New Gallery Pages Added

In the last few days, I’ve begun the process of adding image galleries right here on the TKM Journal. The end of the year, and during a break from teaching, is a great time to get started on a project like this, and I’ve already been able to get two pages to relative completion. Thanks for taking a look at the new collections and leaving some feedback if you have time.

Personal Favorites: This is the first time I’ve put together a gallery that highlights my most valued images from over the years.

Mendenhall Caves: These are the photos that I’ve become known for by that small contingent of folks who know about my photography at all.

2012 Summary

This past year saw a distinct reduction in my pursuit of photography, and while that may seem like a disappointment, I have no reason to complain. Less photography only means more time for the other critical, and often more valuable, components of my life. I loved being able to spend an abundance of time with my darling daughter, Della, and being a more effective teacher, and maintaining my commitments to service in my local church. It was a year full of blessings…and by some people’s standards, I still spent plenty of time outside with my camera. Certainly there were some incredible moments behind the lens!

After several years, the death of one cave, and the discovery of another; I finally got another chance to photograph this intricate ice phenomenon. When conditions are just right (first you need a subglacial cave) the most fascinating patterns form on ice deep under the glacier. It looks almost as if the ice were covered in very pronounced thumb-prints. Then, from another angle, it has the look of some kind of electronic circuitry. Successfully composing near-macro photographs in the dark can pose a considerable challenge though, and I have not always overcome those challenges in the few opportunities I’ve had. This past January I made two or three photographs of these ice patterns that I’m pleased with, but I’m also praying that some future day will provide me the opportunity to make something even better.

For spring break, Breea, Della, and I enjoyed a “warming trip” to the California high desert and Phoenix to visit family. This photo shows off a glorious sunrise on a morning that I skipped the long car ride to explore areas around the old farm that used to produce alfalfa for my great grandparents. Besides a few photos and a fun drive to the Kelso Dunes with my mom, it was awesome to have five generations together in one place again; Granny turned 97 just a month before our visit.

I’m not much of a wildlife photographer. I think I lack a level of patience, and I haven’t invested in the necessary equipment, but this year my friend, Corey, and I made the third of what has become an annual trip to visit the Benjamin Island sea lion haul out. It’s a pretty smelly sight, and yes, you read that right. A sea lion roar sounds an awful lot like a belch and it smells significantly worse. My wildlife photography skills require animals to be predictable and slow moving, and those two things are abundant at this location.

Using lens shifts to record this mesmerizing scene in great detail was a special experience in an of itself, some of the best hours of photography I’ve experienced in my life. That was just the beginning of the fun with this image though. I had never experienced the level of internet “fame” that was mine on the day that I posted this image to G+, and to be fair, I will probably never experience it again. I told friends that I new I had hit the “big time” when there were even comments degrading me for taking the photo and other G+ users for providing positive feedback.

Remember when I said that we warmed up down south over spring break? Well it was a good thing because Juneau set records for coldest average monthly temperatures in both May and June. It’s a tiny aspect of the above image, but you can probably just barely make out the results of those temperatures on the distant Chilkat Range. After a winter of record snowfall in the mountains, it still looked like early April at elevation when I made this photo on the summer solstice. I don’t feel like this image is my most artistic effort, but it records a defining moment of peak color on one of my favorite days of the year. Several hours earlier I was having success photographing a different location, and by the end, it was one of those days that can make an entire summer of wet, cold Juneau feel well worth it.

Mixed in with the recurring trips to my favorite Juneau locations was this day of awesome adventure. It wasn’t the length of trip (under 12 hours) or remoteness of the location (right next to a glacier tour helicopter landing site) that made the time special. It was the grand an unimaginable beauty that we were alone in for a couple hours. The fact that there were a few hundred people, over the course of  the day, milling around 100 yards away with no knowledge of what we were doing or seeing only added to my enjoyment. With Corey and another friend, the kayak back across the Mendenhall Lake under the stars (near 11 o’clock) was priceless!

I spent enough wonderful evenings at the end of the Herbert River Trail that I would be remiss not to include at least one photo in this year-end collection. On this occasion (as with most) I was looking for the greater view of fall color, Herbert River being one of very few places in Juneau where fall color means much of anything, but there were only scattered details to be found. I had the good fortune of adding two new lenses to my collection in the past year, and macro lens was one of them. While an image like this one would have been difficult or impossible without it, I haven’t used the macro lens as much as I would have hoped. That is something to add to my list of goals for next year.

