now it was just a matter of aligning everything. For this I fell back on one of the golden rules of photography: the rule of thirds.  The rocks in the foreground terminate about 1/3 of the way up from the bottom of the frame, I gave 1/3 spacing to the mudstone elements on the left and right, I placed my horizon 1/3 of the way from the top of the frame, and I put the seastack 1/3 of the way in from the left of the frame. Now why did I do that last one?  There is obviously more color out of frame to the left, so why didn’t I place the seastack on the right hand side in order to include more of the clouds above the cliffs?  That’s a good question, and the answer is I did it for two very deliberate reasons: 1) From watching the flow of the water, I knew if the seastack was in the right third of the shot that the watery streaks in the foreground would run out of the frame to the right, and you never want to have lines leading out of your frame if you can avoid it as it pulls your viewer’s eye right off your image. 2) In landscape photography it’s generally better to have lines running diagonally across your image rather than vertically parallel to the edges. And if I had placed the seastack on the right the line of the surf would have been running more vertically than diagonally, which would have created a big, empty dead zone on the left hand side of the photo. So just by using the simple rule of thirds and thinking a little about the direction of visual flow in the image, I was able to create this engaging composition.

Once I had my shot lined up it was a matter of figuring out what camera settings to use. For me there are two things that are always a given: 1) using the lowest ISO possible in order to get the cleanest image, and 2) starting my aperture at f/9. I use f/9 as a starting point because it’s the sharpest aperture on my lens, helps me de-focus any scratches or drops on my filters, and with a crop-sensor camera it still gives me sufficient depth of field to score sharp focus throughout the image.  A third thing I commonly dial in when shooting at sunset is cloudy white balance, as it gives my photos some nice color and warmth without adding a dingy color cast to any blues or greens.

So with ISO100, f/9, and cloudy WB set on the camera I set my shutter speed to 1/5 sec (just a quick guess based on a spot meter of the sand in front of me) and went about balancing the brightness of the sky with the foreground using some Lee soft GNDs. Because I was pointed about 90° away from the sun my whole scene was being lit directly, as opposed to being backlit as it is when shooting directly into the sun. This meant that I wasn’t going to need stack a bunch of strong filters to balance the light, and it also meant that the filter transition was going to be very smooth and even. Hooray, that’s what I like! From experience I know that my Lee 3-stop soft GND is usually the right choice in this situation, so pulled it out and slapped it over my lens. I took a quick test shot and saw on my LCD that the sky was now very nicely balanced with my foreground, excellent. But there was one problem: because the soft edge of the filter reached pretty far down into the frame, my whole image was now underexposed by a fair amount.

So looking at my histogram I cranked my shutter speed up to 1/2 second and took another shot. Now the histogram was looking just about perfect: a nice bell shape, no clipped highlights or shadows, and no blinkies on the LCD display. Yessss.  But I noticed that I still had some leeway on the highlight side of the histogram so I cranked the shutter speed up even longer to 2/3 second, not because the exposure needed fixing, but rather because I knew I wanted to create a silky look to the waves, and the closer I can get to a 1-2 second exposure, the better I can do that. So my final settings were as follows: ISO100, f/9, 2/3 second, cloudy white balance, LEE 3-stop soft GND filter.

But this shot is about way more than just camera settings. Now that I had the technicals locked down I had to decide how I wanted to capture the waves. Like I said a moment ago, I knew I wanted a silky look to the water in the foreground, so that meant waiting for a wave to swoop up the beach and be on the way back out before I hit the shutter button. But I also wanted to have something interesting happening with the rest of the water in the frame, so I just watched the waves for a minute or two to see what they were doing. And I really liked how the waves were curling through the midground and crashing off the rock in the center of the frame. So now I knew what I wanted to capture, I just had to wait patiently for the right time. Eventually two large waves came through back to back. The first rushed up the beach and was on its way back out as the second wave came in. Just as the second wave started to curl over, I tripped the shutter and caught the curl of this wave, some splash as it crashed on the rock, and the streaky lines of wash from the first wave as it rushed back down the beach. Nice! I shot a couple more like this to make sure I had a few options to choose from, and this one ended up being my favorite of the bunch.  And if you’re wondering, yes, I got really wet during this shoot!

