Best Wishes to all for 2020,
Ken
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Best Wishes to all for 2020,
Ken
Category: Travel
Travel related information
Echo Park, Dinosaur National Monument, July 2019, Day One Sunset
Mosquitoes swarm relentlessly around us as we walk the short distance through a forested area to the Yampa River behind our campsite. We are covered in bug repellant. Still the mosquitos buzzing around our heads are an unpleasant distraction. We go down a steep bank with the aid of a rope tied to a tree, getting onto a sandbar in the river. We are shooting sunset photographs at this location our first evening in Echo Park.
As usual, when shooting in a canyon, the late day light illuminates only a portion of the canyon wall.
The light on the far canyon wall reflects into the river with just a sliver at the edge of the sandbar.
The top edge of the cliff side to the right of Steamboat Rock gets only a small wedge of late day sunset light.
I make a number of shots, capturing the sunset highlights and the reflections in the river.
To smooth the ripples in the river, I use a seven stop neutral density filter and a long exposure.
Each time I change the composition, I acquire a shot with a 3 stop soft graduated neutral density filter to balance the foreground and sky exposure, then add the seven stop ND for a long exposure.
I like the way the long exposure shows the motion of the river current in the photo above. By the time these last two images are made, the golden hour light is gone, so we call it a day. We venture once again through the mosquito infested woods back to our campsite.
We are looking forward to a sunrise shoot tomorrow.
Until then,
Ken
Echo Park, Dinosaur National Monument, Colorado 2019, Scouting Photography
This post is a continuation of experiences and photography during a July 2019 road trip in Colorado.
From the Gates of Lodore in Dinosaur National Monument my oldest son and I continued on to Echo Park, also in Dinosaur National Monument. To get to Echo Park one must travel 13 miles down a narrow, steep, rocky, high clearance vehicle road. The road is not an extreme 4 wheel drive, at least not when dry and going into the area is mostly downhill; but 4 wheel drive vehicles are recommended for this road. There are some narrow intervals, where it is not possible for two vehicles to pass each other.
There is a sizable campground in Echo Park, but sites are on a first come basis, so there is no guarantee that one will find a campsite after the drive down. We were fortunate that a number of campsites were available, when we arrived, and two of those sites had good shade, which we really needed, since the daytime temperatures were in the mid 90s (F). The shade only protected us during the morning and part of mid-day. In the afternoons there was no avoiding the sun. Since we were out in the early morning and late day for photography, we were mostly resting around the campsite during the day. The summer heat can make it difficult to be entirely comfortable in the vehicle during the day and the insects with mosquitos made it undesirable to be outdoors. This is one of those times, when an outdoor, screen shelter would be useful. However, a nearby couple with such a shelter said the insects and mosquitos got into the shelter, anyway. The mosquitos also got into our vehicle each time we opened a door, so we spent some time trying to eliminate them. I have since acquired a couple of battery powered bug zappers to test during a future trip.
The setting for the campground is very nice with views of Steamboat Rock on one side and views of high cliffs all around. From our campsite we only had to walk a very short distance through woods to the river and good views of Steamboat Rock and the Yampa River.
During the mid-day hours, we made a couple of exploratory hikes looking for good places for sunrise and sunset photography.
Even though the NPS website says there are no trails in Echo Park, there is at least one created by frequent visitors and it appears to go on along the river for quite a way.
Hiking along this trail, we found a large, open grassy park with scattered rocks that would be useful as foreground, with the canyon walls in the background.
The bank of the river near this area is steep, but we found a way down into the channel. If hiking here, be aware that the river bank is undercut in numerous places, where it could give way without warning, so be very careful walking near the river bank.
We think we can get good photos in the river channel at both sunrise and sunset.
The confluence of the Yampa and Green Rivers cannot be seen in these photographs, as it is hidden behind the vegetation and rocks near the center of the the image above and that below.
Several of these iPhone images were actually made during sunrise or sunset shoots.
DSLR sunset and sunrise photography here will be the subject of subsequent posts.
Until then,
Ken
Bisti Wilderness, May 2019, Day 4 Sunset
I wanted to reshoot at the Conversing Hoodoos at sunset, since I was not satisfied with the wide angle images made upon my first shoot here. Today I would use the 24-70mm lens, hoping the zoom range would let me be more discriminating with my compositions.
Daniel accompanied me for this shoot. We arrive early as I prefer to do, giving me time to shoot around the area at anything I see of interest, before moving to the primary subject.
There were many clouds in the sky, definitely adding interest to the sky, but maybe not good for sunset light.
