Scott Loftesness
A friend of mine, Ventura-based Denise Dewire, has posted some beautiful fall color images taken on a recent visit to Yosemite.
Denise and I met earlier this fall in another fall colors workshop in the eastern Sierra. We’re both Canon 5D Mark II shooters – and she makes some great images!
Be sure to also check out her portfolio on 500px!
I recently had a request for a large print of my Yosemite – Three Brothers image.
After looking at my earlier 2010 processed version, I decided to re-process it again using some of the techniques I’ve been learning. I think a better, more natural image resulted. See what you think…
Here’s my 2010 effort at an HDR (High Dynamic Range) version:
And, finally, here’s my late 2012 version – a more sophisticated workflow and, hopefully, a better and more natural image:
Click on either image to see a larger version.
Funny how our tastes change as we learn more about what to look for. The earlier version is one of my most popular images – but, frankly, it’s a bit overdone. That’s what we tend to do as we learn new tricks. Instead of that earlier version, I’ll be printing a 20×30 inch version of tonight’s version – and looking forward to seeing how it turns out!
This image was shot during a one day private workshop that my son David and I took with Michael Frye in early October 2010. I was shooting with my Canon 5D Mark II, David with my tiny Canon PowerShot S95. With Michael’s great help, we learned a whole lot about photography from some very special spots for shooting in Yosemite Valley. A great trip!
What makes great photographs? On Tuesday and Wednesday this week, I attended (Tuesday) and watched (Wednesday) the first Google+ Photographer’s Conference in San Francisco. It was a great event and I enjoyed it very much. Lots to absorb, much to learn.
Something that is fascinating to me about where we are now with photography is how much it’s about “living online”. On Wednesday, Trey Ratcliff spoke about what he’s been learning about sharing images online – and what seems to provoke more significant responses from the rest of us. I thought his list of photographic elements found in great photographs was useful.
He spoke about his most popular images having five elements: water, distance, trees, path, and weather.
For each element, he briefly reflected on how we, as humans, value each of them – which he believes influences our response to images that contain them:
A good list, I think. Lots of great photos exist without any of these elements – but when landscape photographs contain these elements (think Yosemite, Point Reyes, Point Lobos, etc. in my portfolio), they’re usually pretty strong images. The image above – while not having much of a path or road, contains most of these elements. It’s a shot of Three Brothers in Yosemite along the Merced River in October when the river flow is slow and the reflections are almost perfect.
This image was taken during a one-day session in Yosemite that my son and I took last October with Michael Frye. Shot using my Canon 5D Mark II, I had accidentally left my lens on manual focus for the first 20 or so shots of the morning. This was one of those first 20 shots.
Yet, I loved the colors and composition – the question was whether there might be a way to salvage something from the image – in spite of the lousy focus.
I post-processed the image using a combination of Topaz Simplify – BuzSim, Nik’s Viveza 2, Color Efex Pro 3 and Silver Efex Pro 2. My general goals were a) to have something about Half Dome work in the image, b) capture the morning fog line along the far trees at the edge of the meadow and c) highlight the yellow leaves and structure in the foreground.
It’s obviously finished in a painterly style – hopefully it works. For me, it brings back great memories of that early morning out shooting with Michael Frye and my son!
PS: Michael has recently released a new iPhone application that I think is the best tool for photographers wanting to capture Yosemite. The app is an updated iPhone version of his earlier definitive book on photographing Yosemite. The Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite is highly recommended!
We’ve all seen photographs of this particular vantage point – Tunnel View as you enter Yosemite Valley on Wawona Road. When the valley opens up in front of you as you emerge from the tunnel, it’s stunning. And photographers love shooting the valley view from this site.
This January we spent a few days in Yosemite – and, naturally, we stopped at Tunnel View to snap a photo or two. As I was relaxing this Labor Day, I went looking through those photos to see if one might have potential. I chose this one taken in the late afternoon – because of the expansive view – and also because of how the sun shadow swept across the valley from upper right to lower left.
In the original image (see below), the shadow area in the lower right quadrant is almost completely darkened. I wondered what I might be able to accomplish with post-processing and first did a single-image tone mapped HDR of the original RAW file taken with my Canon 5D Mark II. Photomatix Pro did an amazing job of popping the details up out of the shadow area – including beautiful Bridalveil Fall. But, the rest of the image was very busy – a cluttered mess. I wanted something that was non-traditional – a different kind of perspective from this iconic location.
First, I used Nik’s Silver Efex 2 to convert the image to black and white. I adjusted the toning a bit, added a vignette – but was still unhappy with the result. After trying a couple of other filters, I settled in on the combination of the Low Key filter in Nik’s Color Efex 3 and Topaz Simplify. The toning is the result of Low Key, the reduced complexity/busy-ness of the image is the result of simplify. I used a tweak in Viveza to drop a control point on Bridalveil and brighten that up just a touch before pulling the image back into Lightroom for final noise reduction.
The result is different from the traditional valley view photos – hope you also enjoy the difference! Click on the image to see the large version.
