Head of the Slate

Two late season snow fields and several incipient drainages purge the steep hillsides of excess water and feed into the Slate River Valley, Colorado.

Happy Friday!

Evening Events

Ever find one of those places that you don't want to leave?  I set up my tent and sat here for nearly a week.  Most of the recent photos are from very close to this exact spot.  In the afternoons, I'd head into the mountain (literally), but mostly... I stayed close to this spot.

Atmosphere; An McF Studios Series

Groggy and cold is now way to go through life. It's not even a good way to make a living. All the jobs I've had that required me to be present, lucid, and feigning interest at early-o'clock began as someone else's idea. The story about these tree images isn't any different. Sitting at the desk before dawn in January, I got an email from my girlfriend that read, "Get off your ass, it's really beautiful outside." Knowing that she hates the cold, I rushed out with the camera and two lenses, a 50mm and an ultra-wide. Shivering along the drive, my head started comparing places close by that might pair well with the fog. Had to be close, I was six minutes ahead of the sun, but the fog was really thick. I wanted trees and space. No space in town, but there are a few great trees in City Park, so that's where I headed. I started fantasizing about trees hit with god-beams while all around was fog and light. You get what you get. Everything was muddy, mediocre, dull. OK. Walk around shooting a few exposures, check the histo, change a lens, check again. Got it. Shoot the 50mm at f/1.4 min, f/2.8 max which will provide all the separation I need. Composing with the 50 also controls the distortion... ain't none. Just gotta keep picking up the sticks and moving until it's perfect. After that, I'm goin' full HDR baby. I shot 9 stop brackets, but only needed three. Had the intent of doing black and white, but when I saw the first return on the LCD, I wanted the little bit of colour because it increased the separation I was there to capture. Sometimes you just get lucky. Yeah... LUCKY! Today, I got lucky a lot. Lucky that the light was there. Lucky that I found an easy subject. Lucky that the means met the idea. Lucky for the girl who got me goin'. Not a bad day by my standards.
(the rest of this series is available at Flickr, enjoy)

Hook & Moore Glade Moonrise

During the holiday break, I took a break.  Long story short:  I'm back, let's move on.

It's been a long time getting back into my  work pattern and coming to a complete halt for two weeks was exactly what I needed.  The day after Christmas I went out on a hike in a local Nature Area to check it out and maybe find some places to make images.  Great hike.  Not very cold, shallow snow, minimal mud, and not another person around.  As far as the images... a lot of maybe's, really depends on the right sky to give them life.  So, I'm holding on to the ideas for late spring to see how they germinate.

All afternoon the moon was sneaking over the prairie in a playful hike'n'seek fashion, teasing the sun and the photographer alike.  The above image isn't from the hike.  It's from the drive home.  The hogbacks and the small rolling hills I was hiking just weren't coming together for me.  I saw the moon in one way and the hills in another and there just wasn't a composition or compositing technique that was gonna make them come together to meet the picture in my head.  Kind of the problem with a good imagination.

So, I made some snapshots and kept walking.  Eventually getting back to the Jeep cranking the Mahler and heading home.  The playful moon wasn't done though, and started peaking under the drip cap kinda tugging at my shirt.  I handled it calmly, though.  Knowing full well I needed the D3 to get the right files, I watched the hogbacks and just rolled along until I found it.  When I got home I checked the moon phase calendar (full on the 31st) and planned to return in a few days.  Then checked the weather (snow over the 30-31st) and rescheduled for the following evening.

The image above is made from ten separate image files.  Tonemapped and composited to construct the image.  All ten images were made from the same spot and collected in a five minute period.  Why?  Well, one good exposure of this scene would provide only the expansion or compression of whichever lens I chose.  In my head the grand open landscape is a giant playground (14mm), but the moon is huge and giving me a great tug of war for my attention (200mm).  Only one answer for me... HDR technique for lovely glowing late afternoon cold sunlight, HDR for the subtlety of the moon (& essential for matching the colour and luminosity in the sky), then a well executed composite.  Just enough weight in the foreground to keep the eye bouncing around, like a giddy playmate.

