Sunset Boulder's Area Page

Here is a classic image of near - far composition. The object of interest is place in the foreground, while at the same time having the far background as a complementary part of the scene. The eye travels back and forth between the flowers in the foreground and between the gully in the distance. In this case I centered the flower bush in the image so that the viewer's eye does not travel from left to right. The light from the setting sun casts a warm glow over the ground, while the shadows have a cooler cast over them. This is my favorite lighting condition. The sky was slightly over cast, filtering the light somewhat, as opposed to the previous image where direct sunlight painted the landforms with an orange glow. I shot this with a fairly wide open aperture, f2.8, but still retained a good degree of the far distance in focus.

Sunset near Water Holes Canyon, Arizona

This is a very interesting area near Page, Arizona. The uplifted strata create beautiful formations that reflect the setting sun with warm glowing colors. This area is near a slot canyon called Water Holes Canyon. Not far from the highway, many of these uplifts are evident here. This is what is so unique about Arizona, the variety of rock and sandstone formations all within driving distance of Page. This kind of light does not last very long, maybe 20 minutes max. I would have liked to have photographed this area in the morning at sunrise, but it did not fit into our schedule. I'm sure that the light would have been quite different. The light at sunrise usually is a bit cooler than at sunset.

Watcher

This image is one of my favorites from Lower Antelope Canyon, Arizona. It is one of those images that has an ambiguous appearance. Which is the foreground, the lighter colored rock or the darker shape to the right? It seems as if a face is watching from the right hand side of the frame. The warm colors of the background sandstone counterbalances the darker shape nicely. I think it is a well balanced composition. The center of focus is in the center of the image. There is a repetition of shape, line, and color. One can see why the Navajo people have a spiritual relationship with the canyon.

Symmetry

My old art teacher used to preach at us to use repetition of line, form, and color, in order to achieve symmetry in our paintings. I still look for these attributes in potential images. Here we see just that. We see the repetition of line form in the parallel tree trunks and branches. We see at least three sets of parallel line shapes. Sometimes shapes and forms like these end up in my images without having consciously looked for them. Another wise peace of advice is to "keep it simple", or "less is more". The above image meets those requirements, and as a result it becomes an appealing image.

Sedona

This is an image that I always liked, mostly because of the dramatically shaped tree. Still, there was something missing that I could not pin down at first. This was taken in 35 mm format, and as a result the image proportions were in that format: about 7 x 11.5, quite rectangular. So I cropped the image into a 4x5 format, the same proportions as seen in 4 x 5 large format. This makes the image feel much better. The cropping removed some extraneous stuff on the right hand side. It almost looks square, which is another format that I will be exploring. A photographer named Steve Strom, whose work I really like, shoots in the square format. My Hasselblad shoots in this format, but in film. Since I recently purchased my Hasselblad, I will be shooting with it in the near future.

Overlooking the Canyon

Another shot taken at the south rim of the Grand Canyon. This spot was near Mather Point, not far from the visitor center. After observing the sunrise, I walked down the path along the rim, and came upon some very nice views. The walking path is asphalt, and easy to walk on. I thought that the good light had faded, but it was still early, and the light was still good. No direct sunlight. Using my M9 rangefinder camera, I can shoot quite often without a tripod. Since a rangefinder camera has no mirror to flip up, there is no vibration when the shutter is tripped. With the Leica, you only need to slowly press the shutter, and it clicks very softly. I can shoot at shutter speed of 1/15 to 1/30 of a second, hand held, while with a DSLR, one needs to usually incorporate a tripod at such slow shutter speeds. The Leica is also a very small camera, compared to my Nikon. It can fit in my pocket very easily, and it doesn't really look like a serious camera. This is a nice feature, since a bigger camera will draw people's attention to you, if you are doing street  photography, for example. The Leica can be unobtrusive, and it looks like a point and shoot to many people. It really is a great camera.

Sunrise at the South Rim

The morning air was very cold at the Grand Canyon when we arrived to photograph sunrise. Many tourists were already set up to witness the sun rising in the east. The temperature was just above freezing. Snow had fallen the previous week on the Colorado plateau, and the last remnants of the snow had almost disappeared. The Grand Canyon is truly one of the great wonders in America. No photo or painting can do it justice.