The overcast sky with muted light made for good monochrome images. The Clam Hoodoo was just down a canyon/wash from the Conversing Hoodoos, so it was easy to shoot there prior to the sunset light.
In fact I think this turned out to be a really good late afternoon to find monochrome compositions with the many rock shapes and cloudy sky.
This particular hoodoo with the broad flat area and a pointy beak like part reminded me of a bird in flight. Looking closely one can even see an “eye” and a crease for a mouth. The embedded link is to the color version on Flickr.
This is my favorite monochrome image made this afternoon. I like the leading line of the sunlit rocks running diagonally, pointing to the highlighted rocks on the hillside, then the wash leading back to the upper center and the cloudy sky. I think this might even be the best image that I got in this shoot; although, I have not gotten any comments or faves on the posting to Flickr. So maybe readers will tell me if they see faults with this image. I think this image looks really good on my large iMac monitor. Maybe it does not look good viewed on smaller screens?
One never knows what kind of surprise one may find in this wilderness. Why and how is there a bicycle frame here? A totally surprising find.
I had previously taken a few iPhone shots of the “modern art like sculpture” in this image, while scouting here. Today I made a number of images of the two foreground rocks with the background hillside then focus stacked them using Helicon software before converting to monochrome.
As I had feared, the clouds on the western horizon prohibited any golden hour light this evening, so I had to make do with mostly silhouette type images of the Conversing Hoodoos with some sunset color on the horizon.
I made one HDR image from a few of the images to at least get detail in the foreground rocks.
The results of this attempt at sunset shooting here dictates another effort on another day. Such is the life of a landscape photographer.
Thanks for following,
Ken
Bridgeton Covered Bridge Festival, Indiana, October 2019
Our second stop in the 2019 Covered Bridge Festival was at Bridgeton, Indiana. The original covered bridge here was one of several that were set afire by an arsonist. The bridge was rebuilt as a replica of the original.
The Bridgeton Mill is still in operation. One can purchase a variety of flour products in the mill and see a portion of the dusty flour milling operation.
There are many vendors of antiques, crafts, clothing, food and beverages available at the festival. We were here on a Sunday afternoon and it was rather crowded. We had lunch here and, of course, had to stand in a line for awhile to get our meal.
As at the Casey County Apple Festival in Liberty, Kentucky, I noted that there were many Trump promotional items, but no corresponding items for the current crop of Democratic Party Presidential candidates.
I’m sure that within the nearby urban area of Indianapolis, one would find a wider variation in political views.
In addition to shopping, one can take a carriage ride, enjoy arts and crafts and listen to local musicians.
The nature of this visit was not conducive to carrying around a large, heavy DSLR; consequently, the images in this post are all made via an iPhone 7 Plus with post processing in editing software.
A subsequent post will have more photographs of some of the interesting items one can see at these type events.
Until then, thanks for following,
Ken
Indiana Covered Bridge Festival, Mansfield, Indiana, October 2019
In early to mid-October my wife and I drove to Indianapolis with a dual purpose, visiting her relatives in the area and attending a number of the Covered Bridge Festivals that were taking place at that time of the year.
Please note that all of the images in this post are via an iPhone 7 Plus. Since so many people use their phone cameras exclusively now, I think these images will indicate that it is possible to get good photographs, within limitations, with the cameras in these modern devices. Note that these images have been post processed to improve the aesthetic quality.
The day after we arrived, one of Barbara’s cousins and her husband drove us around, taking us to two of the bridge festivals, past and through a number of covered bridges, through Brown County State Park, other tourist sites and a visit to their rather large cabin, which they use as a second home and sometime allow others to stay in.
Our first stop was the Mansfield festival, where the historic Mansfield Roller Mill is located. The roller mill is still functional and is now operated as a museum. I enjoyed walking through the mill and seeing the old mill machinery.
The mill has multiple stories connected via stairwells, but there is also a service elevator for moving goods from floor to floor.
There are views from the second and third story windows of the creek and old water mill. The original water wheel has been replaced by a water turbine, which offers more technological advantages over the original water wheel.
The cover for a flower dresser has been removed to allow one to see part of the mechanical parts. The aged wood of the flower dresser and other items have a really nice patina.
There were numerous vendors here, but we spent a limited time browsing, since we wanted to go to one of the other festivals nearby. We did walk through the Mansfield Covered bridge, though.
I am grateful to Barbara’s cousin and her husband for their gracious hospitality and tour of the area. They went much beyond ordinary hospitality.
