On road trips, I am always amazed and intrigued by the many abandoned, deteriorating houses and business building that I see, especially in rural areas. I’ve taken more note of these on my most recent trips through northwestern Texas and portions of Colorado, Oklahoma, Kentucky and Tennessee.
An abandoned farm house along US 287 in northwestern Texas. iPhone photo, edited in Adobe LR and Nike Silver Efex Pro 2.
It has occurred to me that an interesting photographic project would be to seek out, photograph and document many of the more prominent and interesting abandoned buildings, perhaps, even documenting the history of those structures, the ownership and the stories behind how these came to be abandoned. One would also need to get permission from the appropriate people to photograph those that require getting onto private property to do so and this would take time and effort. A project of this magnitude would be a major undertaking and one that I am not likely to have sufficient time to pursue. However, I might try to take more time to photograph some of those easily accessible ones that I encounter on my journeys.
An abandoned house in rural Texas along US 287 with a newer farm house in the background. iPhone photo, edited in Adobe LR and Nik Color Efex Pro 4.
On the last leg of my most recent trip, between Amarillo and DFW, I eventually decided to take time to photograph a few, after passing up many other interesting looking abandoned houses. I only shot a few of these dilapidated structures, as I had a travel schedule and I could not take too much time stopping frequently for photos.
An abandoned farm house along US 287 in northwestern Texas. iPhone photo, edited in Adobe LR and Nik Silver Efex Pro 2.Abandoned house along US 287 in northwestern Texas. iPhone photo, edited in Adobe LR and Nik Silver Efex Pro 2.An abandoned business type building in northwestern Texas. iPhone photo, edited in Adobe LR and Nik Silver Efex Pro 2.An abandoned house in northwestern Texas. iPhone photo, edited in Adobe LR and Nik Color Efex Pro 2.
A dedicated project to photograph these abandoned structures could take much time, especially, if one were to try to get the photographs from early morning to about mid-morning or middle to late afternoon. Photographing during various seasons would also be good, maybe getting fall color or spring flowering plants into the compositions, where possible, and maybe winter photos with snow on and around the old homes.
Abandoned farm buildings in northwestern Texas. iPhone photo, edited in Adobe LR and Nik Silver Efex Pro 2.
I will keep this idea in the back of my mind and maybe take a trip just to photograph these nostalgic buildings. I’m sure there are many of these scattered throughout the countryside near me; but those might take much exploring to find. On the other hand, there are many visible along major US and State highways throughout rural areas near many small towns, where changing economic conditions result in the displacement of people and businesses.
I will welcome readers’ suggestions on this topic. Maybe some of you are aware of interesting, abandoned houses and can share information about those.
I rested during the day, after my early morning shoot, and spent some time studying the photographs in the book gifted to me by John Eric Hawkins. John Eric went out a bit earlier than I did that afternoon and I headed out again around 5PM.
My destination for sunset photos was again The Nursery, where I would shoot with my Nikon 24mm PC-E lens. I do not have much experience with this lens, but I thought this would be a good place to use it. In my morning conversation with John Eric Hawkins, I asked him what he thought of my idea of using the tilt/shift lens in The Nursery. He agreed that would be a good place to make use of this type lens.
As I neared my destination, I saw John Eric shooting in an area with small features, that I had scouted the previous day. I recognized that area as a good place to shoot and I had thought that I might get back there at some point during my visit, so I was intrigued that John Eric was shooting there. We chatted for brief while. He really liked that little area for shooting and contrasted it to The Nursery. As we were chatting, he told me that the 85mm 1.8 lens was a good one for shooting here. I had recently seen other landscape photos taken with that lens and I could easily see that he was correct in his assertion. I had a Nikon 85mm 1.8 lens back in my vehicle and I had hoped to get a chance to try it out for landscape shots somewhere on this particular trip, but I never had time to do so. Not wanting to distract John Eric for very long from his shoot, I continued on to The Nursery, which John Eric pointed to from our location, indicating that I could walk more directly to it than the route that I had set up on my GPS via a satellite map view.
Arriving in The Nursery, there was no one else around and I had the place completely to myself for the duration of my shoot. Again the late day light was very good.