Toward the end of the year was when things really slowed down, and I actually went over two months without taking a “nature photograph” for the first time in many years. Taking this time to look back, I’m surprised and very pleased by how many of photos I made over the course of the past twelve months still feel very valuable to me. Beyond photographs, witnessing another year in the life of my daughter and watching her grow in appreciation for God’s creation has been a consistent blessing. Spending time outside in simple pursuits with my wife and other fantastic friends is a true reason for gratitude. And if I want to take more photographs next year, I can always start by not leaving memory cards or batteries at home when I go on awesome hikes with sweet light! May God richly bless you in the new year!

Looking for Something

I’ve not been making new photos lately, so I dig into my archive of old images on a pretty regular basis, looking for something. Usually I don’t find anything.

Unveiling the Masterpiece

I’ve shared a huge number of images through this blog over the last couple years, but in this post I’m going to try and give more of the information about the creation of a specific photograph than I ever have in the past. If readers find it valuable, I will try to make this type of post a regular feature of the TKM Journal. Yes, that means I could make extremely sporadic posting a thing of the past, but we’ll have to wait till school starts in a few weeks to see how that really plays out.

“Laying Down a Masterpiece” – even before the water has uncovered it, a beautiful tapestry of silt and sand is taking shape

Most of the photographic work (at least in landscape and nature photography) comes after a subject has been identified and the lighting possibilities have been evaluated, but it isn’t as easy to identify a valuable subject as one might think. Of course, there are times when the drama or colors of a vast scenic view stop you in your tracks, but clearly the photo above does not show one of those cases. When it’s not enough just to have your eyes open, you have to be conscious of the act of seeing. While preconceptions can get in the way, there is immense value in having experience in and understanding of your surroundings. My most recent visit to the Herbert Glacier was not my first or second. Rather, I’ve been there more like a dozen times in the last few years. I’ve been there enough times to know that shadows from the surrounding mountains cross most of the valley by early in the evening, so there isn’t much chance of finding your subject bathed in the last golden rays of the sunset. I know that clouds are almost never cooperative even if they look promising in the time before the light is ready. Most importantly for this particular image, I know that there are often splendid patterns in the glacial silt on the edge of the river.

At first glance, when I arrived at the head of the river, it didn’t appear that silt abstracts would be an option. The river was flowing furiously, and it was over it’s normal banks in many areas. I was glad I had come prepared by biking the first portion of the trip in my Xtratuf boots. I used them to wade through shallow edges of the river as I made my way upstream, and being able to stick close to the river instead of going up into the trees allowed me to keep my eyes searching for possible images. I made about 100 other exposures before finding this small scene (mostly as a result of bracketing for both exposure and focus), but at the first sign of rippled mud under my feet, I was scanning the whole area for possibilities. It was none too surprising that the very best patterns were submerged in water, but that is what gives this photograph its unique and special qualities. Now, how would I best record this subject?

LDAM Unadjusted RAW – This view into the image making process gives two important bits of information. The first is that the default settings I use in Lightroom result in a very flat image. The second is just how subtle the subject I’m looking for might be.

One of the first considerations for a photo is the choice of focal length, or in other words, how much should I show? On this trip (as with most) I had options ranging from 17mm to 200mm and just about every point in between. On the one hand, wide-angle views can be problematic with flat subjects like this one. On the other hand, even short-telephoto would probably exclude to much to tell the complete story. At the end of my thinking, I stuck with the focal length of the lens that was already on my camera, my TS-E 24mm L II. But I promise, it really was the right lens for the job. I already mentioned the flat subject and that is where a tilt-shift lens can work like magic. I didn’t want to compose straight down, and I was worried that 24mm might be too wide, but I was able to work close to the subject and still maintain focus by tilting the lens.

Not only could I keep the whole subject in focus, but I could do it with an aperture of only f/5.6, and that provided two more perks. First of all, most lenses are sharpest at apertures one or two stops down from their widest (not all the way down where diffraction smears all details). The second thing was that I wanted to freeze (at least mostly) the ripples in the water moving across the frame. With the wide aperture, I could choose the right shutter speed for the exposure and not even have to think about the water movement. It shows up perfectly clear. Still, anytime there’s water moving, I like to take a handful of exposures in order to choose the best when I can view them more carefully on the computer screen.

