the new iPhone 4? The answer is not that it was taken with an iPhone 4 or any phone for that matter. You can guess, I dare you.
Tag Archives: sunset
December 2009 Photo of the Month
Last week the rain that we have been engulfed in for over six weeks just decided to up and clear one afternoon. I was so shocked that I almost didn’t grab my camera and head out. I was “too busy working on the computer”,”in a van, down by the river” and did not want to leave. I swear I was on drugs or something, again. I should have learned my lesson a week prior when I led a private workshop student out into the rain forest of all places, during what else-a crazy rain storm to shoot, and the images that we returned with were pretty stunning. Maybe one day I will get the hang of this stuff? Probably not, it is just like trying to be a good husband, no matter how hard I try, that crazy side of my man brain always clouds my judgement and I do exactly what I shouldn’t. Isn’t the first step to fixing a problem, actually realizing that you have a problem? Well honey, I am almost there. It took me 13 years to get to here, so maybe in another 13 I will achieve the next level of my manhood.
All joking aside, I decided to head out to a state park that is about 13 miles from my house, as the crow flies it would be about 3 miles. And if you calculate in the lovely Washington traffic, it only took about 2 hours to get there. Yes, I almost missed it! I am joking about the traffic, it was only an hour. Yes, still joking. I shouldn’t have had all of that coffee today. Those of you who know me best, know that I never touch the stuff. Used to never touch the stuff-double shot mochas are now my favorite. It’s like throwing jet fuel on a bonfire. Sorry, enough of this train-of-thought stuff.
I went out to Deception Pass State Park in Anacortes, Washington. I remember when Heather and I went there for the first time, we were wondering why there would be a mountain pass by us? We quickly realized that “passes” near the ocean are for water and not the easy way through a mountain range. I figured last week was a good time to give this place a try during a sunset and it was SPECTACULAR! There are two bridges that travel between the water passages and you can walk across both of them and underneath them for that matter. I hit it just right, the tide was on it’s way out and I was able to capture these spiraling whirl pools that were being created by the moving water. The fact that the sunset was amazing didn’t hurt either. This image was created with a Canon 1D Mark III, 16-35mm f2.8 II lens, Gitzo tripod, Kirk BH-1 ballhead, a Singh-Ray 3-stop Reverse Graduated Neutral Density Filter, and a Singh-Ray LB Warming Polarizer. Mastered as always in Lightroom and Photoshop.
The Beach
I recently wrote a blog post about this amazing sunset that occurred during a workshop that I taught in Olympic National Park this fall. A friend of mine, Younes Bounhar, told me that he was bummed that I hadn’t posted an image of that sunset yet. Well, here is one of the images from that evening. Everyone that has seen the images from that night has liked this one the most. Remember, like I said in the previous post, it isn’t over until the last glimmer of light has left the sky and you can not see your hand in front of your face. Even then, it is not over, as long as you can see the stars. I only head home when Heather is calling to let me know that the kids are hungry, and need to go to bed. Even then, if it is really good, I can con her into letting me stay a little longer. I captured this image with a Canon 1D Mark III, 16-35mm II f2.8 lens, Gitzo tripod, Kirk BH-1 Ballhead and a Singh Ray LB Warming Polarizer. The final image was mastered in Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop.
October 2009 Photo of the Month
This month’s image was taken in early September from the end of the Mount Baker Highway near Mount Baker Ski Area in Washington State. My wife Heather, daughter Jade, and son Micah and I were shooting some hiking images for an upcoming calendar along the trails above Artist Point, when we stumbled upon this tarn that was perfectly still at sunset. After I captured a couple of photos with the family in the reflection, I just couldn’t pass up shooting the image as a landscape as well. The more I explore in Washington, the more astonished I am at the unobstructed beauty here. It was one of those evenings where everything came together perfectly-the clouds, the stillness in the water, and the alpenglow on the peak. I couldn’t have created it better with a written request to mother nature. This image was shot with a Canon 1D Mark III, 16-35mm f2.8 II lens, Gitzo carbon fiber tripod, Kirk ballhead, and a three stop graduated neutral density filter.
