Photography – Page 44 – Ken's Photography and Travel Blog

Bisti – May 2019 – Arrival and Day 1 Scouting – Part 1

After having scouted some of the northern part of the Bisti Wilderness in New Mexico during my March 2019 visit, but not having time during that visit to photograph in that portion of Bisti, I wanted to go back and spend more time on the north end and I wanted to go before the hot weather of summer set in. For various reasons, I had delayed going back, but I finally set out in late May. Since I was eager to get there, knowing that leaving on a Friday would maybe present problems with finding a suitable and available stop over place and staying over on a Friday would result in arriving on a weekend, which tends to be a busy time for visitors, I decided to drive straight through (about a 12.5 hour drive, according to mapping software). With stops for fuel, food and to take time to walk around at rest breaks, I figured it would take 14-15 hours to get to Bisti. I had intended to leave home around 7AM and anticipated arriving at Bisti around 9-10PM and with total darkness not arriving before about 9PM, I would not have to drive for very long in the dark. However, as usual, I got away from home a little latter than the plan, so I arrived closer to 10PM than 9PM and it was already totally dark, when I arrived at the dirt road entry to the unofficial North Bisti parking area.

As I pulled off of NM 371 in total darkness, the dirt road looked different than I remembered. I had not been there in total darkness previously. Thinking more light would let me verify my location, I switched on both the upper and lower LED light bars, which are really bright. Even with that much light, initially I could not be sure that I was in the right place and I did not want to drive into the wrong area, so I consulted my iPhone map, which seemed to confirm that I was in the correct location. Nevertheless, I proceeded with caution. As I drove along, I began to feel more confident, as I recognized features from the March visit here.

As I turned past the bluff behind which was the large, open parking area, I saw a truck and an RV trailer in the distance. Not wanting to be a nuisance with my bright lights, I stopped at the edge of the parking area and switched off the LED light bars, made sure the regular vehicle lights were in low beam, then parked a respectable distance from the RV and truck. (For some reason, people coming into such areas like to park adjacent to others, even when there is much space available).

I walked around my vehicle with a flashlight to verify that there was no problem with my parking area. I noted how dark it was there and I marveled at the infinitely many stars in the sky. Seeing a campfire near the RV, I walked over to say hello and to be sure whoever were there were satisfied that I had not parked too close to their camp. (I must have been about 30 or so yards away, but I had plenty of space to move away more). As I approached their campfire, hailing whoever was there, and I got close enough, I saw one person sitting by the campfire, then another came out of the truck or trailer. The one by the campfire was a youngish man from Denver and the other an older man from Oregon. They confirmed that they had no problem with where I parked, then the older one said, “That is quite the light arrangement you have”. To which the younger one added, “I thought I was being abducted by aliens”. So it is good that I turned the lights off, when I did, rather than leaving them on until I parked!

I saw them again from a distance in the morning, but I never visited with them again, since they left sometime the next day, while I was out in the Wilderness.

My original plan for the first morning was to go out for sunrise photos, but since I was getting to bed after 11PM, had slept only 5-6 hours the night before, I would not get more than 5 hours sleep this night, if I got up early for sunrise and I had no definite route planned to get to a destination for sunrise, I decided it best to sleep in and scout the area first, rather than wander around in the early morning darkness.

So the first morning, after coffee and breakfast, I installed the solar panels, then went scouting, adding more GPS waypoints and shooting iPhone scouting photos. This is a really remarkable place to explore. There seems to be no end to interesting features, geology and photographic opportunities.

Sportsmobile in the Bisti North Parking Lot — The “unofficial” north Bisti parking area. iPhone photo.

As I was installing the solar panels, a passenger type van with a sign on the side that I could not make out, passed by and parked near the corner of the fence line at the border of the Bisti wilderness area. A number of young people got out and I assumed it might be a geological field trip, maybe from a university. I anticipated encountering that group later, during my scouting of the area, but I never saw them again and the van was gone when I returned from my scouting walk about.

Twin Peaks — Petrified tree stump with twin peaks landmark in the background. iPhone photo, edited in Adobe LR and DxO Nik Color Efex Pro 4.

