Sunset Needles Area, Canyonlands, Utah

This was taken at sunset in the "Needles area" of Canyonlands in Utah. A beautiful sky, which is typical of the southwest in the USA. We photographed at this spot for about 3 hours, as the sky constantly changed in the warm hues, as the clouds passed overhead. This was the last light, as the sun had already disappeared beyond the horizon a half hour previous. Quite often the nicest colors come well after the sun has set. I prefer photographing sunset over sunrise, since the sky stays painted for a longer period of time than it does at sunrise.

Triangles

What I like about this image, taken in Arches National Park, in Utah, is the repetition of shapes, in this case, of triangles.If you look closely, you will see at least four of them. Repetition of shapes usually creates interest in the image. Vincent van Gogh used triangles in many of his paintings, as have many other artists.  I was attracted by the light red stone in the foreground, which leads the eye upward to the bush. The shrub is the focal point of the image. Lines from the far right background also lead toward the shrub, as well as the rock from the left, coming in from the top and leading down to the shrub, and stopping at the top edge of the light colored stone in the foreground. The light surface of the foreground stone also directs the eye to the center of the image. Another unifying force in the image is the harmony of colors. This shot does have a few out of focus spots, but that was due to the fact that I shot it with a 50 mm lens, with the aperture wide open, resulting in a narrow depth of field. The foreground rock is the object most in focus.

Weeping Wall

The Weeping Wall in Jasper, Alberta. The light this day was a mix between sunlight and overcast. Basically filtered light. This kind of light can be magical. The beautiful colors in the cliff wall are really highlighted here. A grey day would not have enhanced the warm tones of the cliff. The Ice Fields Parkway is a great place to shoot endless images, at almost any time of the year.

Ice Field Hut

This was taken when there was very little sunlight available. The sun was breaking in and out of the clouds. I liked the ghostly feeling the clouds imparted. The image had very little color, so I extracted what I could. The result is an image that looks very watercolor like. These are the kind of images I like, where its hard to distinguish a photograph from a painting. No tricks were employed to get this effect, other than to use the "selective color" tool in PS. What drew my attention to the shot was the very tiny hut near the bottom of the image. I think this image needs to be printed quite large, to draw more attention to this little hut.

Lines and Shapes That Merge

What struck me about this image were the lines that all lead to the center of the composition. They merge together, streaming down from the top, the sides, and the bottom. From the two sides, lines lead to the center. From the bottom edge of the frame, the eye is led upward by the green shrub, which itself is a triangular shape, the apex of which again leads the eye to the center. You could almost say that the whole composition consists of several triangles, all having their apexes at the center. In art, triangles are often desirable shapes to have, since they quite often create interest and tension in the image. The image therefore is composed of repeating lines and shapes, another desirable quality, while the red-green contrast between the shrub and the rocks is an element that creates color vibration.

Too sharp or not too sharp?

I have a couple of versions of this image. What I did with this is that I lightened it quite a bit using the curves application in PS. (It's no secret I "manipulate" images in PS :). However I do try to replicate the original scene as much as I can remember. A problem I used to have was that I would frequently make my images too dark. This was especially noticeable when I would print the image. Alain Briot would quite often admonish his students to make prints lighter. This image, for whatever reason has a painterly quality to it. I took it with my Nikon D700, and it seems that this camera does produce images that do exhibit this quality. I love this image, and I never get tired of looking at it. I think one reason it seems to look painterly is that the leaves and branches were not "frozen" with a fast shutter speed. The light quality was excellent when I shot this, late in the afternoon. The image also looks better when viewed from a distance, rather than close up, as most pixel peepers like to do. This is one thing I notice, that these so-called pixel peepers like to get their noses right up to the image, and then complain that the image is not sharp. Sometimes I don't want it sharp.