Haystack Rock at Dusk
August 16, 2010 by Cody · Leave a Comment
Dusk is my favorite time of day because of the colors on display – a mix of cool blues and purples with vivid, warm oranges, reds, and yellows. I feel that dusk has a certain mood to it that makes for great pictures and, fortunately, I don’t have to get up early in the morning to capture it! These photos were taken a bit after the one in yesterday’s post. I was looking for a shot that would focus primarily on the waves crashing against Haystack Rock but, once I got to what I thought might be a good location to do so, I realized I could go wide and capture a pretty moody picture due to the darkness settling in, the setting sun, and the amazing looking rocks in the water. I swapped lenses, framed the shot, and then got the camera setup on the tripod. I took probably fifteen different shots like this with varying compositions, with and without a polarizing filter (I wanted the extra stops of darkness the polarizer would provide – and thus a longer shutter speed – rather than using the filter for its polarizing capabilities). I also timed my shots to coincide with different patterns in the waves [...]
Cannon Beach at Sunset
August 15, 2010 by Cody · 2 Comments
Cannon Beach in Oregon is one of the most spectacular beaches I have been to. It’s a beautiful town with well-maintained beach homes and great, scenic coastline. If you’re looking for rugged Oregon coastline then Cannon Beach isn’t the location to visit, but it has sandy beaches and some unique, scenic coastline (especially if you have seen the movie “Goonies”). I visited Cannon Beach for a couple of days and hoped to get some good weather. Unfortunately, it was very cloudy the entire time I was there but there was a brief period during which the sun made an appearance and I had made the trip to the beach in hopes that I could capitalize on the brief opening in the clouds during sunset. After searching for a decent location I settled in and waited for the sun to work its magic. I tried to time my shots properly so as to capture the warm sunlight and good waves along the beach. I was hoping for the waves to provide some leading lines into the frame and I was able to get some decent lines to coincide with the excellent lighting we briefly received. The one real difficulty for me was the large number of [...]
Snow Canyon State Park – First Visit
July 6, 2010 by Cody · Leave a Comment
I had to go to St. George for work this past week so we decided to make a family trip of it. My wife and kids had never been to either Zion or Bryce National Park so, in addition to lounging by the pool (well, the family did more of that than I did as I had to work), we hopped over to those parks for some hiking and to enjoy the beautiful scenery. We also managed to make it to Snow Canyon State Park, which is just north of St. George. I had never been there but I heard that it was quite amazing and, I must say, the reports are accurate. It was beautiful and I was able to spend a brief amount of time taking some photos. Since I had never been there I wasn’t sure what to expect or when the best light would be available, but I took some shots anyway. We made our way over there at about 6:00 PM and the lighting was decent. Though we didn’t have much time to spend hiking and photographing, it was a lot of fun and I definitely plan on returning when I have more time for photography. The below shot was [...]
Hayden Peak in Spring
June 18, 2010 by Cody · Leave a Comment
Hayden Peak is in the Uinta Mountains in northern Utah. The Uintas are one of the only east-to-west mountain ranges in the Western Hemisphere and is one of the largest primitive wilderness areas within the United States. We are lucky to have such beautiful country so close to home. We took a family trip up there today and schedules permitted me to hang around Hayden Peak for sunset. This is a shot I’ve had on my “to photograph” list for some time so I was happy for the chance. My first couple of compositions were not too pleasing but I settled with my third composition. All framed the peak with the pines as you see here but I tried different angles, finally settling on this one. I wish there had been more dramatic skies but you work with what you have, I guess. I do like the frozen lake toward the bottom of the frame, though. The blue water coming through the ice is pretty neat. Oh, and I had to break out the trusty hyperfocal distance table to get the focus just right.
Black-Eyed Susan
June 16, 2010 by Cody · Leave a Comment
I was digging through my old photos when I ran across a shot I took in 2005. I had completely forgotten about this photo and it really struck me as probably one of my strongest photos. I haven’t the foggiest idea why I let this one slip through the cracks but it happened. It goes to show you the importance of not deleting your photos (storage is really quite cheap) and the fact that your opinion of a photo can change over time. The photo was taken at the Memorial Grove Park in Salt Lake City, Utah. I had stopped by there to shoot flowers after returning from a photo trip up Little Cottonwood Canyon. The skies were overcast and I hadn’t really tried to shoot flowers before so I gave it a shot. I remember what struck me about these flowers was their bright yellow petals and the purple flowers providing ground cover underneath them.