As I returned from scouting the area, I frequently stopped to look around and behind me to get a feel of the area and to make mental notes of landmarks. I did not encounter anyone during my walk about, but at one point, I saw a group of people on an elevated area in the distance. I assumed that they must have come from the official south parking area, which is the most popular place for visitors.

Bisti_May25_2019_ScoutingPhoto — Rock Ridge Landmark. iPhone photo, edited in Adobe LR and DxO Nik Color Efex Pro 4.

This rock ridge image illustrates the “leading line” technique in photography, with the line of rocks leading the eye through the photograph. (Click on the photo to view on Flickr).

Headless Hoodoos with a Native American house in far background. The house makes a good navigation landmark, which can be seen from far away. iPhone photo.

I was alone in the parking area, much of the day, but others began to arrive in the afternoon, going out and returning well before sunset. I noted some were crossing the fence line near the corner and walking directly into the wilderness, rather than going to the south end of the parking area, where there was no fence at a drainage crossing, which I had been using. When I saw one such group returning to their vehicle in the afternoon, I approached them and asked about the route they were taking into Bisti. They assured me it was a good direct route with easy crossings of the deep drainage. They were all from a local mission and offered much advise on the area, including where to get water locally, rather than driving 45 miles into Farmington. One of them was a Navaho, but he did not look like a Native American, and he had lived in the area for 37+ years.

Crossing the fence line near where I parked would save a quarter mile (one way) walk across the parking area and maybe another 1/4 to 1/2 mile (one way) of walking otherwise. I found that walking directly east along the fence line led to a very easy place to get into the drainage, then I only had to walk a few yards along the drainage to an easy exit. So I am very glad that I watched and learned from other local visitors.

I shot so many photos during this scouting session that I will break this post into multiples with more frequent posts. Hopefully, the frequency of these posts will not be too much for you.

Ken

Cold Springs Campground – Day 2 – Sunrise Photography

In the morning of July 13 we shot sunrise photos just east of the lake at Cold Springs Campground in Routt National Forest. We began shooting from a hillside just east of the lake.

Coldsprings Camping Area, Routt NF, CO — An area adjacent to the Cold Springs Campground in Routt National Forest, Colorado. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 24mm, f/16, 2s, ISO

I thought that the weathered tree stump made an appropriate foreground object here.

Coldsprings Campground — Cold Springs Campground Scene. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 24mm, f/16, 0.8s, ISO 64.

The lake made a great mirror, reflecting the clouds in the sky and the trees along the edge of the campground. None of the other campers were up and about yet. We tried to be as quiet as we could so as not to disturb them.

I put the weathered stump and a taller stump with slight side lighting at the edge of this photo.

After shooting on the hillside, we moved down into the meadow at the base of the cascade. There were lots of white and blue wildflowers in the meadow, especially around the cascade and stream. The area below the cascade was wet and marshy, which I had not anticipated and I was not wearing my water resistant hiking shoes. My shoes, socks and feet got soaked with cold water.

Water Cascade, Coldsprings Campground, Routt NF, CO — A mountain stream cascade in the area adjacent to Cold Springs Campground in Routt National Forest, Colorado. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm @ 24mm, f/16, 1.6s, ISO 64.

As you can see, I got multiple compositions of the cascade with varying amounts of the surroundings. I used slow shutter speeds to get the silky effect of the flowing water. There was not much wind, but there was enough motion in the vegetation to keep from getting really sharp images of the wildflowers. I tried to make the images at times when the wind was most calm in hopes of getting sharper images. This works with only limited success.

After breakfast, I hiked to the marshy area above the cascade, where there were many wildflowers in another meadow around the stream. By the time I got there the clouds were mostly gone, the light harsh, still a little too much wind and many swarming mosquitoes. I tried a few shots anyway, but those were not presentable. Somewhere in there, I apparently lost my Rocket Blower, which I had just put into a pocket for convenience, rather than take it along in my backpack, which I left behind in the vehicle. (For non-photographers, a Rocket Blower is a device for blowing dust off of lenses, filters and camera sensors. This is an essential piece of gear, in my opinion, so I have since acquired another one. For the rest of this trip, I had to borrow my son’s whenever I needed it).

