Hoodoos – Page 5 – Ken's Photography and Travel Blog

Bisti May 2019 – Day 1 Scouting – Part 3

I continued exploring a canyon near the Conversing Hoodoos in search of suitable places to photograph either at sunrise or sunset.

Bisti_May25_2019_ScoutingPhoto — A wing like hoodoo with a hole. iPhone photo with edits in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik Color Efex Pro 4.

Why there are such nearly perfectly round holes in so many of the flatter rock features, I do not know; but I’m sure there is a scientific explanation.

I could not help but note how much like an angry bird this particular hoodoo looked like. I made numerous images from various points of view.

Continuing into the canyon past the angry bird face, I came upon this batch of hoodoos, one of which has a very elegant, graceful lady like look. The angry bird hoodoo is visible in the background.

This next photo illustrates how the hoodoos are formed as the canyon walls erode.

Many of rocks are eroded into modern art like objects. My first impression of this one was that it could be seen as a chair, but then it seemed to morph into more of a nude torso in my imagination. Maybe some primordial force shapes my imagination!

The nude torso is accompanied by another strangely shaped modern art form.

I wandered on down this canyon until I came to the end or, maybe more appropriately, its origin. This is but one branch off of a major wash through this area.

My first thought here was to turn back, ending my scouting for the day, since there only appeared to be steep, crumbly, clay soil badlands at the end of this canyon – a dead end; but then I realized that I could carefully climb out of the canyon and I wanted to see what was up above and what kind of views I could get from a higher elevation.

Climbing the hill at the end of the canyon, I got this wider view of the area. The area in the lower right is the end of the canyon, while another canyon is visible in the center of the image, which somewhat parallels the branch that I explored.

Looking back over the canyon, that I came up, one can see where it branches off of a main wash in the upper right center and, shortly into the canyon, another branch going towards upper left of the photo.

Continuing up the hillside, I discovered a rather long petrified log and sections that had broken from that log.

Above the petrified log, I could see a large toadstool like rock with hints of others on the other side of the hill.

Behind that hill above the petrified log, I found many toadstool like hoodoos emerging from the hillsides.

Continuing to work my way around the hillside, I got a good view of the petrified log from above and I could see a way to safely get down near the log.

I ended my scouting for today at this location, deciding to come back to this location early one morning for a real photo shoot.

Until next time,

Ken

Bisti May 2019 – Day 1 Scouting – Part 2

I explored mostly along a route towards, around and past features known as the “Conversing Hoodoos” during my first scouting outing in the north portion of the Bisti Wilderness. Note that a few of the features in the images here were first seen by my son and I during our March scouting of this area; but we had scouted in much less of an organized manner and I wanted to record more precisely the locations of places to which I would return to photograph in better light conditions.

There are numerous canyons or washes throughout Bisti. The Conversing Hoodoos are near a junction of a couple of these canyons. These were to be my first features to photograph later and I wanted to check out various angles from which these might be photographed and whether they were best photographed at sunset or sunrise of if both sunrise and sunset would work well. There are many other interesting features near these and in nearby canyons or along the canyon walls.

I called the small hoodoo on the top of this hill “Jack Rabbit”, because it looks like a rabbit when viewed in a particular manner. This feature is just a little past the Conversing Hoodoos.

The Jack Rabbit hoodoo is difficult to photograph due to its location. A long zoom might be better for shooting this feature than either a wide angle or a moderate zoom.

Near the entrance into a canyon just past the Conversing Hoodoos is this pointy feature that was obviously the base for a hoodoo at one time, but the cap or head has fallen off.

There are many interesting features and emerging hoodoos in the Bisti canyon walls. These can be difficult to isolate for interesting photographs and their locations often limit the golden hour light with many being in shadows, when the light would be good otherwise.

I continued walking through a canyon just to the east side of the Conversing Hoodoos, finding many interesting features both in the canyon and along the canyon walls.

I made a number of images of one particular hoodoo to illustrate how these can look so much different depending upon the angle of view.

From these two perspectives, this looks like a gecko; but others might imagine something else.

Continuing along the canyon, I found a feature that I referred to as “Big Mouth”.

Later in the day, while having a conversation in the parking lot with a group from a local mission, one asked if I had seen the “Clam”. I knew immediately that they were referring to this one that I had been calling “Big Mouth”.

Another view of the Clam and other nearby features in this canyon.

I’m always amazed when I find man made objects such as these in places where one would not expect to see such thing. These appear to be automotive engine parts, but there is not anything nearby to suggest how these arrived here. I assume these must have been dumped here many years ago before this area was designated a protected wilderness.

