Welcome to My View

Hello and welome to My View for Monday, November 9, 2009.

Hello Everyone,

I hope you are enjoying a beautiful autumn.

I apologize for being away from My View since July. It has been an extremely busy and hectic time for me. First, I want to thank all of you who sent good healing intentions for my friend, Wes, who had by-pass surgery back in September. He is doing very well and will be attending the Big Bend National Park workshop with us later this week.

Since Wes’ surgery, I have taught three workshops with Craig Tanner — Grand Tetons National Park, Next Step in Savannah, and Zion National Park. This week, we are preparing for the last one of 2009 in Big Bend National Park, November 14-20. In addition, we’ve announced our 2010 workshop schedule and began registering participants for those workshops.

Today’s image was taken on the Grand Tetons National Park workshop back in late September. The colors were really lovely late in the week in the park and we went out one afternoon to shoot back lit trees. I was demonstrating a technique to a few participants that I use often to abstract a scene. I moved the camera while my shutter was open, bottom to top, to follow the upward direction of the trees. There were several fires in the park this year, as well as a rather large one in southern Yellowstone Park, just up the road from where we were in Jackson. The amazing back light on the stunning trees reminded me of a more beautiful use of the word “Fire” — the fire in the color of the leaves.

Thank you for your patience with me during the last few months, for your good healing thoughts for Wes and for all the sentiments sent to me on the loss of my two canine companions so close together this year. You will never know just how much those thoughts mean to me.

As always, your comments and critiques are most welcome. They make me a better photographer, aid my growth as a person and offer me new experiences.

Teton Fire

Grand Teton National Park
Jackson, Wyoming
September 2009
Canon EOS 5D Mark II, 50mm 1.4 lens, ISO 100, f/22, 1/3 second, Hand held.

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Hello and welome to My View for Wednesday, March 18, 2009.

Who Makes the Image

Hello Everyone,

A belated Happy St. Patrick’s Day to you all!!

Later this week, Craig Tanner and I will conduct our first Next Step workshop for 2009. This is a special workshop that is all about creativity and finding the fears that hold you back as an artist, and one that Craig and I both enjoy teaching immeasurably.

As I prepare for this workshop, one of the things that came to mind was the question “Who Makes the Image?” Does your camera create the image you captured? Did you create this image? Did it come from somewhere outside of the person that is you? These are questions that artists have posed for some time now — where does the creativity come from?

As I pondered these thoughts on this beautiful spring day in Atlanta, I was reminded of an image I snapped during our recent Death Valley workshop, attended by an amazing group of photographers. We were photographing a gorgeous sunset from Dante’s View, high (5475 feet) along the crest of the Black Mountains of the Armagosa Mountain Range that form the east wall of Death Valley. From this peak, one can see the lowest point in the park, Badwater at 282 feet below sea level, to the highest point, Telescope Peak at 11,331 across the Valley in the Panamint Mountain Range.

One of our participants had been photographing this brilliant sunset and stepped away from the camera for a moment, leaving me wondering who was creating the image.

As always, your comments and critiques are most welcome.

Who Makes the Image

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Dante’s View, Death Valley National Park
Death Valley, California
Canon 1Ds Mark II, Canon 28-70mm L lens at 38mm, ISO 1600, 1/250 sec, f/8 and a half, handheld.

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Hello and welome to My View for Wednesday, January 21, 2009.

Welcome to Winter!!!

This past week, as our young new president was sworn in on a most historic occasion, we’ve had the coldest temperatures of the year here in the south. We have no right to complain, however, as our friends and families in the frigid mid-west were in extreme cold — “killin’ cold” as the old timers would say. But, for us, it was pipe-freezing cold!!

Back in 2005, a dear friend of mine and I went up in the Great Smoky Mountains for a weekend of photography. We woke up one morning to an unexpected drop in temperatures and the shivering cold of a Smokies winter. This shot was taken about an hour after sunrise on a frosty and foggy Smoky Mountain morning in Cades Cove.

I appreciate all of your comments and suggestions as they serve to make me a better photographer and person.

Thank you for visiting My View. May God bless our new president and grant him the ability to continue to inspire us and the wisdom to guide our country through such troubled times.

Winter in the Smokies

Cades Cove
Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee
Canon 5D, 16-35mm 2.8L lens at 35mm, ISO 100, 1/125 sec, f/5.6, mounted on tripod.

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Hello and welome to My View for Sunday, November 30, 2008.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you in the United States. I hope you all have had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend.