Later in the morning we walked 10 minutes down the road to Smith Lake Trailhead. Smith Lake Trail is only 0.7 miles, steep in a few places, mostly near the start, but mostly an easy trail. We hiked to Smith Lake and decided to return the next morning for sunrise photography.

On the way to Smith Lake Trailhead, we noted a small field of Columbines, which would possibly be good for foreground shots at sunset, assuming the clouds cleared by that time, as it had gotten much cloudier and rained lightly off and on during the day.

We also walked back to the reservoir, hiking a short distance along one of the two trails starting at the reservoir. We turned back as lightning and thunder got closer and more active. It only sprinkled lightly and we took time to explore more in the area south of the roadway, along the stream from the reservoir.

That is it for this post. Stay tuned for the sunset shoot results,

Ken

Cold Springs Campground Day 1, Routt National Forest, Colorado, July 2019

To avoid possible monotonous posts, I’ve decided to mix up things a bit. I still have a week’s worth of photos from a May visit to the northern area of the Bisti Wilderness, but since I’ve had many consecutive posts about Bisti, I will now intersperse posts about other areas with the Bisti posts. This means getting posts out of the heretofore chronological order. I hope this will keep followers from being overly bored and will not result in confusion due to the lack of timeline continuity. This is the first such out of chronological order post.

In July, 2019 I traveled to my oldest son’s place north of Denver, Colorado and we set out the following day for a week of camping and photography in the northwestern portion of the state.

Our first destination was Cold Springs Campground in the Routt National Forest adjacent to the Flat Tops Wilderness, named for the Flat Top Mountains of the Rocky Mountain Range.

When we arrived at the campground, there was only one spot left in the first come, first serve campground. Even though it was not the most sought after camping spot for most, it was actually a good spot for us and the Sportsmobile, since it was fairly level, easy to pull into and out of and had full sun exposure, which was perfect for utilizing the solar panels for maintaining the battery charge. The spot was closest to the roadway, so we got some dust from passing traffic, which tended to travel faster than the speed limit, but the dust was minimal and not a real problem.

The Sportsmobile in Cold Springs Campground July 2019. iPhone photo with edits in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik Color Efex Pro 4.

Since all other campers or those looking for an empty spot had to pass our location on the way into and out of the campground, we had several people asking about our camping vehicle and taking photos of it. One couple even stopped beside us in their vehicle, as we hiked along the roadway towards the reservoir, after they had seen us around the Sportsmobile. They asked questions about the vehicle and seemed interested in looking into acquiring one, making a note of the Sportsmobile name.

The biggest problems at this campsite at this time of the year were the mosquitoes and other swarming insects, which swarmed us every time we were outside for any length of time. This is typical of forested mountain areas in the summer, especially those near water and there was a small lake adjacent to the campground fed by a mountain stream cascading into it on the north end of the campground. We used lots of insect repellant, still it was difficult to concentrate with so many mosquitos and/or other insects buzzing about. I also had to edit out a number of mosquitos from some images. There might be others hidden in the image details that I did not see, when editing.

There were fairly abundant wildflowers in the area, especially around the wetter areas near the streams.

Mountain Stream and Wildflowers. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 40mm, f/16, 1/15s, ISO 800

I tried to use higher ISO to get faster shutter speeds to freeze the flowers, but with limited success, since I still wanted to have a slow enough shutter speed to get a silky effect on the flowing water.

There is a small reservoir, maybe a half a mile up the road, where the roadway ends. We hiked to the reservoir to check it and the area to the south of the roadway, looking for suitable areas for photographic interest.

We also explored around the small lake adjacent to the campground, determining that we could do sunrise photos on the east side of the lake.

A Gnarly Tree Stump in the forest near Cold Springs Campground, Routt National Forest, Colorado. iPhone photo with edits in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik Color Efex Pro 4.

At sunset, we got good light, after the afternoon clouds opened, shooting south of the roadway.