LDAM Output RAW – Some photos take a lot of work and localized adjustments in Photoshop. This one was almost done at the stage where I exported it from Lightroom.

Though you see a striking difference from the beginning to the end of the RAW processing, the thought process and execution were both very simple. I knew that the scene actually had very dark silt and very light sand in the patterns, so I made adjustments to the “black clipping” and “white clipping” to work against the flat light and bring out my subjects natural contrast. The rest of the adjustments were about color. When a scene has colors as subtle as there were in this one, it’s a difficult choice between decreasing (completely) or increasing the saturation of colors, but you definitely can’t leave them alone. It tested some monochrome options, but in the end, I decided there was a beauty in the colors that I wanted to bring out.

Aside from a further enhancement of the color, the final adjustments in Photoshop are so subtle that they don’t warrant much comment. The colors were achieved through the use of Tony Kuyper’s “Make it Glow” action, and though I often find that particular action to affect the blue tones too severely, it worked perfectly in the case of this image. Picking a title for the photo was easy because I consider silt patterns and designs to be great works of art in and of themselves, and here I was actually watching the water roll little grains of sand through this scene. The end result is one of my most personally satisfying images of the last couple months, and I hope you enjoyed getting this behind the scenes looks into the discovery, record, and processing of the photo.

“Laying Down a Masterpiece” – The final version really comes to life for me and shows all the aspects of the subject and light that I hoped to convey.

I’d love to get your feedback on this type of post in the form of a comment. Thanks so much for your time.

HDR With LR4

“Yawning Portal” – subglacial caves are consistent and abundant by comparison; this cavernous tunnel under an iceberg was once-in-a-lifetime

 

The ability in Lightroom4 to work with 32bit files from Photoshop’s “Merge to HDR Pro” function has all of a sudden made working with HDR files not feel so HDR-ish. You rescue detail from the highlights and pull detail up out of the shadows in the same way you would have with a single exposure. The big difference? The information available feels positively endless! Here’s a video that lays out the details in a straightforward manner and includes a wonderful example image.

Return to Herbert Glacier

“Herbert Valley” – this clear creek sparkled in the bright sky-light just after the sun dipped behind the mountains

It was a perfect day to visit the Herbert Glacier, so I did. There was no way to know if the light and sky would do what I hoped they would during the special time of transition between day and night, so I made the best I could with the light I had each moment that I was there. It was a good thing I didn’t wait. The Herbert River, as is natural for this time of year, was ferocious in its steeper sections. The dwarf fireweed plants, more surprisingly, were just on the edge of blooming. In the sun, it was pleasantly warm, but only in the sun. Like I said before, it was perfect.

“Initial Succession” – not so slowly, moss and plants spring to life in areas so recently buried under tons of ice

“Leading Layers” – brilliant green cottonwoods and alders replace a sky that never caught much of the evening light

Walking on Soft Ice

I came home from tonight’s quick trip to the Mendenhall Glacier empty handed…but not with an empty spirit. It felt good to get out on the lake for one of the last times this spring, break through the soft top crust into five inches of slushy water, and then keep walking. It really was beautiful too, with clouds lingering in a clearing sky as the sun set. It’s just that the special light never showed up…no big deal. I’ve got archives.

"Lines on the Ceiling" - grooves and silt make designs on the underside of the glacier

Kelso Dunes

My lone “exotic location” visit during my spring break trip was to the Kelso Dunes of the Mojave National Preserve. My primary reason for choosing the Kelso Dunes was a desire to find the wonderful forms and lines provided by sand without having to travel too far. It turns out that while I allowed ample time for the early morning drive, I also needed to anticipate a fairly grueling climb to one of the highest points in the dune field. Even after reaching the top, it appeared that the best the Kelso Dunes have to offer was well out of reach in my time frame. I made two photos…and thoroughly enjoyed myself thanks to the fact that my mom had agreed to accompany me in spite of the early start time. While the Eureka Dunes of Death Valley are much easier to respond to with a camera, we probably wouldn’t have had the entire place to ourselves, and it was a great view.