Subsequent posts will include more on the festivals and area covered bridges.
Thank you for following,
Ken
Bisti May 2019, Day 4 Scouting, Part 3
This is the third and final post of iPhone scouting photographs on the south side of the Bisti Wilderness in New Mexico during my May 2019 visit. Daniel and I continued our exploration of portions of south Bisti in an area with many large hoodoos and interesting rock formations.
Isolating these features against the blue sky with the clouds makes for good compositions.
The photo above gives some indication of the massive quantity of hoodoos in this area with Daniel as a scale. The following photos indicate the large variety of rock forms and hoodoos seen in this area.
Eventually erosion will turn this wall of hoodoos into a line of separate hoodoos, but probably not in my lifetime.
Some of these features look like something one might see in a science fiction movie set on another planet. Maybe it is places like this that stimulate the imagination for such movies.
I like these images looking up at the hoodoos set against the blue sky and clouds. I think these would work well for star trail or Milky Way foreground images and many are in positions to look great in the golden hours of either sunrise or sunset.
Comparing the image above to that below, one can see how getting low below the hoodoo on the left will yield a nice image of it against the sky. Although, in the image below, I wanted to give an indication of the setting of these features.
Even though this is only an iPhone photo at mid-day, I really like the composition of the image above. It would probably look awesome in golden hour light.
I wanted to get a lower angle shot of the feature above, but I could not get a perspective that showed off the window in the rock very well. I like the shape of this hoodoo and it would be great to isolate it a bit better.
Eventually, Daniel and I began to work our way towards the south parking area, where Daniel had parked his rental vehicle. We passed by the arch seen in these last few images. I had seen this arch on previous visits, but these are difficult to shoot at the best time of the day and there is not much else in the immediate vicinity to make it worth while to be here for golden hour photography, so I really do not have any better photos here other than these iPhone shots.
However, I think these simple mid-day images are not bad.
On our way to the parking area, we passed a number of novice visitors on their way into the area. We gave general directions to them to areas we though they might like. It is not uncommon to be asked for directions to “the wings”. I suspect those visitors have seen images of some of the larger wing like features and it is difficult to give directions based upon such generalizations. An older couple (older?, probable younger than me!) were one such ones to ask for directions. Daniel and I noted that they did not even appear to have any water with them. That is really not good, even though it was relatively cool today. Please, if you are going to hike anywhere, be prepared with water and snacks.
Daniel gave me a ride from the south parking area back to my vehicle on the north side. We had lunch and made plans for a sunset shoot. So stay tuned to see how that worked out.
Ken
Bisti Wilderness, May 2019, Day 4, Scouting Part 2
This is a continuation of the mid-day scouting on day 4 of my May 2019 visit to the Bisti Wilderness. Accompanied by Daniel, the Frenchman, whom I had met while shooting sunrise photographs on the north side of Bisti, I made many iPhone photographs for future reference, hoping to return to some locations on some future visit at a better time for photography.
One of the first places we stopped by on the south side was the nook, as I called it, where there is a long petrified log (see the previous post, if you missed this) and other interesting features.
We continued hiking to the east, heading towards other features that Daniel wanted to show me, stopping to shoot reference photos along the way.
One of the places, that I had seen referenced in other posts, is a Ferruginous Hawk’s nest. That nest is on the ledge below the topmost portion of the tall rock formation in the photo above. The nest is best seen in this photograph by viewing this image on Flickr and clicking on the Flickr image to see it enlarged. It is also apparent in the zoomed in image below:
Judging by the size of the twigs that make up the nest, those hawks must be fairly large. According to a local Navaho that I spoke with earlier during my visit here, the hawks that built this nest no longer frequent this area.
First Daniel hiked up the steep hillside at the hawk’s nest, then I followed, after getting a few images from below.
After joining Daniel on the hillside here, I got a shot towards the west from that saddle like area between the two large rock formations at the top of the hillside
and a close up shot of that rock feature on the northerly end of the hillside.
Continuing towards the northeast, we found another hawk’s nest on the top of a nearby rock formation. That nest is in the top middle of this photo:
From far away, Daniel had pointed out the large rock formation that looked like a Wizard’s hat. I got a number of images of that feature from various view points.
The one above is my favorite. The clouds that seem to be emanating from the “hat” make this look magical.
I also got some wide area views with the “hat” and nearby the hat.
We walked around the nearby area finding many large and interesting hoodoos.
The hoodoo above reminds me of a giraffe.