I began experimenting with the PC lens before the golden hour, just to get comfortable with the technique of using this unique lens. I’ve blogged about this lens and technique previously, but here is a brief description of how to use this type lens. The general procedure that I use, after setting my composition and determining a starting point for an exposure, is to focus on the nearest object in the composition, using a large aperture, then tilt the lens to bring distant objects in the composition into focus. At least with large apertures, the focus on the very nearest point in the composition tends to fall out of focus as those in the distance come into focus. Decreasing the aperture a little helps with this problem.
I found shooting with the PC lens was a challenge, especially determining when I had proper focus on distant objects, as I tilted the lens. It appeared that only a very small tilt on the order of 1-2 degrees was required to bring distant objects into focus and it was very difficult to determine when the focus was optimum. The PC-E 24mm is an entirely manual lens, with the exception of metering prior to tilting or shifting the lens. I was also trying to use large apertures with the tilt and still get good depth of field, since this is one of the capabilities with this lens.
I had what I considered good compositions, with the “cracked eggs” in the foreground and the hillsides in the background or an array of the “cracked eggs” and the focus looked good to me in the field. However, after reviewing my photos on a large screen, I was very disappointed. Nearly all of the images were poorly focused or had very shallow DOF.
So what went wrong on this shoot? There may be several possibilities. Firstly, the very slight tilt range with very slight changes affecting the focus made it difficult to fine tune the focus. It is also possible that the tilt might have moved slightly after it was set, even if I locked down the tilt mechanism or maybe locking the mechanism might have resulted in a slight tilt. Secondly, maybe my eyes can no longer properly detect sharp focus. Thirdly, maybe I expected too much DOF from this lens with large apertures in landscape photos with lots of depth and maybe I should have shot f/11 to f/16. In hindsight, I certainly should have made each image with a range of apertures, since I had so little experience with this lens.
On the positive side, this was an experiment, which even though, it was mostly a failure, I can at least learn from the poor results and hopefully get better results with the next trial with this lens and I must practice more with the lens before depending upon it in a shoot of this type.
If any readers have experience with using the PC-E 24mm (or any other tilt/shift lens) for landscape photography, I would appreciate your feedback on this topic.
I only deemed 4 (or parts of 4, cropping some of the images to remove out of focus portions) of the 70+ images that I made on this shoot to be presentable and those are included here.
Bisti “Cracked Eggs”. Nikon D850, Nikon PC-E 24mm, f/8, 1/125s, ISO 64, edited in Adobe LR and Nik Silver Efex Pro 2.Bisti “Cracked Eggs” in “The Nursery”. Nikon D850, Nikon PC-E 24mm, f/8, 1/160s, ISO 64. Edited in Adobe LR and Nik Silver Efex Pro 2.Bisti “Cracked Egg” Texture. Nikon D850, Nikon PC-E 24mm (severe crop), f/3.5, 1/500s, ISO 64. Edited in Adobe LR and Nik Silver Efex Pro 2.Bisti “Cracked Eggs” in “The Nursery”. Nikon D850, Nikon PC-E 24mm, f/3.5, 1/50s, ISO 64. Edited in Adobe LR and Nik Color Efex Pro 4.Bisti “Cracked Eggs” in “The Nursery”. Nikon D850, Nikon PC-E 24mm, f/3.5, 1/50s, ISO 64. Edited in Adobe LR and Nik Silver Efex Pro 2.
As usual, these images are posted to my Flickr page, where they may be more easily viewed.
I had planned to get up early the next morning and shoot again at sunrise in the area with the many wing like hoodoos with the Nikon 14-24mm wide angle, which is easier to get more DOF with than the 24-70mm; however, as I walked back to the parking area with the desert rapidly going into darkness, feeling the tiredness setting in, I realized that with a long drive ahead the next day, that it would not be a good idea to start that drive after a short night of sleep and after hiking into and out of Bisti again. A morning shoot would have resulted in a late start on my long drive, so I slept in until just prior to sunrise Monday morning. When I peeked out the window, just after awaking, I saw that it was going to be a glorious sunrise with colorful clouds in the eastern sky and I immediately regretted my decision not to do the early morning shoot.