To be continued…

Ken

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.

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

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 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 4 – Sunset

On day 4 of my March 2019 photography excursion, my son and I went to the little area on the north side of Bisti, which we think is actually on BLM land and is not a part of the designated Bisti wilderness.

Sunset Day 4 March2019 — A smug looking rock. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm at 20mm, f/11, 1/50s, ISO 64. Edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik Color Efex Pro 4.

I had spotted this rather smug looking rock on an earlier scouting of this area. The rock has a cartoon like face expression, maybe implying “I’m not talking to any of you”. [Not that rocks actually speak to me, at least not in actual spoken words].

One of the hoodoos that we also found on an earlier scouting here is in the above photograph. It is too bad that the sky was so drab and uninteresting on this day.

The photo above is an attempt to use the drainage pattern and the broad band of red pebble covered ground as leading lines into the background features; but there might be too much of the foreground in this case. It would have been good to have something else of interest in the near fore ground.

I like this smaller (but actually fairly large) feature in the center here with the sand pattern around it from erosion of that feature. I would have liked to have gotten a bit more isolation of this feature, but I could not find a suitable place from which to photograph it to achieve that on this day. Anyway, this composition does give a good sense of the environment here and the setting for this feature.

As a reminder, clicking on any of the photos in this post will take you to the photo on Flickr, where they will probably look better than on this web page or in your e-mail. Also big screens are better for viewing these photos than small, mobile devices.

Until next time,

Ken

P.S. I will be traveling again for a few days, so the next few posts might be delayed, since I do not know where or when I might have adequate internet connectivity.

Spring 2019 Road Trip – Bisti – Day 2 – Sunset

{Readers might note that this post is out of chronological order. Apparently, I overlooked the draft of this post as I was publishing my blogs}.

My oldest son arrived in Bisti during the afternoon of my second day there. We decided to go to the place that I had scouted the previous afternoon for sunset photography.

It was another very cloudy day near sunset as we arrived at our destination and began preliminary shooting and picking our spots for sunset shots.

Muted colors previous to sunset in Bisti Wilderness. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 70mm, f/11, 1/40s, ISO 64. Edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik Color Efex Pro 4.

Adobe Lightroom now has a new Texture adjustment that I discovered while editing this photo. I probably pushed it too much in this photo, but I wanted to experiment with this new toy.

The tall feature in the upper right is a good navigation item here. It can be seen from far away and from various directions.

A photographer getting a sunset shot in Bisti Wilderness. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 24mm, f/11, 0.4mm, ISO 64. Edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik Color Efex Pro 4.

My oldest son is standing on the slope that I scouted the previous afternoon. Some late day light is apparent at the fringes of the rocks; but the cloud cover is making it brief and muted.

Cloudy, muted sunset light on Bisti Hoodoos and Bluffs. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 32mm, f/11, 1/3s, ISO 64. Edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik Color Efex Pro 4.

My shot from the slope, where my son was standing in the previous photo. Note the cloudy sky. There is golden hour light, but it is not as brilliant as one would like to see.

With such intermittant light it is always difficult to know what to do or where to be for the best photographic opportunity. One can be patient and stick to one place or move around, looking for other compositions. It is probably best to pick one composition and wait patiently. Sometimes I have patience, sometimes I don’t.

Sunset highlights on Bisti Wilderness features. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 24mm, f/11, 1/3s, ISO 64. Edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik Color Efex Pro 4.

Even with brief and muted light, I like the image above with the contrasting highlights and dark shadows. I’ve used the alignment of the rocks and hoodoos as a leading line into the photo. This line also intersects with the line formed by the big hill in the upper center of the photo, which then leads the eyes to the sunset sky.

A cloudy, sunset silhouette in Bisti Wilderness. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 36mm, f/11, 1/50s, ISO 64. Edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik Color Efex Pro 4.

A cloudy sky can make for dramatic sunset silhouettes.

A sunset silhouette taken from atop a hill in Bisti Wilderness. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 70mm, f/11, 0.4s, ISO 64. Edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik Color Efex Pro 4.

Another sunset silhouette with colorful, striated clouds. This image is cropped from a much larger image, most of which was just dark shadow in the foreground. Details in the shadows could have been brought out via editing, but there was really not anything there to add interest.

And that is it for this sunset shoot.

Ken

Bisti Wilderness Area – Fall 2018 – Afternoon Day 2

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!

Ken

Tag: Hoodoos

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