Routt National Forest Scene — One of the Flat Top Mountains in the Routt National Forest, Colorado. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 24mm, f/11, 1/20s, ISO 64

Routt NF, CO, Near Coldsprings Campground. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 38mm, f/11, 0.8s, ISO 400.

The bands of color in the sky of this photo are in the raw file. I thought this was not normal and would not have included this photo, but my son convinced me that this is not the abnormal banding sometimes seen in digital photos. He thinks there are just layers of clouds that are separating the colors in this manner and I can see some layering in the atmosphere. It just looks so unusual to me, so I am still not fully accepting that this is normal coloration.

Stay tuned for more about our Colorado experience and resulting photographs.

Ken

Spring 2019 Road Trip – Bisti – Day 7 – Sunset

My son and I went back to the “Scalloped Rocks” area for sunset photos on our last evening in Bisti. This area works for both sunrise and sunset photography.

Sunset Day 7 Bisti March2019 — Scalloped Rocks Area, Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 30mm, f/11, 1/5s, ISO 64. Edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik Silver Efex Pro 2.

In this photo I have used the row of rocks on the right side to create a leading line into the image. I also think the empty space at the lower left visually counter balances the weighty rocks on the right and upper portion of the image.

The two images above were made before the best light at sunset, as is apparent in the bottom photo. For photos taken at this time, monochrome version are sometimes best, but I still like the color version, too.

Some of the rocks in this area look like modern art sculptures.

The photo above illustrates how saturated the colors become right at sunset. Otherwise, most of the rocks in this area have rather dull colors.

I am always amazed at how much difference the “magic” light at sunset makes in a photograph. View this photo on Flickr by clicking on it and the details will be much more vivid. I call this “The Gathering”, since there is a circle of rocks around a much smaller hoodoo near the center.

The photo above is an HDR created via two exposures of 1 and 2 seconds, so that both the sky and the foreground objects are properly exposed. This is a moderate HDR, which looks more realistic than many of the HDR effect that one can create. I can imagine a creature in battle gear in the rock feature on the left. Maybe a turtle like alien from another universe or a video game creature?

These two last images are also HDRs. The one above is created via two images with exposures of 2 seconds and 13 seconds. I call these rock formations, “Conversing Rocks”, since I can imagine animal like faces in the upper portion of the features, with the two facing each other with the one on the right appearing to be saying something to the one on the left, who is smiling about whatever is being said.

I moved in and a little to the right to get the bottom composition, making a 6 second and a 20 second exposure, then combining these in Luminar Aurora 2019 HDR software. Can you see the animal like shapes in the rocks?

The difficulty that I have with making photos with these high contrasts is getting a good depth of field, since the light is low and focusing can be difficult. One might note that the rock in the bottom right of the second image is fuzzy, so I failed to get the desired depth of field in this image.

This post wraps up this trip. I spent a week on the north side of Bisti the last week of May, so I will be posting photos and blogging about my experiences on that side of Bisti, but to add variety, I will begin to mix in post from other places. This means that I will have to get some items out of chronological order, which I hope does not create confusion.

Until then,

Ken

Spring 2019 Road Trip – Bisti – Day 7 – Scouting

Midday of day 7, and our final day in Bisti, my son and I returned to the north area of Bisti to explore and scout potential areas to return to later.

Day 7 March2019 Bisti North Scouting — Petrified tree stumps in north Bisti iPhone photo, edited in Adobe LR and DxO Nik Color Efex Pro 4.

We found these large petrified tree stumps in the broad wash area that we have to cross on our way into this area.

Here is another petrified tree stump we found.

And a view from the top side of the stump reveals more color from mineralization and lichen.

My son seems to have found the magic spot beneath the big X in the sky.

I had GPS coordinates for features someone labeled “Conversing Hoodoos”. I had not seen photos of these, so I had no idea what they would look like; but upon finding them, it was obvious why these were so named.

In the same general area as the conversing hoodoos are

other large wing like hoodoos.

More large wing like hoodoos that we saw in this area are in the photo above.