After getting everything packed away and ready for the road trip, I wrote a note to John Eric, since I had not seen any activity from his RV. As I was about to leave the note on the driver’s side door of John’s RV, he called to me from inside, telling me to come around to the sliding door side. He and Jean were just finishing breakfast and they were planning to leave that morning, too. He commented that I must have had a very good morning for shooting and I had to inform him that I had not gone out. I thanked John again for the book and we chatted for a few minutes before I got underway.
It was only late in the day, as I approached Amarillo, that I realized that my decision not to shoot that morning was for the best. Otherwise, I would have probably been driving after dark, tired, and less alert, resulting in less safe driving.
There may be only one more minor post related to this fall trip. I do not know when I will get time for another photo trip. I expect it will be in the New Year before I get time for another trip, so either there will be an extended break in these posts or, maybe, I might blog about much earlier trips, as I do have several interesting stories and photos that I could share from past years.
Here’s hoping and wishing that you all have a happy end of the year holiday season!
I got up early Sunday morning, September 23, left the Bisti south parking area about 5AM and headed out into the dark wilderness area. I started out with a headlamp, but soon switched to a brighter flashlight, as the normally bright headlamp just did not seem bright enough this morning. It is one of those headlamps with multiple functions and it would not switch to the brightest mode. This is a good reason to have backup light sources, when hiking in the dark. I had another headlamp in my Camelbak, but the flashlight was easier to get to.
There are landmarks that are an aid to navigation during the daylight hours, but in the dark it is not possible to see those landmarks from a distance. Fortunately, my GPS device, linked to my iPhone via Bluetooth, with a preset route made it quite easy to navigate towards my destination in the dark. Before I got to my destination, an area with many hoodoos of various sizes and wing like or fanciful shapes, it became light enough that I no longer needed the flashlight.
I scouted the area for awhile before it got very light, looking for a good place to begin the early morning shoot. I made a number of photos prior to the sunrise. Since the light was still dim, getting good images was a challenge and those images required more extreme editing to bring out the details and produce more attractive images.
Early dawn in Bisti. This is an HDR image created from 6 images in Skylum Aurora2019. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 48mm, f/11 at various exposures.Early dawn in Bisti. This is an HDR created from three images, using Skylum Aurora2019, with final edits in Nik Color Efex Pro 4. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 24mm, f/11, various exposures.Pre-dawn in Bisti. Converted to monochrome in Nik Silver Efex Pro 2. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 44mm, f/11, 1/5s, ISO 250.Pre-dawn in Bisti. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 31mm, f/11, 1/4s, ISO100. Edited in Adobe Lightroom and Nik Color Efex Pro4.
I am never really satisfied with these low light images in which the heavy handed editing often produces unnatural results and, even though, it is an artistic expression, being artistically handicapped, I’ve never felt completely comfortable with the results.
When the sun rose above the eastern horizon, there was magnificent light on many of the hoodoos.
Early morning light in Bisti. This is a composite of three images focus-stacked in Photoshop with edits in Adobe Lightroom and Color Efex Pro 4. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 65mm, f/11, 1/10s, ISO 64.Early morning in Bisti. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 40mm, f/11, 1/13s, ISO 64. Edited in Adobe Lightroom and Nik Color Efex Pro 4.Early morning in Bisti. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 24mm, f/11, 1/15s, ISO 64. Edited in Adobe Lightroom and Nik Color Efex Pro 4.Early morning in Bisti. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 70mm, f/11, 1/25s, ISO 64. Edited in Adobe Lightroom and Nik Color Efex Pro 4Early morning in Bisti. Several images focus stacked in Adobe Photoshop with edits in Adobe Lightroom and Nik Color Efex Pro 4. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm, at 62mm, f/11, 1/25s, ISO 64.
Early morning in Bisti. Focus stack of several images in Adobe Photoshop with edits in Adobe Lightroom and Nik Color Efex Pro 4.Early morning in Bisti. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 48mm, f/11, 1/40s, ISO 64. Edits in Adobe Lightroom and Nik Color Efex Pro 4.Early morning in Bisti. Focus stack of several images in Adobe Photoshop with edits in Adobe Lightroom and Nik Color Efex Pro 4. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 45mm, f/11, 1/40s, ISO 64.