Here in the north Georgia area, we have had a spectacular fall. The leaves have been prettier than they have been in a number of years. This last Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, the cool rains moved in and the beautiful leaves are turning brown and falling. The weather is turning cold tonight and the remaining leaves will soon be all over my driveway, yard and roof.

As a last celebration of this colorful and lovely time of year, I found an image that I took a couple of years ago of the reflections of fall leaves in the north Georgia mountains. The trees are reflected in a small pond just off a trail. With gratitude to this beautiful fall that brighten the Atlanta area this year, I look forward to winter and the holiday season.

As always, your comments and critiques are most welcome. They serve to help make me a better photographer and a better person.

Thank you for visiting My View.

Autumn Reflections

North Georgia Mountains
Canon 5D, Canon 70-200mm 2.8L lens, ISO 100, f/2.8, 1/180 sec, tripod mounted.

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Hello and welome to My View for Sunday, October 19, 2008.

Today’s image was taken late Friday evening after the Grand Teton National Park workshop ended at noon that day. It was the first chance I had to shoot for myself all week. The heavy clouds were already moving in as the sun was setting.

The colors were still spectacular. I decided to play with abstracting the area around Schwabacher’s Landing. This was taken at a spot to the right of the traditional spot to shoot at Schwabacher’s.

Your comments and suggestions are always welcome. They help me grow as a photographer and a person.

Thank you for visiting My View.

Schwabacher Landing Abstract

Grand Teton National Park, October, 2008
Canon 1Ds Mark II, Canon 16-35 mm 2.8L lens at 23mm, ISO 100, f/11, 1.0 second. Camera mounted on Bogen NeoTec tripod and Bogen 808 head.

Hello and welome to My View for Monday, October 13, 2008.

On our way to Oxbow Bend for some personal shooting on the Sunday after the Grand Teton Workshop ended, we passed this stand of very colorful trees along the way. We had stopped at this spot earlier in the week with the class when the side light on the mountains was just spectacular. On this Sunday afternoon, the storm clouds, along with the side light on the mountains, made this spot especially appealing.

Even though the trees were in full color, I decided to try a black and white treatment for this particular image. You will have to let me know what you think.

I want to thank all the wonderful photographers who participated in the Radiant Vista Grand Teton Workshop for 2008. It was great to see old friends, meet new ones and share a beautiful autumn with you in this lovely national park.

I also want to thank Craig Tanner for giving me the opportunity to pursue one of my passions — teaching photography. Working with Craig for the past few years has been a pleasure and a terrific growing experience. I look forward to continuing to work with Craig as we transition the Radiant Vista web site, with new and exciting features.

Your comments and suggestions are always welcome. They help me grow as a photographer and a person.

Thank you for visiting My View.

NOTE: The black and white version, as well as the larger view, was replaced very early Tuesday morning. I don’t know if it made any difference to some of the monitors or not (see comments). Please try viewing the larger version.

As requested, the color version of this image is also included.

Along the Way

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Grand Teton National Park, October, 2008
Canon 1Ds Mark II, Canon 70-200mm 2.8L lens at 70mm, ISO 100, f/11, 1/125 second. Camera mounted on Bogen NeoTec tripod and Bogen 808 head.

Color Version:

Along the Way (In color)

Hello and welome to My View for Friday October 10, 2008.

After the end of the Grand Teton National Park workshop last week, I stayed over in the park for the weekend so that I could go out shooting for myself. Craig Tanner, the lead instructor for this workshop, and I do not shoot for ourselves during our workshops. So, the weekend after the workshop gave us the chance to go out and shoot some of the beauty of the park ourselves.

On Saturday, we were totally rained out. It was a day to rest, catch up on some work, and just enjoy the rain on the roofs of our little cabins at Cowboy Village Resort.

On Sunday, the rain clouds began to clear and the weather turned a bit cooler. As it cleared, we could see a few patches of fresh snow on the tops of the mountains. We went out in search of the beauty we had seen all week with the participants of the workshop.

At Oxbow Bend, we found it. As the sun was setting, the warm color of the leaves that we had seen all week glowed in the late light. The clouds, still hanging around over the mountains, provided just the cool background needed for the lovely colors and their refections.

Your comments and suggestions are always welcome. They help me grow as a photographer and a person.

Thank you for visiting My View.

Oxbow Reflections

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Oxbow Bend
Grand Teton National Park, October, 2008
Canon 1Ds Mark II, Canon 70-200mm 2.8L lens at 108mm, ISO 100, f/11, mounted on Bogen NeoTec tripod and Bogen 808 head. Combination of two images, one taken at 1/8 second and one taken at 1/15 sec.