After the shot

Straight out of camera jpeg on left, final image after edits on right

Now that I had my shot, it was time to edit it on the computer to give it some sparkle. I always shoot in raw format to give me the most flexibility in processing, so the first step in my workflow was to open this image in the raw converter. Because I paid attention to my histogram in the field, my exposure was spot-on and didn’t need any adjusting. However, I shoot in Neutral mode because it gives the most even and natural histogram. But it also means that the raw files can be quite flat. So to punch this one up I added some global contrast to make the lights lighter and the darks darker. This immediately added some depth and richness to the image. However, it also made the sky a bit lighter than I wanted, so I added some local adjustments to darken the sky to bring back the color and detail there. Then I sent the raw file into photoshop for the final adjustments.

In photoshop I added some sharpening to just the rocks in the foreground and the cliffs in the background. Then, looking over the image, I decided I wanted to bring out three specific elements: the color of the reflection in the sand, the color in the curling wave, and the watery streaks and foam. All three were easy adjustments: a selective saturation increase to bring out the green in the wave; a dodge/burn layer to burn the reflection in the sand, making it darker and more saturated; and on the same layer I dodged the watery streaks and foam to bring out their whiteness to help contrast with the dark rocks and deep ocean green.

And voila!

Final thoughts and possible improvements

I really like this image, but there are a few things that I feel could make it even stronger: 1) It would be nice if there were more colorful clouds in the right-hand part of the sky, but given my comp, there’s nothing I could do about this. 2) There are two little semi-circular ripples on the right-hand side of the frame that I find mildly distracting.  Perhaps on another wave they wouldn’t show up quite as strongly. 3) There are some foamy bubbles just sitting on the rocks in the lower left that aren’t adding anything to the photo, so it would be nice it they weren’t there. 4) I would love to see a little more separation between the big rock in the midground and the seastack in the background.  But the only way to do this would be to get higher, which means I’d lose this composition. 5) Lastly, as the waves crashed over the rock in the midground they created some beautiful waterfall streamers. I would have loved to capture some of those in this image as well, but with the timing of the waves it just wasn’t possible. But that’s one of those little extra touches that can really elevate an image.

Josh

You can learn more about how to make images just like this on one of our nature photography workshops.

The Sierra high country is timeless. These granite mountains, these meadows, and even this tree sentinel have been here longer than I’ve been alive and will be here much longer after I am gone. They stand day after day, month after month, year after year. Not waiting for anything, not expecting anything. No deadlines, no schedules, no Mondays, Wednesdays, or Saturdays.

If you spend enough time in the mountains, you begin to tap into that endless cycle. The feeling of “having to do something” slips away, along with pressures, schedules, and responsibilities. I don’t know anything quite so pacifying and relieving as connecting with the stillness of the mountains.

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Tech notes on this photo
———————————–
Nikon D7000
Tokina 12-24 f/4 at 12mm
ISO100
f/9 – Sharpest spot on my lens, still adequate for full DOF with my crop sensor
1 sec.
Shady White Balance
Lee soft 3-stop GND filter

Post-Processing
———————-
In Raw Converter (Nikon Capture NX2)
- Processed single raw file twice, once for sky and once for the foreground and tree
- Global contrast for added pop
- Local brightness/contrast adjustments to brighten tree, enrich the sky, add contrast to granite

In Photoshop:
- Manual blend of two tiffs for master composite using an initial gradient mask, refined using a luminosity mask to paint in tree detail in the sky
- Selective sharpening of the granite, the tree, and the mountains
- Soft light burn / dodge layer, burned granite slightly
- Curves layer to add a little more saturation and oomph to sky
- Color balance layer to remove slight excess warm tint

All the best!

~Josh

Global Warming, Tenaya Lake

It all started before Christmas when I saw a video of people ice skating on a frozen Tenaya Lake in Yosemite’s high country. Wow, that’s cool, that doesn’t happen very often, I thought. Then, about halfway through the video, the filmer unwittingly showed something that had my eyes bugging out of my head: thick and crunchy pressure ridges and cracks running through the vast ice sheet covering Tenaya’s surface. And that sealed the deal: since Tioga Pass is open this late into the year maybe once in a generation, I knew I needed to take advantage of this unique photographic opportunity.