I'm off to work on another project, which doesn't require any imagination.  But that doesn't preclude the lack of playfulness, so I'll have some images from that shoot to post soon enough.

Thanks for checking in...

Banded Hazing

Having some fun with HDR on a recent trip to California.  A small gallery can be viewed here.  Guess which is not an HDR?

Nine shot handheld HDR of the Thanksgiving table in San Jose CA.  Having a great time with the family. Missed a great sunset photo-op today, but plan to make up for it tomorrow in Sausalito.

Hope there were great family times had by all.

Big Pond

I'm fully converted to the use of HDR in Landscape photography.  That reflection is much better rendered than what I was getting trying to shoot at -2EV w/ 2stop ND.  Look at that It's awesome, almost better than the sky!  But, dang that sky!  Layers of clouds, and you see them as you would if you were standing there... some parts go dark and some parts stray away in little wisps.  Along the bottom is the warm grass glowing in the last of the sun, just perfect for a napping family of ducks - or crocodiles.

I'm glad there isn't any concern about crocs in Northern Colorado.

     Photo details:  Nikon D3 @14mm, 9 shot HDR at f/16

The Hayraker

At the risk of loosing any hope of credibility, I'm going to suggest that during the GWAR show, I had what can only be referred to as a "Moment of Clarity".  Anyone familiar with the antics of the band and their gruesome fun stage show, might be a little concerned that I'm reaching for justification of a my current mid-life crisis.  but hear me out.  These guys have been at this for 25 years.  That's a long time to do anything.  I'm not a musician, so I'll spare you that part of the critique.  These guys have made something, it's obvious they love doing it, and as that it's a pleasure to watch... and a bit messy.  All the great things that go into the making of a great performance are there.  After 25 years, you'd expect that, right?

So I did some math, which is very difficult for an art school grad.  I got my first camera in 1988-ish, twenty one-ish years ago.  Photography for most of my "I'm going to be an artist" life, was a copout.  Anyone can buy a camera and some film and take pictures.  Even me.  So I worked at other art forms.  Sculpture was my discipline of choice and metal my favourite medium.  But there was also paint.  the world of colour is a pantheon sized playground.  Then there was a long time that I didn't have the space to paint the way I wanted to, nor dod I have the money to furnish a sculpture studio.  I couldn't afford to develop film, either.

Let's skip ahead a bit.  A few years ago I got a digital camera as a gift (thanks mom, love you) this let me rethink photography.  Which is what I did for a few years, taking lots of snapshots and thinking they should hang in every gallery and sell for millions.  Whatever...

Fast forward, again.  Photography is now my principle means of creation, begging a little forgiveness for my opinions as a youngster.  After 21 years, I'm beginning to see a constant theme in my photographs.  It's hard for me to pin down to a few words, but the conversation in my head is mostly about space and colour.  Even in pictures I shot 14 years ago on Kodachrome, this idea is visible.  And it was all subconscious, I was just taking pictures of scenes that I liked.  I do the same thing now.  Though, with all of that energy of running around snapping pictures behind me I can see some, let it register and stew around and come together as a mental image.  Then I'll walk back to the place the image was born and have a conversation to achieve the objective photograph.  I think my success rate is rising.  I'm beginning to understand the conversation my subconscious is having with my conscious.

Today's photo came about in that manner.  Taken at a local "Natural Area", I had returned to on this evening for the fourth time to make this specific shot.  I'm not fully satisfied with this composition.  The handles on the hay raker and the repeated shape in the dead tree behind kept teasing me.  In this shot I decided to merge the two visually.  It may not be a success, but it's what the conversation was leading to on that day.  Maybe in another 4-ish years, I'll have figured out how to steer the conversation, instead of being led by it.