When the wing like feature above is view at just the right angle, it has a jack rabbit like appearance, hence my calling it “Jack Rabbit Hoodoo”. This feature is in the vicinity of the Conversing Hoodoos.

The large wing like hoodoo features in the photo above are, also, nearby the conversing hoodoos.

My son walks past one of the rock features on the north side in the above photo. Note how far one can see from an upper elevation in Bisti. This is very helpful, when navigating this area. There are landmarks that one can see from miles away from higher elevations, such as this, and use those landmarks to navigate by.

Although, we found many interesting places for photography on the north side of Bisti, we did not have time to get back to this area for either sunrise or sunset photography during this visit. I returned to this area the last week of May, 2019 and spent many hours photographing and wandering this area. That visit will be the subject of more blog posts in the future.

Until next time,

Ken

Spring 2019 Road Trip – Bisti – Day 7 Sunrise

[Followers may have noted that there is no day 6 sunset post. This is because it became very windy and dusty prior to time to go out for sunset photos that evening. So we elected to skip the planned shoot for that evening].

For sunrise photos on day 7 in Bisti, my son and I returned to the area just outside the Bisti north area.

Sunrise Day 7 March2019 — An interesting rock form silhouette at sunrise. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 70mm, f/11, 4.0s, ISO 64, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik Color Efex Pro 4.

I captured this early morning silhouette of a bird like hoodoo here.

I shot this particular rock formation mainly due to the rock shape at the upper left that has a satellite dish look.

The sunrise light was very good today, but the sky was boring.

A monochrome conversion of the previously posted image. Even though the sunrise light was good, I’m inclined to like the monochrome version better, maybe due to lack of interest in the background sky.

The hoodoo cap on the left has features that make it look almost alive and it looks like it is displeased with the jumble of rocks on the right.

The smug looking rock, that readers will have seen in an earlier post, seems to be staring at the contrails in the sky.

I think this would be a really interesting photo, if only the sky was not so boring. The light falls upon several features as if purposely spotlighted.

The black and white version looks even more dramatic; although, the image here looks muted. Click on the photo to view it on Flickr, where it will look much better.

That is it for this post,

Ken

Spring 2019 Road Trip – Bisti – Day 6 Scouting Near the South Parking Area

After returning from scouting the north area and having a late lunch, I decided to kill some time, while waiting until time to go out for sunset photos by walking around in the area just across the road, west of the south parking area. Usually, I only went a very short distance into this area to climb a hill to get a cell signal.

This area, as far as I know is not a part of the designated Bisti Wilderness and is probably on Navaho land, but it might also be BLM land.

Day 6 March2019 Scout @ South Bisti Across Road from Parking Area — South Bisti area scouting photo. iPhone photo, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DXO Nik Color Efex Pro 4.

Just into this area, I spotted this small arch with a view through it into the parking area. The red blob within the arch opening is my Sportsmobile.

This photo is a close up of the arch with the parking lot visible through it.

A really close up shot through the arch in which my red Sportsmobile is visible near the center.

Continuing through the wash behind the arch, I found these small red capped hoodoos in the wash.

A little further down the wash, I found this upside down automobile body on a hill bordering the wash. I wondered how this got here, since there is no road, not even a reasonable way to drive into here to dump a wrecked vehicle. Then I realized that it must have been deposited here by a flash flood.

This view from the opposite side gives a better context for its location.

Hiking through this wash I encountered more automobile parts, which may have come from this vehicle. One such part is in the photo below.

The dark layer in the side of this hill is the geological deposition from which all the dark rock fragments scattered all around Bisti are derived.

I saw the horseshoe like features on this hill side from a distance and they looked like a strange geological feature, so walked closer to investigate. This photo clearly shows that there are exposed portions of the dark rock layer that are weathering. The loose rock fragments are then washed downhill creating this geometric feature.

The red rock layer above is probably the source of all the red rocks scattered all around Bisti. This is the only place that I consciously have observed this rock layer still contained within other layers of rock. I frequently see it as caps over the underlying layers, where the overlying layers have already eroded away.

The geological observations and/or conclusions/conjectures here are my own and not necessarily academically robust.