Note that I focus stacked images to extend the depth of field in many of my photos here. This requires a bit more work in capturing sufficient images and much more time in the editing process, especially on my old, slow iMac.
I continued to shoot even after the “golden” hour, which is very limited in duration and I wanted to make the most of the limited time that I had for shooting here. I felt that the contrast and shadows would still allow for the making of good images.
Early morning in Bisti. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 70mm, f/11, 1/40s, ISO 64. Edits in Adobe Lightroom and Nik Silver Efex Pro 2.Early morning in Bisti. Focus stack of several images in Adobe Photoshop with edits in Adobe Lightroom and Nik Color Efex Pro 4. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 70mm, f/11, 1/30s, ISO 64.Early morning in Bisti. Focus stack of several images in Adobe Photoshop with edits in Adobe Lightroom and Nik Silver Efex Pro 2. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 52mm, f/11, 1/30s, ISO 64.A small Bisti Hoodoo and its shadow in early morning light. Focus Stack of two images in Adobe Photoshop with edits in Adobe Lightroom and Nik Silver Efex Pro 2.
I am becoming more interested in monochrome photography and this area is superb for this, since the colors are mostly muted, but the contrast, textures and shadows make for interesting monochrome compositions.
An unavoidable progression. Three small Bisti Hoodoos and their shadows in early morning. Focus stack of several images in Adobe Photoshop with edits in Adobe Lightroom and Nike Silver Efex Pro 2. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 42mm, f/11, 1/40s, ISO 64.Three small Bisti Hoodoos and early morning shadows. Focus stack of several images in Adobe Photoshop with edits in Adobe Lightroom and Nik Silver Efex Pro 2.Bisti Hoodoos and early morning shadows. Focus stack of several images in Adobe Photoshop with edits in Adobe Lightroom and Nik Silver Efex Pro 2. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 40mm, f/11, 1/40s, ISO 64.Early morning in Bisti. Focus stack of several images in Adobe Photoshop with edits in Adobe Lightroom and Nik Color Efex Pro 4. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 46mm, f/11, 1/60s, ISO 64.Small Bisti Hoodoos. Focus stack of several images in Adobe Photoshop with edits in Adobe Lightroom and Nike Color Efex Pro 4. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 62mm, f/11, 1/30s, ISO 64
As the morning wore on, I meandered around the area looking for additional subjects and for ideas for shooting at another more appropriate time of the day.
Alien Woman? Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 56mm (prior to crop), f/11, 1/10s, ISO 64. Edited in Adobe Lightroom and Nik Color Efex Pro 4.
I had spotted the above hoodoo on the previous day’s scouting. I think it may be one that I saw referred to as an “alien woman” in someone else’s post, but the GPS coordinates of that post do not coincide with this hoodoo. So either there are more than one of these or the coordinates in the other’s post were incorrect, which I think may be the case, since in that post the photographer commented that he could not find the “alien woman” in a subsequent visit to Bisti. Of course, these hoodoos are temporary and one of this sort might disappear over a relatively short time interval.
This “alien woman” hoodoo is in a difficult place to photograph at anytime of the day, but it is probably best shot in the afternoon, rather than the morning. I did not think I would get back here again on this trip, so I shot it anyway, if for nothing more than a record of it’s existence and location, recording its GPS coordinates on my InReach Explorer.
Bisti Hoodoos. Focus stack of several images in Adobe Photoshop with edits in Adobe Lightroom and Nik Color Efex Pro 4. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 38mm, f/11, 1/50s, ISO 64.
The above hoodoos are in the vicinity of the “alien woman”, just a bit more to the east. These are moderately sized ones and would probably be best photographed earlier in the morning. One can see that these are fragile and easily damaged. I have seen photographs of people standing on some of the larger hoodoos in Bisti, which is not a good thing to do, it is not only dangerous, but could result in injury to oneself and possibly destroy or damage the hoodoos.
Hoodoo Window. Focus stack of several images in Adobe Photoshop with edits in Adobe Lightroom and Nik Silver Efex Pro 2. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 48mm, f/11, 1/60s, ISO 64.