"Over Kelso Dunes (BW)" - a great view of light and shadows and more light and shadows on the sand

"Over Kelso Dunes" - the light of early morning begins to touch the Kelso Dunes while long shadows from the tallest dunes linger in the scene

Waking with the Sun

"Waking with the Sun" - with a very shallow depth of field, most of the subjects in this image are more implied than revealed

 

In Juneau, the first days of spring are often accompanied by “warmer” weather and perhaps even some sunshine. But in spite of that change, the regrowth of vegetation from winter’s dormancy is a long time in coming. When I travel over spring break, as I almost always do, I love to go somewhere I can witness new life. My great grandparent’s farm (to which I traveled this spring) has become primarily the memory of a farm, but it is a very fond memory. This scene from near the property seemed to be coming to life in the morning light. The combination of dawn and spring as metaphors for resurrection wasn’t on my mind when I made the image a week and a half ago, but it definitely came to my attention as I prepared the photo for presentation yesterday (Palm Sunday).

Revisiting Abstraction

What exactly is an “abstract photograph”? The question has been answered by hundreds or more, and no doubt, many of those who have offered answers are more qualified to do so than I am. But I’m not as interested in defending my stance on what is and isn’t abstract photography as I am in looking into the consequences of calling any photography abstract. For those who place a great deal of importance on the photographs we make (especially if we’re called artists), it’s worth taking the time consider how word choice prepares our audience to view our photographs and how it can affect our own perceptions.

"Sandscape" - I would be surprised if anyone who has seen sand dunes before could look at this image without immediately identifying the subject. The patterns and implied perspective of ripples in the dunes are emphasized by camera placement, but they are grounded in the greater structure of the dunes shown at the top of the photo.

To my ears, the word “abstract” signifies an attempt to separate the resulting image from whatever objects were actually there before the lens at the time when an exposure was made. Then think about the goal of a nature photographer. Almost exclusively, our desire is to present some insight into the subject that is being photographed, whether sparking an intellectual understanding or an emotional response. If you accept something close to these definitions, it’s no wonder a nature photographer would feel that while an “abstract” photograph may please their clients, it can’t really bring the personal satisfaction they get by laying out a landscape as a clear and worthy subject.

"Veratrum #1" - The identity of a subject is even less of a mystery when it's something that has been photographed as often as Veratrum ("corn lily") leaves. But a "study" doesn't rely on mystery the way an "abstract" does.

So why would other nature photographers, with the same overarching goals, find the deepest fulfillment in isolating the lines, colors, textures, and shapes of their natural subjects? Are they functioning with some kind of artistic schizophrenia? Not exactly. Personally, I don’t perceive a single one of my photographs as “abstract”. Even at the times when I’ve wanted an image to suggest something entirely different than what was literally in front of the lens, I still don’t want the viewer to miss what is actually there…making the suggestion. Instead of trying to separate the colorful patterns of the ocean’s surface reflections by isolation, I isolate the reflections in order to focus attention on that specific subject. People are generally likely to overlook the very best of what our visual surroundings have to offer, and the tendency is only compounded when viewing an artificial representation of the world, like a photograph. While there may be splendid nuances nested inside the vibrant sunrise scenic, they are often difficult to engage with in the midst of everything else going on. Seeing the best the world has too offer requires study, and study requires intentionality.

This is precisely where the photographer comes in. A little intentionality of the part of the photographer (one who has trained him/herself in seeing through a great deal of practice) helps the viewer to make that first, sometimes most difficult step. For this reason, I choose to wholly replace the word “abstract” with the word “study” in all reference to my photography. It’s more than semantics because calling an image a “study” helps to reveal my intentions, and as much as I know we like for photographs to “stand on their own”, I can’t convince myself that clarifying artistic intentions is at all detrimental. If my thoughts make sense to you, feel free to join me in stepping out from the cloud of misguiding terminology. Who knows, maybe you’ll even feel less inhibited in creating a very valuable style of nature photography.

"Craftsmanship #6" - This photograph, in spite of its bold shapes and large out-of-focus area, is primarily about showing people something they will probably witness nowhere else. I think there are even people who have been in this cave at the same time as me without having any idea that these mesmerizing details existed right above their heads.