There were so many large, interesting hoodoos in this area that it is difficult to convey how impressive this area is.
I think that is enough for this post. To be continued,
Ken
Bisti Wilderness, May 2019 – Day 4 Sunrise
On the fourth day of my May 2019 visit to the northern portion of the Bisti Wilderness, I went to a plateau area with large hoodoo features for sunrise photography. It was a cold morning and even though I did not think it was below freezing when I started hiking, my initial attempt to get a sip of water from my Camelbak tube was unsuccessful due to ice in the tube. It might well have been colder out on the slightly higher elevation plateau than back in the parking area.
I shot in the pre-sunrise hour, while waiting for sunrise and testing various compositions.
Since I had plenty of time and the light was changing so slowly, I began to make multiple shots, focusing at different points, so that I could focus stack the images to improve the front to back sharpness.
I was getting good color in the clouds to the west and it initially looked like there would be good sunrise light, but cloud cover on the eastern horizon quickly limited the golden hour light. One can see that the far features on the horizon here are beginning to get the first rays of sunrise light:
And here there is enough direct light to cast shadows, but the light is still muted:
Here there is finally a burst of light through the cloud cover:
I had to work quickly, when the light came, since I could see that there were limited breaks in the clouds on the eastern horizon.
As usual in the early morning hours, I was alone in the wilderness (I was the only camper in the north parking area), but I did see one couple passing nearby on the plateau. Maybe they had intended to shoot at my location and, seeing me there already, decided to move on somewhere else. As I was finishing my morning shooting, I caught a glimpse of someone standing nearby watching me. My first thought was that the couple that had passed by had returned. Without looking directly at the onlooker, I made a comment about the light disappearing so quickly. Looking up from my camera, the stranger gave me a big smile and we exchanged greetings. His name is Daniel and he was visiting from France, spending four weeks in the southwestern U.S.
Daniel asked if he could tag along with me, since he did not know the area. I was finished with my morning shoot, so I gave him a partial tour of the area, showing him some of the best features that I had found, allowing him as much time as he liked for photography. He was really good at rushing up and down the steep hillsides that were covered with loose, dry clayey soil. I would not even attempt to climb those hillsides, even had I been his much younger age.
As we hiked around, I got to know a bit more about Daniel. He is a pastry chef with a wife, son and daughter, living in a small city in the south of France near Marseille. He is quite fond of the southwestern area of the US and has visited this area numerous time, but this was his first in Bisti. Daniel said the U.S. is his favorite country and he would like to live here, but would not want to be so far away from his extended family.
After the tour, I invited him to have coffee and breakfast in the Sportsmobile, since we were much closer to it than the south parking area, where Daniel had parked. Afterwards, we would hike back to the southern area, scouting much during a long hike. This will be a topic for other posts.
Until then,
Ken
Cumberland Falls State Park, Kentucky – September 2019
Rain had prevented an afternoon shoot with the DSLR the previous day and the rain chances were to go away overnight, so I got up before sunrise this morning to photograph the falls and portions of the Cumberland River in early morning light.
It was still overcast in the very early portion of the morning with a mist around the river area. Condensation fell upon me from the tree canopy at my first shooting area. I was the only one there and this is usually the case, when one gets out before daybreak. Most typical tourist are late risers and/or have breakfast before venturing out and about. We photography enthusiasts usually shoot first and eat later.
Initially, long shutter speeds were required due to the dim, very early, morning light; but this is exactly what I wanted, in order to get the silky look in the flowing water, creating the sense of motion.
Going back up to the walkway/trail along the river after my first stop, I noted that there were other view points that I had not explored the day before, so I continued to those other areas, checking views from the trail as I walked along.
Eventually, the overcast began to burn away and there was some good early morning sunlight, which as expected fell on the opposite side of the river. The waterfall was mostly in shadow in the very early morning; but I think I got good images anyway and the low light intensity made it easy to get the slower shutter speeds that I wanted to use.
I continued to drag the shutter (use longer than required shutter speed) a little, even though as the light brightened, I could have adjusted the aperture and/or the ISO to freeze the water motion. I prefer the silky look in the flowing water; although, there are some who object to this as creating an unreal (not as our eyes see it) image.
As the light advanced and I was satisfied that I had acquired the images that I wanted of the falls, I walked down by the river just below the parking lot, shooting several photographs of the river above the falls. By this time a few scattered visitors began to show up.
As a reminder, clicking upon an image will open it in Flickr, where the image will look better than in this post.
Thanks for following and I hope you enjoy the photographs,
Ken