The “elephant head” like hoodoo above bridges a gap in the supporting structure, making a window in the rock.
The Seal Hoodoo? Focus stack of several images in Adobe Photoshop with edits in Adobe Lightroom and Nik Silver Efex Pro 2. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 56mm, f/11, 1/50s, ISO 64.
The smaller hoodoo in the background (above) looks like one that I have seen referred to as “The Seal”; although, I thought “The Seal” was located more to the west, so maybe this is not “The Seal”.
The aquarium/fish face hoodoos. Focus stack of several images in Adobe Photoshop with edits in Adobe Lightroom and Nik Color Efex Pro 4. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 58mm, f/11, 1/60s, ISO 64.
I can imagine that the caps on these hoodoos look like fish faces, so I am calling this the “Aquarium” or “Fish Face Hoodoos”.
Dark Tower. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 26mm (prior to crop), f/11, 1/30s, ISO 64. Edited in Adobe Lightroom and Nik Silver Efex Pro 2.
I made numerous images of the features above with the intention of focus stacking them; but when I looked at those photos, they just did not measure up to what I thought I saw when making them. Consequently, I cropped one image to include the major features on top of this hill. Since the back side of the tallest feature is in shadow, converting to black and white, makes it look like a “dark tower”, surrounded by guardian hoodoos. (The one on the far left looks somewhat like a shark). This image contains a view of “The Seal” from another angle, just to the left of the dark tower.
Finally realizing that the best of the morning light was gone, I headed back to the parking lot. Just as I approached my vehicle, the photographer, whom I had met at The Nursery the previous afternoon, came out from his RV to greet me, saying “I knew when I saw you leaving at 5AM that you were serious about photography”. Standing in the parking lot between our vehicles, we chatted for quite a while. I was entranced as he talked much about his background and experiences as a photographer and as he offered suggestions on photographic topics that I questioned him about. Near the end of this impromptu discussion, he said, “If you don’t mind, I have copies of a book that I offer to those I find with a serious interest in photography and I would like to give you one”. Of course, I accepted and he autographed the book for me. The book, The Ancient Shape of Man, is filled with beautiful, very sharp, large format monochrome images.
The gift from John Eric Hawkins, whom I chanced upon in Bisti.
Meeting and conversing with John Eric Hawkins and receiving his book as a gift was the highlight of this trip. I found his website listed in the book, which he told me he has not updated for awhile; nevertheless, his website has beautiful images and more information about John Eric. His website is worth a visit for those of you interested in fine art photography.
Be sure to check out the images in this post on Flickr, where these appear in higher resolution and in a larger size.
Thanks for following and please feel free to offer comments, suggestions and critiques of the images and the writing within this blog.
I left Ridgeway Colorado Saturday morning, September 22, via the San Juan Skyway, deciding to take that route to the south towards New Mexico, rather than travel the most direct route via US550, AKA The Million Dollar Highway, which I had just been on in July. I wanted to see some different scenery and I was not disappointed, even though, I know US550 from Ouray to Durango would have been a great, if somewhat scary with its hairpin switch back turns on a mountain roadway with steep drop offs with no guard rails, route, too.
There were some really good fall colors, more reds than I had seen in the past few days, along the chosen route in southern Colorado. I pulled over at one scenic pull out, needing a snack and to stretch my legs for a few minutes. Others pulled in and out of this area, to take a look around, while I was there. Before I got out of my vehicle, I saw, via my side mirror, the driver of a van behind me taking photos of my vehicle through his windshield. After my snack, I got out and walked back past that van. The driver was just coming back and he commented that he really liked my vehicle. The Sportsmobile does get a lot of attention, so it is not one to travel in inconspicuously.