Peeking Sunflower
June 11, 2010 by Cody · 2 Comments
My wife loves photos of sunflowers so I had been looking for a sunflower as a subject for quite some time before I shot this. I haven’t shot flowers much, mainly because I haven’t been inspired by them as a subject, but I wanted to get at least one good sunflower photo. I had gone out looking for sunflowers specifically on many occasions but up to this point had not shot anything that I liked. My shots never seemed to have that “yes, that’s the one” type of quality so I kept looking. Well, one day my family had gone to a local farm to get pumpkins. As we were getting set to leave I noticed a sunflower patch and wandered over there. The sunflowers were huge and the leaves were nice and green (not the faded yellow of so many others I’d seen). Couple nice flowers with a bright, blue sky and I figured I had a decent opportunity for a pleasing photo. The only problem was that it was very windy so the flowers were swaying quite a bit. Nevertheless, I decided to give it a try. There wasn’t room to setup a tripod without trampling the farmer’s sunflowers so I had to [...]
Spring Storm in Boise, Idaho
May 16, 2010 by Cody · Leave a Comment
Here are the photos, mostly panoramics, from my shooting session in Boise, Idaho. As mentioned previously, a rain storm provided some wonderfully dramatic skies to go along with a setting sun over the city of Boise. I headed up to Camel’s Back Park to get a vantage point overlooking the city and spent some time shooting panoramics. Click on images for larger versions, though the panos can be printed huge. The web doesn’t portray the detail in the shots. The above photograph was created by merging nine photos together to form a huge panoramic. It was very tough to get my tripod level and to get everything lined up to get this shot to work out but I am glad that I made the effort. It’s my favorite shot from the series and captures the storm front as it moved in over Boise. The above photograph is a merging of seven photos that have been stitched together using Photoshop. It captures the storm as it continues to pass over Boise and the rainbow adds a wonderful touch of color to the shot. The above photograph consists of five photos stitched together to create a panoramic image. It was taken much later in the evening than [...]
Staircase Falls in Zion National Park
March 16, 2010 by Cody · Leave a Comment
The Subway within Zion National Park is an absolutely amazing location for photography and, if you aren’t into photography, to just take in. It is located east of the park’s main canyon and requires a pretty difficult hike but is well worth it. The Subway is a small canyon that has been carved out of the rock by a small river. The river cleared out a tube-like opening in the rock resembling a subway tunnel; thus the name. The staircase waterfall in this picture is along the hike to the Subway and was breathtaking. The beautiful red slick rock and fall leaves combine to make this a scene like nowhere else in the world. It’s one of the many reasons Utah is such a beautiful state. I took many shots at this location but this is the only one I truly like. I tried shooting from the left of this frame, shooting across the waterfall, shooting closeups, etc. but none of them captured the beauty of the location like this shot. I also have many people ask if I went crazy with the saturation settings in Photoshop and, while I do adjust the saturation within Photoshop (I shoot RAW so it’s necessary in order to [...]
Delicate Arch in Arches National Park
February 2, 2010 by Cody · Leave a Comment
Delicate Arch is one of the most photographed locations in all of Utah, which typically means I avoid photographing it. I usually shy away from a location if it has hordes of photographers or has been photographed every which way possible but, for some spots, I have to make an exception due to their iconic status. When I visit those locations, though, I typically try to shoot them in some unique way in order to differentiate my shot from the mountains of others. Delicate Arch is one of those iconic locations in the western United States and is in my backyard, so to speak. On a family trip to Arches National Park I took a hike up to the arch to try my hand at getting a unique shot of this amazing location. First off, Delicate Arch is huge. It is much larger than I thought it would be, towering over tourists as they stand underneath its “legs”. As I got to the spot, I was frustrated by the hordes of people swarming the place. I knew I wasn’t going to get much opportunity for good light due to the clouds in the west so I had to quickly decide on a location. I didn’t [...]
Christmas Meadows at Night
February 1, 2010 by Cody · Leave a Comment
This was an experimental shot that I ended up liking. While at Christmas Meadows in the Uinta Mountains of Utah, I decided that the moonlit night was looking pretty good for an attempt at some night photography. I haven’t done much night photography (I keep telling myself that I should make it more of a focus but I’ve yet to actually do so) and figured the shot would be fun to attempt, despite my reluctance to leave the comfort of my chair by the campfire. The shot was about a seven minute exposure utilizing my wired remote to keep the shutter open. You’d be surprised how long seven minutes can seem while standing in the cold and periodically checking one’s watch. Anyway, I had taken several previous shots in order to get the exposure right, eventually winding up with the seven minute exposure you see here. One of the challenges associated with long exposures like this is hot pixels as the digital sensor gets warm. Balancing the need for a long exposure with the potential of hot pixels is, I found, an important consideration for night photography and I have a new found respect for photographers taking excellent night shots. It’s tough to take mediocre [...]
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