In an attempt to break up the string of postings on Crested Butte, I thought I'd offer some recent work from the last week or so in Utah. You know, one of the "other" rocky mountain states ...
More seriously, the right conditions in monsoon season can be fantastic. The first series I'll be posting will be from four nights/five days camping up on the Island in the Sky district of Canyonlands. I was lucky enough to hit one phenomenal sunrise, one good sunrise, and one really good sunset. The others were too clouded in to get any light, or in one instance open skies without many clouds. Once you know your locations, weather is everything.
Conditions during the day were mid-nineties unless a storm was actively passing through, which happened at least once most days. The only real drawback was the high level of insects--more mosquitoes and biting gnats than I've ever seen in the summer months. Too much precipitation this spring, I guess.
I've done post-production work on these already, so feel free to comment or critique as you're moved to do so. I always appreciate good criticism. Enjoy!
That's a nice one, Mark. This whole week the sunrises and sunsets have ranged from very good to epic. Tonight's was epic. I had to enjoy it from my car on Main St., unfortunately. I hope you got some great stuff while here. Looking forward to seeing more of it.
[3] First in a sequence from the "really good sunset".
All taken within an hour of each other, all from Green River Overlook. This one is more to establish what the cloud conditions were like this afternoon/evening. This is not HDR; those clouds are the response of the sensor, with some judicious curves applied -- only about 5 points of modification!
...I like this, don't get me wrong. But I'm still kicking myself that I took the time on the pano in #4, above, rather than keeping my attention on the classic shot. That red light only lasted about a minute, tops. I caught it here on the left side of the pano, but it had faded on the more rightward portions of the White Rim.
[6] Last from this sequence: Candlestick Butte and glow.
The show continued, though, and I got this one later with some nice glow in the clouds. I like the fact that you can make out the edge of the Henry mountains in the distance on the left side of the frame.
[7] And the "phenomenal" sunrise. Rainbow and storm, Dead Horse Point.
Out of sequence chronologically, but I couldn't put it first. It makes the other ones look drab. My first morning out, got rained on, heard a couple of peals of thunder that were closer than I liked. Amazingly lucky to be here for this one. You're so high on the cliffs above the Colorado River that you can actually see the rainbow continue to curve around below the "horizon", giving a part of the circular arc that you don't normally see in a rainbow.
[8] ...and, on to the high country. Here, a basin along the Timpooneke trail on Mount Timpanogos.
Like Colorado, we had a ton of snow this spring, with a number of ski areas still open July 4th. I tried going up one of the trails on Mount Timpanogos just to check it out. The high country is starting to open up. This is at about 8500'. About 800' higher, the snow got deeper and steeper than I wanted to take on while hiking solo.
[12] Honestly, though, there is a lot of snow still up in the high country.
I keep wanting to do some long backpacks, but I'm wondering where I can go. Between the high snow levels and the stream crossings, it's a different situation this year.
[13] Lastly, one of the cascades below Silver Lake.
Hope this hasn't been too much for everyone. I may yet head out to the San Juans at some point soon, to get in some of that Colorado mountain goodness, but I wanted to share some work from Utah.
Ah, Brett, I feel your pain. There's not much more frustrating than seeing something great and knowing that you're missing it... I'm not enlightened enough to mentally shrug off the lost pictures and enjoy it.
I imagine you might get that a lot, living in Moab.
And hey, nice exhibit at Dead Horse! I had to wait an hour for them to open up the visitor's center, but it was worth it. Some great images, and nicely put together. I hope people take the time to walk downstairs and enjoy it, and that you get some business from it.
That rainbow is THE most killer Dead Horse Point shot I've ever seen by far! That's a serious "lifetime" shot! A lot of the other shots are really nice too, but the rainbow steals the show!!!
Posted by Pam Colander on July 17, 2011 at 9:05 PM
And HOW many gigantic prints are you ordering of #7 ????????
Posted by Kalin Wilson on July 18, 2011 at 2:27 AM
Thanks for the report and congrats! That's a pretty good haul! #7 is OK if you like that sort of thing (which we ALL do)
Posted by Doug Koepsel on July 18, 2011 at 10:28 AM
Mark,
I was liking 2 (over 1), 3 & 6.