As I was standing by the guardrail, looking out over the roadside mountain view, a group of motorcyclists, decked out in their riding apparel, pulled into the parking area. Most of the bikes appeared to be Harleys, but I noted one near the middle of the pack that looked different. I walked over to it to get a better look and commented to one of the nearby riders that I had never seen one like it before. He pointed out that it was a Spyder, a three wheel motorbike, and the rider was a “middle age” (not sure what this is now) female, who was really chatty about her tricycle and pointed out another “sportier, more powerful” model near the back of the pack, also ridden by a female. I asked one of the riders, if they were members of a particular club and he said they were just friends out for a ride. Most were from Wyoming, but a couple, he said, were “Idaho Potatoes”. He then held up his phone, asking if I would take a group photo. So of course, I did. Afterwards, I wished that I had had the presence of mind to ask their permission to get a shot of the group for my blog,
Nothing else of note happened along the route, but it was an enjoyable ride through countryside that I had not seen before.
I arrived at the south parking lot for Bisti access early Saturday afternoon, which, as expected on a weekend, had a number of vehicles in it, including a full size tour bus. I parked near the entrance of the lot between the bus and a long wheel base Mercedes Sprinter RV. After setting up, having lunch, gathering my selected photo gear for sunset photos, checking my Camelbak and InReach Explorer GPS device with previously set routes across the wilderness area, I relaxed a bit. Later, seeing the tour bus driver, I went over and chatted a bit with him. He turned out to be a very talkative person. He was originally from the northeastern US, but had moved to Colorado years ago, as had other member of his family. I learned that the tourists he was driving around were Latvian. It was a small group, too small to be profitable, he said, but the tour company had to host them, nonetheless. They had a guide to conduct them around Bisti, which was fortunate, otherwise they would, most likely, have no idea how to navigate to any of the interesting sites within Bisti. I was surprised that they were out there during the heat of the day.
Around 5PM, I set out into the wilderness, heading to an area referred to as the “Nursery” or “Cracked Eggs”, to which I had not yet been on either of my other two trips to Bisti. I loosely followed a pre-determined route that I sketched out via a satellite map view of the area with points of interest marked as waypoints, using GPS coordinates gleaned from online searches and a few from earlier photos that I had taken with GPS coordinates recorded via a device attached to my Nikon D90 some years ago. The one way distance to my destination was about 2 miles. So the resulting hiking distance was a bit longer, since I scouted a few interesting looking areas just off of my route for future possible destinations, recording a few new waypoints on my GPS device and getting a few reference photos with my iPhone. My Garmin InReach Explorer connects via Bluetooth to an app on my iPhone, which has an easier to use interface than that of the GPS device itself.
Routes that I set up prior to my visit. I only had time for portions of the south (red route) on this trip. The waypoints shown as 2011 photos were where I had shot in 2011 during my first visit here.A satellite map view of my possible south area routes. My first day destination was “The Nursery” or “Cracked Eggs”.
Along the way, I encountered a few of the Latvian tourists heading back to the parking area. They were not youngsters, mostly female, all looked a bit bedraggled and did not respond to my greetings. Maybe they did not understand English very well or were just too tired, hot and thirsty to speak.
When I arrived at The Nursery, I was pleased to see that there was only one photographer there, since it is a relatively small area and multiple photographers there could easily get into each others way. I chatted with him for a few minutes, then left him alone to finish his shooting, while I scouted the area, being careful to stay out of his way. It was still a while before the “golden” hour prior to sunset and I was a bit surprised that he was shooting prior to that time, since he was obviously a professional. However, he appeared to be shooting close ups of details in the “cracked eggs”, so I think he only needed the shadows and the contrasts. When he finished shooting, he hailed me, saying “It is all yours”. We chatted a bit more about gear, cameras, photography, etc. before he began his trek back to the parking lot. In our conversation, I learned that the long wheel base Mercedes Sprinter RV in the parking lot was his.
The Nursery. Nikon D850, Nikon 20-70mm @ 35mm, f/16, 1/15s, ISO 64. Edited in Adobe Lightroom and Nik Color Efex Pro 4.
Soon afterwards, I proceeded to shoot a few compositions, even though it was still a bit early. I noted a small Z shaped hoodoo and, as I looked it over, I thought that one edge of it had a facial shape and I could imagine the top of it as long hair streaming back from the head. So I’ve dubbed this the Bisti Automobile Hood Ornament Hoodoo. To shoot it from the most interesting direction and angle, I could not isolate it against the sky and I could see that the hillside in the background was going to be problematic, unless I just left the background blurry, which would be ok; but I did not want a blurry background. To bring out the hoodoo from the background, I made a couple of images to focus stack in Photoshop, then played around with a couple of ideas for merging the images. I decided that the best looking result was a color background with a monotone image of the hoodoo, blended in Photoshop. I selected “seamless color and tones” for the blending during the focus stacking process, which muted the color in the background, but I still think it contrasts well with the black and white hoodoo image in the foreground.