I’ve posted an all black and white version of this image before – “The Real Yosemite” – taken in Cook’s Meadow looking at Half Dome in Yosemite National Park. It’s one of my favorites – with big Half Dome in the distance and the young family playing in the snow in the meadow below.
Lately, I’ve been re-learning some tools and techniques for post-processing images and decided to take another try at a slightly different approach to this particular image – you see the result above. This has a very minimalist use of selective color – on the child’s jacket – along with some subtle toning that, for me, adds a bit more depth to the image versus my earlier black and white treatment – included below.
Which version do you prefer?
Wow, I was surprised to learn last night that my Three Brothers photo taken in Yosemite last fall was an Editors Pick on the HDR Spotting web site.
This was the first time one of my photos has “won” anything! A nice feeling!
Once again, thanks to Michael Frye for taking my son David and I to this most special spot alongside the Merced River in Yosemite! It was spectacular to shoot from there! If you’re going into Yosemite for photography, Michael’s your best guide!
Early in October last year, my son David and I spent a day exploring Yosemite with photographer Michael Frye.
We drove up to Yosemite on Friday afternoon and met Michael early on Saturday morning in the Curry Village parking lot.
One of his first questions was what did we want to shoot? Not the big icons, we quickly agreed – instead, take us to some secret spots in the park instead!
Michael lived in Yosemite for 25 years. He knows this land intimately. One of our mid-morning stops provided us with this shot looking back up the Merced River at Three Brothers. The combination of the slow water in the river, the stunning reflection, and the glorious light on the Brothers made for a spectacular scene. In the course of shooting at this location, I learned more about my camera (Canon 5D Mark II) from Michael than I’d ever learned before!
The resulting image is a 3-shot HDR, combined used Photomatix Pro with final adjustments made in Lightroom 3.
David and I will never forget this wonderful day last October that we spent with Michael!
Earlier this afternoon, a bit in celebration for wrapping up the initial phase of a major piece of work, I hung this black and white image of Half Dome from Curry Village in Yosemite on my office wall. Here’s the link to the original image on Flickr.
This was an experiment – how can I begin more productively outputting some of the images I have so that I can see them in my daily life? Sounds simple, but it’s not – as I’m sure any photographer can tell you.
In my experience, one of the challenges in photography is getting things “hung” – into frames and up on the wall. Frames are hard, mats are hard, glass is hard. But, prints are easy. So, it’s easy to print – but then what? How do get it up on the wall? And, where does it go? At home, I have perhaps four of my thousands of photos hung in prints on various walls – but they’re all basically failed experiments in output.
So, yesterday I began by printing four recent images at Costco – taking advantage of their great pricing ($5.99) on beautiful 16×20 prints. In my experience, Costco does a wonderful job, they take no more than a couple of hours, and pickup is easy at one of our local Costco’s (Costco photo pickup has its own checkout – no waiting in long checkout lines). Then what?
One of those prints in particular – the Half Dome from Curry Village – was truly exceptional and really captured by eye. Something about the sheer level of detail in the print, those beautiful repetitive trees in the center of the photo, the whole winter ambiance and balance. So, I picked that one for my experiment.
What I wanted was something along the lines of what Pete Souza does in the West Wing of the White House – where he hangs lots of his best photographs called “jumbos” where everyone (in the White House anyway!) can see them. He changes them regularly – and when he does, the staff notices and explores the new ones. This is sheer delight for a photographer – showing your best stuff where folks can appreciate it – and you can see it too! (For a great documentary on Souza, see the PBS special The President’s Photographer: 50 Years in the Oval Office. It’s available on NetFlix for instant streaming. Souza’s also a Canon 5D Mark II shooter – for me, regularly watching the White House account on Flickr has provided a great education into Souza’s choice of lenses, settings, etc. In particular, Souza’s a real fan of the Canon 35mm f/1.4L and the Canon 135mm f/2.0L lenses. Some really great stuff for Canon shooters!)
One of my colleagues suggested that Ikea had some nice frames at great prices. So, I headed to the East Palo Alto Ikea and found a very nice frame with mat and glass for about $25.
You see the result above as its hanging on my office wall – $6 for a gorgeous black and white print from Costco and $25 for a great frame from Ikea – total $31 – and reusable. When I get bored with Half Dome (!), I can pull down the frame, open up the back and in goes another 16×20. Maybe this works? Does anyone know more about the process Pete Souza and the White House photo team use to produce those jumbos?
Last week, in my post The Real Yosemite, I featured a black and white version of this image. I’ve written previously about the “power of black and white” – and really enjoy that first version I posted.
There’s something special about this image – the immensity of Half Dome towering over everything and that family with the little one out playing in Cook’s Meadow.
Tonight, I did some additional work with this same image (shot in RAW on my Canon 5D Mark II) – trying both a black and white conversion using Aperture 3 (instead of Lightroom) and a single shot HDR version processed using both Photomatix and Lightroom – which is what you see above.
I find both of the black and white images and the color version to be equally beautiful – but obviously different. The images evoke different moods for me – I find the black and white images being more contemplative and the color more here and now.
What do you think?
