Nature Light Photo

Memorial Day 2010 – Thank You

Thank you to all of those who gave and are giving to protect our freedom.

Thank You

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Photo of the Week – Morro Bay Bird Festival 2010

In an effort to show more of my photography, on Mondays, I will be posting a photo of the week. Here is my first image.

It was taken during the Morro Bay Bird Festival in Montana De Oro State Park. I wish I could remember what kind of birds these are and when I do, I’ll post that information here.

The image was part of a bigger image that I cropped to eliminate the waves and sand so the focus was on the birds and I thought that the panoramic affect of the image worked well.

Please feel free to offer both feedback and criticism.

Shore birds at the Morrow Bay Bird Festival 2010

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Senior Session – Alyssa Garside

Last Sunday, I had a senior session with an amazing young lady, Alyssa Garside. We shot at Fairmount Park in downtown Riverside. It was late in the afternoon on an overcast day.

I shot the entire session with the 50 f/1.4. I was looking for a really blown out backgrounds, but super sharp details in the subject. Due to the overcast day, I didn’t need to worry about a lot of uneven lighting, but I did use the SB-900 as a form of off camera fill flash.

I still need to work on posing and finding a good background or location, but I’m pleased about how the shoot came out.

Here are some of the images of Alyssa.

If you would like to read more about Alyssa, please travel over to Nature Light Photography.

As always, please feel free to leave comments or let me know if you have any questions.

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OC Register Contest

I made a resolution to enter more photo contests this year. I made that resolution in January. It has taken me until now to get off my behind and start doing what I said I’d do.

The first contest I entered is the Orange County Register’s Wildflower Photo Contest. There are three categories; Nature Open, Flower and Man, and Nature. The images have to have been taken in Southern California. I picked two images and entered them into the contest.

The first one I entered was one I took on the Santa Rosa Plateau. It is a California Poppy that is  just getting ready to bloom. I entered it into the Nature Open category. I picked it because I liked the way that the poppy in background points to the main subject and the orange/pink of the flower seems to pop out of the green background.

Birth of California Poppy

The second image I entered was one that I took on Highway 58 while driving home from my parent’s house. It was an incredible year for wildflowers and as I drove past this ranch I saw the road going away from the gate and lined with bright yellow flowers. I immediately thought of the yellow brick road from The Wizard of Oz. I entered it into the Flower and Man category.

Follow the Yellow Brick Road

I think both of the images are not bad. They probably won’t win because I didn’t go out looking to take an image specifically for the contest, which in many cases I think should be done. But I think they stand a chance.

You can vote for them at the OC Register site by clicking the link above, just don’t ask me how to find my particular images. Their system leaves a bit to be desired. If I find a direct link to my images, I’ll post it here.

Please feel free to leave a comment of let me know if you have any questions.

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Death Valley Redux – Pt. 5 – Macro Photography

Starting off with a quick re-cap: I went to Death Valley last week to try to get some images and try some new techniques. I tried HDR, panorama shots, and, finally, macro photography.

In this case it wasn’t really macro as much as very close up. The subjects were wildflowers that were blooming on the valley floor. I used my Nikkor 105 f/2.8 VR, which is an amazing macro lense and super sharp. It also does a great job of softening the background and getting the subject super sharp.

There is a certain technique to capturing sharp images. First, the use of a tripod is mandatory. A macro lens is like a telephoto lens, they amplify the smallest movement of the camera. I even use a remote shutter release to prevent movement of the camera when releasing the shutter. Second, timing the shot right so that the subject matter is staying still. This is difficult when shooting flowers in the desert wind. Third, selecting the correct aperture. If the lens is wide open a shutter speed can be selected that freezes the movement of the subject, but creates a VERY shallow depth of field resulting in an image that only has one small part in focus. Too small of an aperture and everything is in focus, but the subject is likely to move during the exposure.

One other problem I had was the harsh light. I was shooting in the middle of the day when the sun is at it’s highest. In order to soften the light and eliminate the dark shadows, I used a diffuser. By putting the diffuser just out of the frame of the picture, I was able to create a giant softbox that evens out the light for the entire image.

Here are some of the images I took using the diffuser. You can see all of my Death Valley images by clicking here.

As usual, please feel free to leave a comment or ask a question. I encourage it.

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Death Valley Redux – Pt. 4 – Panorama Pictures

As I said in my first part of this series, I went to Death Valley for some great images and to try some new techniques. I tried HDR and the use of a wide angle lens, but that’s another post. I also tried lots of panorama images.

The idea of a panorama is fairly straight forward. Capture more in an image than the camera lens can see. In other words, make any lens wide angle.