And then I scrolled down to lucky 7. You must have been ecstatic.
Sweet Jesus! Rainbow+sunrise+storm at Deadhorse? Lifetime shot, like Bret said. I would have been happy to get just that shot alone, but managed quite a haul.
To answer your question, I prefer #2 over #1. A case where 'less is more'.
And I also wish that you had captured that magic light show with the classic Green River Overlook view.
I really like #6! Worthy of a pano. treatment for the composition and the weather. You might consider burning down the brighter portion of the sky right of the Candlestick.Tony K.'s masks would work a treat there.
#10 is my favorite of the 'odds & ends' you posted. Beautiful pattern and color!
And then, there's the rainbow. No nits whatsoever, and a real joy to behold. I can only imagine what it must have been like to be there to witness that phenomenon!
Thanks, everyone, for the kind comments! Sorry for not checking back in until now; a friend offered to bring me along on a rock climbing trip, and since I'm strictly a beginner, I was a little too busy to be photographing...
As to the rainbow image, yeah... in all honesty, I'm a little schizophrenic at times like that. I'm half thinking, "oh my God, this is amazing", and half thinking "please let me not screw this up". Then I'm terrified until I get the files home, check them out, and back them up. I do think that this site is the best community on the internet for landscape photography, so it's really gratifying to hear all the compliments from y'all. Like I alluded to, it feels like it's a matter of getting out there, and continuing to practice, so that when the conditions are amazing, you can bring it home.
Thanks also for the feedback on #1 vs. #2. After a couple of days of emotional distance, I think I agree that #2 is better. It's simply a crop from #1 (and composed of, say, a five-frame stitch rather than eleven or twelve frames), but it sticks to the important elements of the image: the layers of rock, and the layers of light in the skies.
Jack, I really respect your work and your approach, so I appreciate the praise.
Pam, sadly I won't order any of them any time soon. I'm living in a early-1900's house that only has a few large walls, and those are already taken up with earlier panoramics from Grand Canyon and Joshua Tree. So prints will have to wait. The idea of large prints does make me itch to get back into a gallery, though, even as gallery sales mostly lose money on balance. When you count in unsold inventory, I'm pretty sure my framer made quite a bit more money than I did when I was in a gallery from 2003-2008. The rainbow image is a nine-shot stitch taken from a full-frame Sony 850... which is irrelevant except that it would make something like a 24x60" print at 240dpi without upsampling, and man I'd like to see that.
John, I'd done some work in taking down the highlights in #6 already (and I like it a lot, myself), but I'll give it a week or two and come back to the file and think about working it again. I have Tony's masks but don't use them too often -- I use a "handmade" variation that does something similar that I figured out after seeing what his were doing. So I certainly consider myself to have learned from his approach.
Thanks again, everyone. I'm headed to the high mountains next. I just can't decide which ones...
Discussion
27 repliesMore seriously, the right conditions in monsoon season can be fantastic. The first series I'll be posting will be from four nights/five days camping up on the Island in the Sky district of Canyonlands. I was lucky enough to hit one phenomenal sunrise, one good sunrise, and one really good sunset. The others were too clouded in to get any light, or in one instance open skies without many clouds. Once you know your locations, weather is everything.
Conditions during the day were mid-nineties unless a storm was actively passing through, which happened at least once most days. The only real drawback was the high level of insects--more mosquitoes and biting gnats than I've ever seen in the summer months. Too much precipitation this spring, I guess.
I've done post-production work on these already, so feel free to comment or critique as you're moved to do so. I always appreciate good criticism. Enjoy!
Which do you prefer? I'm addicted to stitched pano's, but I can see cropping out the light clouds and the ponds below at Potash.
All taken within an hour of each other, all from Green River Overlook. This one is more to establish what the cloud conditions were like this afternoon/evening. This is not HDR; those clouds are the response of the sensor, with some judicious curves applied -- only about 5 points of modification!
Phenomenal color. So much so that it distracted me from my main objective...
...I like this, don't get me wrong. But I'm still kicking myself that I took the time on the pano in #4, above, rather than keeping my attention on the classic shot. That red light only lasted about a minute, tops. I caught it here on the left side of the pano, but it had faded on the more rightward portions of the White Rim.