     Photo details:  Nikon D3, 50mm, 7 frame HDR @f/16

The Giving Tree

The tree above is a sort of hero for the photographers in the area.  It is easy to find, easy to access and better looking that most of us locals.  I've avoided shooting it for a long time for reasons too silly to list.  Last week my girlfriend and I drove by and I saw it off in the periphery without paying much attention, but it got in my head - big, lovely, alone in the field.  Of course, in my mind the surrounding city sprawl isn't a problem.  I see this tree existing in it's own world for no reason.  It's a tree, it doesn't need reason, or a photograph, or a "regional open space", to continue being a tree.  The tree in my mind is starting at me blankly, as if to say, "Well, whatcha gonna do now tough guy?"

Photo details:  Sunset.  Nine image HDR ranging from 1/20 sec to 8 seconds at f/16.

I chose HDR because the tree deserves the respect of the detail in it's trunk and leaves.  There are two choices to accomplish this, HDR or elaborate artificial lighting scheme.  You can see a few other images of this tree, including one other HDR, from a recent sunrise shoot using the flickr gallery on the right of this page.

My first title for this image was "Stand Against A Sky".  It's a blatant attempt to connect my ideas to this tree.  While writing this entry, I began to question my relationship to the natural world.  The title "The Giving Tree" is also a book which contains a simple demonstration of what it means to love.  Maybe I began this image feeling like Balboa, but after much time in the moment I began to understand the conversation.  I set out to capture the natural world's beauty in a photograph and return humbled by how much more I have received.

Palisade Dawn

Palisade Dawn
Originally uploaded by McF Studios

It's a fact that one can drive faster down a canyon road if one can't see what's over the edge.  The most unfortunate thing about this road is it's the only way to get back to those aspens.  But it's a year away and I might forget how bad the road is... probably not.
After the bouncing, i was scrambling to find a perch.  Spent most of the day before looking for evening shots with the full intent to shoot from the east rim in the morning.  Now that wasn't happening.  I remembered stopping at a place in the bottom of the canyon I camped above because the view of the Palisade was great. At the time it was noon-ish and something like f/78,000 on the face and f/-9 where I was standing.  Glad I stopped though, because it gave me my morning perch.  But I couldn't remember exactly how far up canyon it was.  Only that it was belos teh first switchback.  Honestly, it's not difficult to find in the daylight, but there aren't any landmarks in the dark.  Which means I drove the road twice in each direction.  As the sky started to brighten I could make out the face I wanted to shoot, so I parked and started grabbing gear.  My usual rig is the modular stuff made by thinkTANK.  It's good and does me well enough.  But I was standing at the bottom of a thirty foot slickrock wall.  So, now I'm going hands and teeth up a wall in the near dark with a camera store slung around me like Pancho-Somebody that outlaw guy all the while deflecting the swinging camera away from the rock with my elbows. Needless to say... when I go to the top I was a little winded.  Tripods, get a good one and strap it to you. (Oh yeah, I also had a tripod on me.  Everything is slung bandolier style - I'll get a picture of that someday and put it up here.)  So, I told you all that to intro this photo.  when I first started reading about this formation, this is what I saw in my head.  I had a topo map and a compass and an idea of what it should look like.  Enjoy.
     From the notebook:
Very good spot.  Leaving Gateway w/o coffee to check out the seep area, probably missed the good light.  Must return to that other canyon and get the hoodoos next summer when the sun returns.
Photo Details:  Nikon D3, 14-24mm @ 16mm, 5 stop HDR, f/16, caffeine free.

Squid Jam Eye

Squid Jam Eye
Originally uploaded by McF Studios

Fort Collins, CO, is a ridiculously bucolic town. Well, it's a city, really, but I grew up in Philly and it's tough to call this place a "city". Whatever... let's move on. There's this very progressive notion that all publicly funded acts of construction should carry a 1% tax to also fund an arty endeavour that will be placed in the same area. It's called "Art in Public Places". Usually results in crap that can be ignored and the only benefit is to the artist and their banks. But the waste of a program has spawned one great thing, so I'm glad this program exists. The Squid Jam and Jelly Preserve. The little swallow nests in the same area are a perfect compliment. Sit under the highway and watch the birds and the squids and contemplate the fossil beds. Or just keep on riding your bike, I didn't want to be disturbed anyway.
Photo info: pooly executed HDR, a camera, lens, one tripod, two bad words, and a cloudy sky.