The execution is also fairly simple. Start taking your panorama by setting up your camera to capture one side of the image, usually the left, and take pictures until you get to the other side, usually the right. The only thing you really need to worry about is making sure that you overlap the images by about 1/3 of the frame. Ok, there is more to it than that, but for the basics, that covers it.

What you end up with is a series of images that don’t look like much. In Lightroom, export the selected images into Photoshop by clicking in the Photo>Edit In>Merge to Panorama in Photoshop. Photoshop will run a series of actions that will blend the images into one panoramic image. Save it back into Lightroom and you are done.

Below are two image of one of the joshua tree forests in Death valley that I merged into one small panorama.

You can see how the image on the left side doesn’t quite cover the same area as the image on the right side, but when you put them together, you get the entire field of view.

Above is just two images put together into a panorama so that you can see how it works. You can actually stitch together MANY images to make a huge panorama. The process works the same, but you select more images to stitch together.

If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to leave them below.

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Death Valley Redux – Pt. 3 – What is That Orange Bush?

As I was driving on the paved roads of Death Valley looking for wildflowers and other photographic subjects, I noticed areas that had a large number of “orange bushes”. The sight of so many in many places made me think about a possible photo opportunity.  I finally stopped to take a closer look and try to capture an interesting image.

I had never seen a plant of this type and was curious as to the details of the organism. Looking closer at the plant, I had two thoughts. One, it was a very unique flower of the bush (sage) that it was growing out of or, two, it was some kind of parasite.

After some research it turns out that my second thought was correct. It was Cuscuta californica, California dodder or chaparral dodder. It is a parasitic vine that grows throughout the south western United States and lives on small shrubs and other plants.

That information is all good and well, but the bottom line is that they are a small, bright spot of orange in the middle of the desert and have tremendous photographic potential.

Below are two examples of the plant. I would really like to take this picture when the sky is more interesting.

Cuscuta californica

Cuscuta californica

Please feel free to leave comments or let me know if you have any questions.

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Death Valley Redux – Pt. 1

I made another trip to Death Valley National Park last weekend. I tried to concentrate more on shooting different subjects, places, and with different techniques. I put in over 170 miles on back country (offroad/dirt) roads, but that’s another story. I will be focusing on the photography aspects of the trip over the next few posts rather than the trip itself.

It had rained a torrential amount right before my last trip to Death Valley causing roads to be closed and some of the places of interest were unaccessible. Badwater was flooded and the Racetrack Playa was underwater. This time, both were in great shape and I got the opportunity to take the shots I wanted.

The Racetrack Playa was in great shape, but it was WINDY!! A couple of times, I had to kneel down in order to not be blown over and walking was an experience in careful foot placement just to keep my balance. The photography lesson was that I had to have some great tripod technique to get the images I envisioned. This includes spreading the legs of the tripod out rather than shortening them in order to get the low angel shots I was trying to capture.

Later in the trip I traveled to Badwater, the lowest place on the continent. Again, I was trying to capture HDR images. I think this location was better suited to HDR because of the white salt and the darker mountains.

My photographic goal was to capture HDR images of the rock tracks on the playa with the mountains in the background. I used matrix metering and three frame bracket bursts  at the Racetrack and five frame bursts at Badwater all spaced at a stop apart to capture the range of light I was seeing. The Nikon D300 has a great feature that allows you to quickly set up your shots in 3. 5, or 7 shot brackets and to determine the amount of exposure difference in each frame.

I exported the images from Lightroom to Photomatix Pro to process the images using the tone mapping ability of the software to try to keep the images as close to natural as possible.

Below are three of the HDR images from the Racetrack Playa. You can click here to see all of my Death Valley images.

Please leave a comment and let me know what you think or if you have any questions.

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Wildflower Blooms at The Santa Rosa Plateau

I spent Sunday morning at the Santa Rosa Plateau in quest for some good wildflower shots. There were none. There were almost no wildflowers. There were plenty of snakes.

That’s why I love the Santa Rosa Plateau in the spring. If you can’t find flowers, you can find snakes. And if that doesn’t work, the vernal pools always give you something to shoot.

Here are some of the shots I took.

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Las Vegas at Night (Kinda)

One night, while at WPPI earlier this month, I was in my room overlooking the beautiful Hooters Hotel and Casino when I got this sudden inspiration for an image.

I know this isn’t anything new, but to me it was. I was trying to get a rear flash type of image without the flash. I put the camera on a tripod, set the shutter speed at about 10 seconds, and opened the shutter. after counting to about 8, I started to pan or move the camera until the shutter closed. Yes, I realize that is the opposite of a rear flash type of image, but the intent was to get something similar.

The first one was really just a pan and the second was one of my first tries. The bottom two were two of my more successful attempts.

I know these aren’t perfect yet, but they are the start of an idea.

Please let me know what you think. Your comments are always appreciated.

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