The show continued, though, and I got this one later with some nice glow in the clouds. I like the fact that you can make out the edge of the Henry mountains in the distance on the left side of the frame.
Out of sequence chronologically, but I couldn't put it first. It makes the other ones look drab. My first morning out, got rained on, heard a couple of peals of thunder that were closer than I liked. Amazingly lucky to be here for this one. You're so high on the cliffs above the Colorado River that you can actually see the rainbow continue to curve around below the "horizon", giving a part of the circular arc that you don't normally see in a rainbow.
Like Colorado, we had a ton of snow this spring, with a number of ski areas still open July 4th. I tried going up one of the trails on Mount Timpanogos just to check it out. The high country is starting to open up. This is at about 8500'. About 800' higher, the snow got deeper and steeper than I wanted to take on while hiking solo.
There's a ton of water coming off the snowmelt, though. These are standing waves in a 6" deep creek running right down the trail.
All of that water is giving some great green plants, though, more like the Pacific Northwest than Utah's normal yellow-green or greenish-brown tones.
The star, though, is really still the weather. I can't stop shooting grand scenics when the clouds are this good!
I keep wanting to do some long backpacks, but I'm wondering where I can go. Between the high snow levels and the stream crossings, it's a different situation this year.
Hope this hasn't been too much for everyone. I may yet head out to the San Juans at some point soon, to get in some of that Colorado mountain goodness, but I wanted to share some work from Utah.
Thanks for looking!
I imagine you might get that a lot, living in Moab.
And hey, nice exhibit at Dead Horse! I had to wait an hour for them to open up the visitor's center, but it was worth it. Some great images, and nicely put together. I hope people take the time to walk downstairs and enjoy it, and that you get some business from it.
I was liking 2 (over 1), 3 & 6.
And then I scrolled down to lucky 7. You must have been ecstatic.
And I also wish that you had captured that magic light show with the classic Green River Overlook view.
I really like #6! Worthy of a pano. treatment for the composition and the weather. You might consider burning down the brighter portion of the sky right of the Candlestick.Tony K.'s masks would work a treat there.
#10 is my favorite of the 'odds & ends' you posted. Beautiful pattern and color!
And then, there's the rainbow. No nits whatsoever, and a real joy to behold. I can only imagine what it must have been like to be there to witness that phenomenon!
As to the rainbow image, yeah... in all honesty, I'm a little schizophrenic at times like that. I'm half thinking, "oh my God, this is amazing", and half thinking "please let me not screw this up". Then I'm terrified until I get the files home, check them out, and back them up. I do think that this site is the best community on the internet for landscape photography, so it's really gratifying to hear all the compliments from y'all. Like I alluded to, it feels like it's a matter of getting out there, and continuing to practice, so that when the conditions are amazing, you can bring it home.
Thanks also for the feedback on #1 vs. #2. After a couple of days of emotional distance, I think I agree that #2 is better. It's simply a crop from #1 (and composed of, say, a five-frame stitch rather than eleven or twelve frames), but it sticks to the important elements of the image: the layers of rock, and the layers of light in the skies.
Jack, I really respect your work and your approach, so I appreciate the praise.
Pam, sadly I won't order any of them any time soon. I'm living in a early-1900's house that only has a few large walls, and those are already taken up with earlier panoramics from Grand Canyon and Joshua Tree. So prints will have to wait. The idea of large prints does make me itch to get back into a gallery, though, even as gallery sales mostly lose money on balance. When you count in unsold inventory, I'm pretty sure my framer made quite a bit more money than I did when I was in a gallery from 2003-2008. The rainbow image is a nine-shot stitch taken from a full-frame Sony 850... which is irrelevant except that it would make something like a 24x60" print at 240dpi without upsampling, and man I'd like to see that.
John, I'd done some work in taking down the highlights in #6 already (and I like it a lot, myself), but I'll give it a week or two and come back to the file and think about working it again. I have Tony's masks but don't use them too often -- I use a "handmade" variation that does something similar that I figured out after seeing what his were doing. So I certainly consider myself to have learned from his approach.
Thanks again, everyone. I'm headed to the high mountains next. I just can't decide which ones...