The week after Christmas I set out for three days of camping, hiking, exploring, and shooting the high country near Tuolumne Meadows. My timing was just right and I had three days of incredible shooting conditions and more natural beauty than you can shake a stick at. This shot is from the sunset on the first night: a rip-roaring pink and purple glow which set the icy reflections and cracks aflame on Tenaya Lake.

———————————–
Tech notes on this photo
———————————–
Nikon D7000
Tokina 12-24 f/4 at 12mm
ISO100
f/9 – Sharpest spot on my lens, still adequate for full DOF with my crop sensor
1 sec.
Lee soft 3-stop GND filter
Cloudy White Balance

Post-Processing
———————-
In Raw Converter (Nikon Capture NX2)
- Processed single raw file twice, once for sky and foreground, and once for the granite domes
- Global contrast for added pop
- Local contrast in the foreground to bring out the cracks and bubbles

In Photoshop:
- Manual blend of two tiffs for master composite
- Selective sharpening of the ice cracks and bubbles in the foreground, as well as the domes
- A “repair” layer to clone out some ice chunks people had thrown all over the lake, as well as some tracks carved into the ice by skaters
- Soft light burn / dodge layer, dodged through luminosity masks to bring out the thin ice crack in the lower right
- Curves layer to add a little more contrast to foreground
- Color balance to remove a lot of excess purple cast from the foreground caused by the increase in contrast (side note, just realized I could’ve also fixed this issue by changing my above curves layer to the “luminosity” blend mode to affect brightness values and not color values)
- Curves layer to add a little brightness to domes
- Color balance through a luminosity mask to remove excess warm cast from trees

All the best!

~Josh

Starting with #10…

Temple of the Sun, Capitol Reef National Park

In May I took a two-week road trip through Utah… One of my first destinations was the seldom-visited Capitol Reef National Park.  This undiscovered gem of a park encompasses the Waterpocket Fold, a massive wrinkle in the earth’s crust.  There are enough canyons, arches, slots, washes, spires, and geologic oddities here to keep a photographer busy for years.  Because of the amazing beauty and low visitation of the park, I dubbed Capitol Reef “The Coolest National Park You’ve Never Heard Of.”  For me it certainly was an astounding introduction to the area and a great way to kick off my trip.

9) Olmsted Point, Yosemite National Park

“I want to hike Half Dome for my birthday.” That’s what my mom said at the beginning of the Summer to kick off this adventure. So she and a number of other women began training. But once they realized what exactly was involved in hiking Half Dome, the women started dropping off like flies. By the time my mom’s birthday rolled around in mid September, only she and two steadfast friends were still gung-ho for the hike. This meant she had extra permits and so I decided to join them as well.

But a funny thing about those permits, they are for a specific date which is non-transferable. So when your day arrives, you are hiking that trail come hell or high water. And in our case it was high water: massive thunderstorms rolled in in the afternoon and absolutely drenched us, flooded Little Yosemite Valley within minutes, and turned the late-season trickles in the park into roaring waterfalls once again. Thank goodness we had already summited Half Dome and were on our way back down by the time the weather began.

Here’s a shot from the night before when the tail end of a thunderstorm caught the sunset glow. I was hoping to shoot in Tuolumne Meadows but when it became clear the best light was happening back out over the Valley, I ran to Olmsted Point to witness this awesome display.

8 ) Shooting Stars at Moonlight, Sabrina Basin

There is nothing quite like the Sierras in the summertime. To me, all the soaring granite spires, shimmering lakes, trickling streams, verdant meadows, and rampaging wildflowers create a paradise which seems to melt my brain with its beauty. Maybe it’s the altitude, but once I cross the 10,000 foot altitude line and see all that stark Sierra beauty, all my coherent thought processes break down and I’m left standing there, gibbering like an idiot. At least my fingers still work and I can press the buttons on my camera.

This shot shows a flush of shooting stars growing around the shores of Moonlight Lake in the Sabrina Basin out of Bishop, California.  What a treat to find this display on my only Sierra backpacking trip of the year.

7) Fire and Foam, Davenport Beach

This is my only seascape image from 2011 that made it into my top 10.  Kinda ironic considering I have a reputation as a seascape shooter.  But also indicative of the fact that 2011 was a year of exploration for me, where I got to know the mountains, the deserts, and the canyons better.  Nevertheless, the ocean is where I live and there’s something special about it when all the right elements come together.