A hoodoo on the wash wall with a clothes dryer visible in the wash in the lower left of the photo. I’m guessing that this clothes dryer shell also got here via a flash flood.

And a roll away bed frame that probably got here via a flash flood, too. I suppose it is possible that some of these type items might have been intentionally dumped into a wash somewhere, then got moved around via flash flooding.

Walking back towards the parking area, I looked more carefully around the drainage flowing out of Bisti into the area across the road. It is apparent that there are salts or other minerals in the water that drop out along the stream as the water floods over the land, then evaporates. This area is very soft and it is not advisable to walk into it.

The stream creates abstract art like patterns in the mud, some outlined with colorful mineral deposits.

The above mud pattern makes a really nice abstract photo.

This has gotten into a much longer post than I intended. I hope you have not been too bored by it.

Ken

Spring 2019 Road Trip – Bisti – Day 6 Scouting

On day 6 in Bisti my son and I went to the unofficial north parking area for access to the northern portion of Bisti Wilderness. Neither of us had previously been to this portion of Bisti, so we were truly exploring. I had GPS coordinates to a few of the northern features that I had gleaned from online research, but rather than heading towards any of my GPS coordinates, we just wandered around on an exploration hike today.

Shortly after crossing the deep drainage at one end of the parking lot, we found an abandoned well.

Day 4 March2019 Scout @ North Bisti — North Bisti area scouting photo iPhone photo, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DXO Nik Color Efex Pro 4.

This well is not very deep, but it would not be good to fall into this, while hiking in the dark, as we usually do in the early morning on our way out for sunrise photos and in the evening on our way back from sunset photography.

Continuing to follow the broad open wash/valley area, we could see features on the top of hills in the distance, so we headed towards those.

Day 6 March2019 Scout @ North Bisti — North Bisti area scouting photo iPhone photo, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DXO Nik Color Efex Pro 4.

From a distance, the features above looked like three distinct hoodoos, so I nicknamed these the Hoodoo Trio. On a subsequent visit to this area in May (more photos and blogs from that visit will be posted later in the summer or early fall), I used these features as primary navigation points to and from destinations in this area.

That is my son hiking near this hoodoo navigation beacon.

Hiking in a wash on the west side of the Hoodoo Trio, we eventually worked our way up to a plateau area, encountering a Hoodoo rich area that we called the “Valley of Hoodoos”. The photo above is near our exit point from the valley onto the plateau. (During my May visit here, I found an easier way to get to this area and also a short cut to get from this plateau back to the north parking area).

Day 6 North Side Scouting — Multiple exits from this valley/wash are possible iPhone photo, edited in Adobe LR and DxO Nik Color Efex Pro 4.

If my memory serves me well, I think we exited this valley at the blue arrow, hiking up through the Valley of Hoodoos onto the plateau. In May, I found it easier to follow the wash along the left side of the photo, exiting at the green arrow. There is one big step up on the green arrow route on the way out, then a big step down, when returning on this route. Other than that big step it is an easy route.

After exiting the Valley of Hoodoos we very soon came to this “Red Rock Garden” area. Walking through the rock garden, we found many interesting features, some of which, I recognized from our first visit to Bisti in 2011. At that time, we came from the south parking area; but it is much easier and quicker to get to this portion of Bisti from the unofficial north parking area.

The features in the above photo are on the plateau, just over a hill from the rock garden. My son named the hoodoo in the foreground here the Tongue Hoodoo. I think it is obvious how he came up with that name. I think the other large hoodoo in the left background is one that someone called The Pedestal.

A wing like hoodoo with a hole in it is shown above.

The same hoodoo with the hole, but from the top side. Holes in such rocks seem to be common here.

Just to the south of this area, we came to a very deep drainage, on the other side of which were other interesting features, but we did not see an easy way down into that drainage. We did see someone photographing features in the drainage and he motioned towards an access point, but we were running out of time on this scouting trip, so we did not attempt to find our way down, deciding it best to head back.

We came back to scout more in this area on our last day here and I will blog about that in a subsequent post.

