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?
As I mentioned yesterday, we spent the weekend in Yosemite – mostly just to get away for a bit of R&R – but naturally a bit of photographer crept into the weekend equation!
My favorite shot from the weekend was another one of those serendipity shots. I had the Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L lens on my Canon 5D Mark II while we were over exploring the area around Cook’s Meadow.
Somewhat amazingly, I noticed this family of three having fun in the snow right up against the edge of the meadow – aligned almost perfectly with Half Dome. Now you can see the shot! I struggled to compose it just right – at 70mm I could just barely capture the top of Half Dome with the edge of the meadow. This isn’t HDR – just a single shot RAW image. No tripod – just handheld.
I love serendipity – it’s what makes photography for me so darn much fun! I’m looking to further refine this image, brighten up the whites, and print it BIG on some glorious paper!
The rest of the black and whites from this Yosemite weekend are here. I think I’m finally all set with images for holiday cards for the next few years!
What a wonderful trip we had! As always, looking forward to heading back to Yosemite again soon!
Just back from a day in Yosemite – and among the photos snapped along the way is this one taken with my iPhone 4, massaged in the iPhone 4 using Trey Ratcliff’s “100 Cameras in 1” app and uploaded from that application directly to Flickr.
The view is of Half Dome and the Merced River taken from Sentinel Bridge – one of my favorite spots in Yosemite because of the beautiful shots of both Half Dome and Yosemite Falls that can be taken here.
A friend commented about this image on Flickr – “a beautiful somber wintry scene – so peaceful.” Last night, learning the somber news from Tucson, made me appreciate the beauty and peace of this place even more. I hope the victims and their families find peace as they deal with such an incredible tragedy.
I posted earlier about the wonderful Saturday that my son David and I spent with Michael Frye in Yosemite in early October.
Today, Adobe released the RC version of Lightroom 3.3 that includes support for RAW files from the Canon PowerShot S95
Here’s a photo that David snapped of Michael and me – taken with the S95:
And another of me focusing in on the details:
David and I had such a great time with Michael that day – read my blog post about the day!
Yesterday, my son David and I spent the day yesterday exploring Yosemite and landscape photography with Michael Frye. We had a great time – learning about the more out of the way places in Yosemite – away from the big monuments. And about Michael’s techniques – both in the field and in processing his images.
Michael and his wife lived in Yosemite for over twenty years. He clearly exceeds Gladwell’s 10,000 hours test in terms of intimate knowledge of this most special place!
One of the best spots provided us with an incredible view upriver toward Three Brothers – a formation that’s usually very hard to capture. This time of year, the river was flowing slowly and provided a mirror-like surface reflection that was just stunning:
If you’re interested in Yosemite and photography, be sure to follow Michael’s blogs – 25 Years in Yosemite: A Photographer’s Journal and In the Moment: A Landscape Photography Blog.
His latest book, Digital Landscape Photography: In the Footsteps of Ansel Adams and the Masters
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