Bisti Automobile Hood Ornament Hoodoo. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 70mm, f/16, 0.6s, ISO 64. This is a composite of two shots focus stacked in Adobe Photoshop, with prior edits in Adobe Lightroom and Nik Silver Efex Pro 2.
As I was shooting, a couple of more people showed up and we greeted each other. Recognizing a German accent, I struck up a conversation. The man (Wiener) and his daughter (Anna), who was a student (university, I surmise), were on a tour around the western US, having started in Los Angeles. He and his family had visited the US on numerous occasions and he commented on how crowded the National Parks are now as compared to his first visits.
As the sun went low on the horizon, we each went about our shooting, being careful to keep both ourselves and our shadows out of the other’s shots. Weiner did most of the shooting, but occasionally shared his camera with Anna. Both shot hand holding the camera, as most tourist tend to do and I expect they were shooting with their camera in Auto mode. There were clouds on the horizon, which intermittently blocked the best sun rays, so we would stop shooting and chat a bit, then resume shooting when the clouds moved away.
The Nursery. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 70mm, f/16, 0.8s, ISO 64. Edited in Adobe Lightroom and Nik Color Efex Pro 4.Cracked Egg. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 46mm, f/16, 0.8s, ISO 64. Edited in Adobe Lightroom and Nik Silver Efex Pro 2.The Nursery. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 70mm, f/16, 1/5s, ISO 64. Edited in Adobe Lightroom and Nik Color Efex Pro 4Cracked Eggs. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 70mm, f/16, 1/10s, ISO 64. Edited in Adobe Lightroom and Nik Color Efex Pro 4.The Nursery. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 70mm, f/16, 0.6s, ISO 64. Edited in Adobe Lightroom and Nik Color Efex Pro 4.The hillside, with emerging hoodoos, to the east of The Nursery with moonrise. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 70mm, f/16, 1/6s, ISO 64. Edited in Adobe Lightroom and Nik Color Efex Pro 4.Cracked Eggs. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 48mm, f/16, 0.5s, ISO 64. Edited in Adobe Lightroom and Nik Silver Efex Pro 2.Cracked Eggs. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 52mm, f/16, 1/6s, ISO 64. Edited in Adobe Lightroom and Nik Color Efex Pro 4.Cracked Eggs. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 70mm, f/16, 1/3s, ISO 64. Edited in Adobe Lightroom and Nik Color Efex Pro 4.
There was a beautiful sunset that afternoon, which we both shot, before heading back to the parking lot. When I put a reverse graduated neutral density filter into the filter holder attached to my camera lens, Anna was intrigued, as she was not familiar with the use of filters. I explained to Anna why that particular filter was useful for photographing sunsets; but I gathered that Weiner knew about the use of neutral density filters.
Bisti sunset silhouette at The Nursery. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 70mm, f/11, 1/4s, ISO 64, Progrey 0.9 Reverse Graduated Neutral Density Filter. Edited in Adobe Lightroom and Nik Color Efex Pro 4.
There was nothing of interest in the foreground for this sunset shot, so I was satisfied with a silhouette shot.
Anna, learning that I lived in Texas, asked if I had been to Big Bend NP. So I told them about my first disastrous visit there, as we hiked back to the parking area. (I should write a blog about that trip sometime. It was a very memorable experience, although not a really successful photography trip).
We arrived back in the parking lot, where Weiner and Anna were tent camping, just before it got really dark. They were planning to go out again in the morning, but not prior to sunrise, as I was. We said goodnight and I did not see them again, other than from a far distance the next morning, so I did not get a chance to learn more about them.
The photo compositional possibilities here are only limited by one’s imagination. I have so many photos that I like from this photo session that it is not practical to include them all in this post, so I have selected only a few to include here, but others will be put onto my Flickr page.