This shot was taken at Davenport main beach, which holds two very interesting attractions for me as a photographer. One is the prominent seastack. The second (and more alluring, in my opinion) is a series of rocky fingers that rise up out of the sand. The fingers are only accessible at low tide, and with the right waves, the contrasts between the dark rock and the white foam is sublime. Top that off with a gorgeous sunset, and you have a recipe for awesome photography.

6) Field of Dreams, Carrizo Plain National Monument

I love Spring for a number of reasons, not least of which is the annual wildflower hunt. As blooms spread throughout California photographers share tips, locations, and gas as they race around the state trying to find the best displays. The Carrizo Plain is typically a hotspot for wildflowers and dozens of colorful varieties can appear in the Monument. Though 2011 was been a mediocre year for flowers overall, I was still amazed by the vast fields of tidy tips that carpeted the Carrizo Plain.

5) Frozen Tenaya Lake, Yosemite National Park

Thanks to unseasonably dry conditions in the Sierras in the early Winter of 2011, Tioga Pass through Yosemite stayed open till the end of the year (and is still open as of the writing of this post).  However, the late night high country cold ensured that all the lakes at elevation would be frozen over.  When I started seeing videos of people ice skating on a frozen Tenaya Lake, I knew I had to pay a visit to the park to take advantage of this unusual opportunity.

Just after Christmas a series of partly cloudy days was forecast so I hightailed it to the park and spent three days exploring the normally-inaccessible high country.  This was the fiery sunset on the first night, and the incredible light show along with the fabulous cracks in frozen Tenaya Lake helped make this shot an instant favorite of mine.

4) Painting with Wind, Death Valley National Park

Truth be told, I’m not much of an abstract shooter. I just love grand vistas and soaring landscapes. But sand dunes are such amazing studies in lines, light, color, and textures that it’s easy to lose yourself in these elements. The way that light and shadow feather so gracefully around the curves of the dunes is pure magic. The smoothness and subtleties can be so perfect they almost look like they were painted in. And it was these tones and textures which caught my eye and camera in this shot.

3) Coyote Falls, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument

Call me impulsive, but sometimes I plan trips based only on a single photo of a place. The first time I did this I visited L’ile de la Reunion in the middle of the Indian Ocean, all because of this amazing photo by Yann Arthus Bertrand. In May of this year I decided to backpack through Coyote Gulch, Utah, thanks to a spectacular shot by Michael Anderson. The Gulch did not disappoint: soaring walls, massive amphitheaters, gigantic rock arches, and even a waterfall or two.  This place was truly a southwest paradise.

2) Zebra Canyon, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument

I’m not sure why “Don’t Talk to Strangers” is such a pervasive maxim in our society. As if every stranger is hell bent on our personal destruction and by talking to them we’re unleashing all of their fury and ire. I find this to be slightly ridiculous. In my opinion “Talk to Strangers” is a much more interesting and enjoyable maxim to live one’s life by.

As I was backpacking through the wondrous Coyote Gulch in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, I struck up a conversation with four backpackers who were also overnighting in the canyon. Being from Utah, this group had a wealth of knowledge about the area and clued me in to a number of excellent places to visit, including this one, Zebra Canyon. I probably would have missed this otherwise, so thank goodness I like to talk to strangers.

As to the photo, this is probably the hardest I’ve ever had to work to get a shot.  The canyon walls are so narrow that positioning my tripod was a nightmare.  After a ridiculous amount of fiddling and careful adjustment, I was finally able to get my camera into the right spot to take this shot.

1) Breathless, Sand Harbor, Lake Tahoe

My favorite photo of all time, this shot has pretty much everything I ever look for in a photo:  an intriguing and unique composition, a huge array of complementary colors, reflective water, clear water, rocky textures, color and shape contrasts, snow-capped mountains in the distance, and a beautiful sunset to top it all off.  This is one of those rare photos where I knew I had something special as soon as I pressed the shutter button.  In fact, I was so ecstatic at the time of the capture that I was literally jumping for joy, shouting at the top of my lungs, which is part of the reason I titled the photo “Breathless.”