August 2009 Photo of the Month
I have been really busy working for commercial clients, which has kept me at the computer screen for what seems like years now, even though it has only been a couple of weeks. A few days ago I got to escape to shoot the sunset about 5 miles from my house in an area where my wife Heather and I usually mountain bike. The trail is named The Boneyard, primarily, for the amount of deer carcasses that the hunters leave along it during the fall hunting season. We have found almost full skeletons there! It is a pretty morbid place, but the mountain biking is some of the best that I have ever ridden. It is an amazing one hour loop, with one of the fastest downhills around. As you near the top of the ride, the trail meanders through a pinyon pine forest. The Colorado Pinyon is a slow growing tree similar to the bristle cone pine, the difference being, that it grows at much lower and arid locations. Since the pinyon is such a slow growing tree, its trunks and branches take on a wildly gnarled shape. I decided to put one of the biggest specimens in the foreground of my composition to offset the soft and silkly feel of the meadow grasses. The clouds illuminated just as I arrived to allow me to get this shot. e: Canon 1D Mark III, 16-35mm f2.8 II lens, Gitzo carbon fiber tripod, Kirk Ballhead. p: Adobe Lightroom, Photoshop.
September 2008 Photo of the Month
Since June, Jay has been shooting locally in Eagle, Colorado to capture images for an upcoming, extremely, limited fine art book. One of the new images was taken in area just south of Eagle named Lime Park. This photograph was shot looking north at the Sawatch Mountain Range just as the sun was setting on the horizon. Jay utilized his Canon 1D Mark III camera, 70-200mm IS AF lens, a Singh-Ray 3 stop graduated neutral density filter, and a Gitzo carbon fiber tripod. The image was post processed using Adobe Lightroom 2, Photoshop CS3, and managed on the web with Adobe Dreamweaver CS3.
To inquire about the upcoming book please send Jay an email.
July 2008 Photo of the Month
This spring and now summer have been a great year for wildflower photography here in Colorado. We had a huge snow pack followed by a cooler, wet spring which has given the flowers the temperatures and water they need to not only stick around, but to also bloom in force unlike previous years.
In this month’s image, Jay was trying to achieve a life cycle shot. The combination of a partially living sage with the new blooms of phlox and arrowleaf balsamroot give way to a heavenly sky during sunset up in the hills above Jay’s house. For this image Jay utilized a Singh-Ray Daryl Benson reverse graduated neutral density filter to bring the sunset into the exposure range of the sensor. This technique allows Jay to spend less time at the computer mastering images and more time in the field shooting new ones.
The file was globally mastered in Adobe Lightroom, and then individual layer masks were added in Photoshop CS3. The image was taken using a Canon 1D Mark III camera, 16-35mm f2.8 lens, Gitzo tripod, Kirk ballhead, and the Singh-Ray filter mentioned earlier. And as always mastered on a Mac.
November 2007 Photo of the Month
I have been having trouble making a decision on what image to post for this month because I have shot a ton of images this fall and have liked so many. Once I downloaded the images that I shot from the Denver Zoo for a yearlong project that I started last weekend, the decision came to me with this image. For the most part last Saturday was a cloudy day in Denver, but right at the moment when the sun was setting and the zoo was closing I was able to photograph at the flamingo pond and walked away with a bunch of unbelievable images within a few minutes. This is one of my favorites for the color and the focus on the eye of a single flamingo within the group. I had such a good weekend there that I can’t wait to return. What most photographers don’t realize is the their local zoo is a great place to get close both native and foreign wildlife. It is a great place to practice capturing the movements and behaviors of animals, not to mention a great place to add to your stock collection of animals that might take you years to photograph in the wild due to location and expense. Hmmm, the gears in the brain are turning…I shot this image with a Canon 5D, 70-200mm f2.8 AF IS lens, 2x teleconverter, handheld. It was imported and initially mastered in Adobe Lightroom, then finalized in Adobe Photoshop CS3, and uploaded to the web using Adobe Dreamweaver CS3. New to this and future months, I have opened comments for the Photo of the Month.
July 2007 Photo of the Month
The photo for this month was taken this past June on the Eagle River in the Class V rapids of the Dowd Chute. It will be one of the featured photographs in Jay’s forthcoming book entitled, The Valley. The Valley is due to be published in January 2008. The image was taken with a Canon EOS 5D, 600mm f/4 AF IS lens, Gitzo carbon fiber tripod, Kirk ballhead. It was mastered first in Adobe Lightroom, then finalized in Adobe Photoshop CS2.
June 2007 Photo of the Month
The photo this month was taken on the first week of June in 2006. It is of the sunset on the Caribbean Ocean from the shore of Playa Del Carmen, Mexico. Jay shot the image with a 17-35mm f2.8 AF lens, Canon 5D digital camera, Gitzo carbon fiber tripod, Kirk ballhead and a 3-stop hard step Galen Rowell Graduated Neutral density filter. The file was mastered in Photoshop CS2. This image has already won three awards the most recent being the 2007 Environmental Photography Invitational Competition and a fine art print of the image is hanging in the Art Wolfe Gallery in Seattle, Washington.