Ken

Spring Road Trip 2019 – Bisti – Day 6 – Sunrise

My son and I returned to the “Scalloped Rocks” area of Bisti for sunrise photography on day 6 in Bisti March, 2019. This morning’s shoot was frustrating for me. I had a malfunction with my remote/intervalometer that resulted in the camera shooting continuously, just as I was composing what I thought would be my best shot of the morning.

Another of my shots, that I thought would be really good, turned out to have much too shallow a depth of field. It looked good in my quick review in the camera LED screen, but apparently, I did not inspect it closely enough and maybe my fingers were so cold at that time that I was not using my best judgement.

Sunrise Day 6 March2019 — A pre-sunrise shot in the Scalloped Rocks area of South Bisti. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 24mm, f/11, 10s, ISO 64, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik color Efex Pro 4.

A shot across the area just before sunrise is shown above.

And another pre-sunrise shot from a different point of view is above.

While my camera was shooting continuously, due to the remote release malfunction, there were numerous images captured, which were all trash; but I decided to make use of the one above, since it has interesting abstract photographic features, which I do not think I could have purposely created.

I finally captured the image above, after managing to remove the remote release with my fumbling, numb fingers on this cold morning. Valuable time was lost as I dealt with the equipment problem and I think I missed the best pre-sunrise light composition here; but at least I got this silhouette of a window with the sunrise sky in the background, before the sun was completely up.

Some days are like this,

Ken

Spring 2019 Road Trip – Bisti – Day 5 Sunset – A Monochrome Day in Bisti

The evening of the fifth day in Bisti, my son and I decided to shoot sunset photos in an area, which we think is on BLM land. At least we know it is outside the Bisti Wilderness proper area. It is an area that we accessed via a short spur road off of the road to the unofficial parking area for Bisti North parking.

It was a cloudy day without great sunset light, so I converted the shots presented in this post to monochrome.

Sunset Day 5 March2019 — A cloud covered scene near Bisti North. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 60mm, f/11, 1/6s, ISO 64, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik Silver Efex Pro 2.

The photo above is my favorite from this shoot. There are dramatic clouds and hints of rain falling from the clouds, interesting rocks in the foreground and middle ground.

We had spotted this little natural bridge or window on an earlier scout of this area.

And another little window shot that I like better than the previous one, possibly because of the more dramatic clouds and the more interesting foreground.

The shot above is what I consider a minimalistic shot. The objects in the photo are limited, but there are dramatic clouds, interesting geologic features and multiple leading lines in the barren foreground, which hints at the vast openness of this area.

The shot above is another minimalistic shot of the same basic features as in the previous shot, but with a different point of view. In this case I have emphasized the broad area around the narrow drainage patterns that are acting as leading lines into the photo with the clouds adding drama to the scene.

I like the multiple tiers in the rock formations in this photo with the dramatic cloud backdrop.

This rock feature looks like a bearded lizard to me, hence the title of the photo. I’ve added a lens vignette, shifting it to the left to focus on the “head” of the lizard or whatever imaginary creature one might think this looks like.

This hoodoo reminds me of a large turtle, but one might imagine it as some other exotic or alien creature.

This photo does not have the greatest depth of field, but I still like it. I used the flat rock wings or hoodoos running diagonally from bottom left towards the upper right to lead the viewers eye into the photo towards the feature on the horizon in the upper right. I wish I could find these dramatic clouds on nice sunny sunset or sunrise shoots, while still allowing for great light on the photo subjects.

This wraps up the highlights of day 5 sunset shooting in the great vastness of one of New Mexico’s wonderful desert areas.

Until next time,

Ken

Category: Photography

Bisti – May 2019 – Arrival and Day 1 Scouting – Part 1

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Spring 2019 Road Trip – Bisti – Day 7 Sunrise

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Spring 2019 Road Trip – Bisti – Day 6 Scouting Near the South Parking Area

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Spring 2019 Road Trip – Bisti – Day 6 Scouting

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Spring Road Trip 2019 – Bisti – Day 6 – Sunrise

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Spring 2019 Road Trip – Bisti – Day 5 Sunset – A Monochrome Day in Bisti

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