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2011 was a wonderful year, and I’m looking forward to the magic moments 2012 is sure to bring.  Happy New Year everyone and have a great year!

If you’d like a print of any of these photos, they are 50% off till January 31st, 2011.

~Josh

Reflecting on 2011

2011 was an interesting year for me which saw a lot of growth for me as a photographer as well for my photography business. I saw some breathtaking light at Lake Tahoe, got lost in the slot canyons in Utah, witnessed Fall foliage erupting in Zion, and saw a thousand other beautiful sights. I found some new places to shoot and got to know my old favorites, like Yosemite, better and better. I had some fantastic art shows and some downright shitty ones. I was fortunate to have four major publications, all of them thanks to Popular Photography magazine. Jim Patterson and I taught sold-out workshop after sold-out workshop and had a fantastic first year with our company, Sea to Summit Workshops, and we’re stoked to continue to expand this year (be on the lookout for Yosemite and Eastern Sierras ‘shops). And of course, I met a lot of wonderful photogs and got to be even better friends with the ones I already knew.
Thanks to all my friends and contacts out there who shot with me, went traveling, offered a kind word or critique, some advice or tips, and all the other amazing support you guys gave me in 2011. It was a great year, and here’s to an even better 2012!

———————————–
Tech notes on this photo
———————————–
Nikon D7000
Tokina 12-24 f/4 at 12mm
ISO100
f/9 – Sharpest spot on my lens, still adequate for full DOF with my crop sensor
1/15 sec.
Lee soft 3-stop GND filter
Shot in Monochrome mode

Post-Processing
———————-
In Raw Converter (Nikon Capture NX2)
- Processed single raw file once
- Many local brightness/contrast adjustments to maximize global and local contrast while keeping the brights and shadows in check

In Photoshop:
- Selective sharpening of some of the most prominent textures
- Soft Light Burn / Dodge layer through a combination of luminosity masks to touch up some minor brightness issues

All the best!

~Josh

Zion National Park in Southern Utah is pretty darn beautiful. The towering rock walls remind me of a red Yosemite. The first time I visited the park in January 2010, ice and snow blanketed the ground and many of the hikes were inaccessible or dangerous to do. But one of the most iconic hikes in the park, The Narrows, was open so I decided to give it a whirl. But I was unprepared for the nature of the hike and consquently spent 8 hours in 40° water without much protection. Brrrrr. An enjoyable day, but thoroughly freezing.

So when I had the chance to visit Zion again a few weeks ago I made sure everything would be different: first off, I planned my visit for the Fall, before much snow had a chance to accumulate and before the temperatures would get really cold. Secondly, I decided to rent a full-body suit to keep my warm and dry during my hike up the Narrows. And what a difference it made! Now I could stand in the chilly water all day without getting wet, enjoying the sights and wonder of the Narrows without worrying about hypothermia.

Which of course made it a lot easier to focus on photography. I found this beautiful stand of trees about 25 minutes into the hike, perched on a bank overlooking the Virgin River. The yellows of their leaves were positively glowing and the contrast they made with the soaring red rock walls was wonderful. I made many photos during that hike of the Narrows, but this quickly became one of my favorites.

———————————–
Tech notes on this photo
———————————–
Nikon D7000
Tokina 12-24 f/4 at 12mm
ISO100
f/22 – trying to buy some shutter speed
4 seconds – gimme that silky water!

Post-Processing
———————-
In Raw Converter (Nikon Capture NX2)
- Processed single raw file twice, once for water/foreground and once for trees/cliffs
- White balance correction
- Minor global “s-curve” curves adjustment
- Brightened trees and slightly darkened water
- Local brightness/contrast adjustments to water to help with color saturation

In Photoshop:
- Noise reduction via Neat Image plugin
- Selectively sharpened boulders, trees, cliff walls
- Blended in tree/cliff tiff layer through a layer mask gradient blend
- Color select tool to select tree leaves, then inverted selection, then used a Soft light burn/dodge layer to darken cliffs behind trees, the rocks on the bank, and a little bit of the river to help color saturation
- s-curves adjustment on burn/dodge layer to strengthen the effect
- Color layer to help yellows on the trees at left pop more because they were too dim
- “Fairy Dust” layer to add a soft glow to the trees and cliffs

Thanks for your visits!

~Josh