Scouting Photography – Page 10 – Ken's Photography and Travel Blog

Cold Springs Campground, Colorado – July 2019 – Day 2 Scouting

A previous post referred to the areas that we scouted during our second day at Cold Springs Campground, looking for potential places for more sunset and sunrise photo shoots. This post will present a few of the iPhone shots taken during that scouting with some comments.

A dead tree near Smith Lake Trail, Routt National Forest, Colorado. iPhone photo with edits in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik Color Efex Pro 4.

This striking looking dead tree trunk, spotted along the Smith Lake Trail, looks like a good photographic subject, but it was so tall one would have to have a really wide field of view of shoot upwards from near its base to fully capture it. We never got around to trying to shoot this properly.

A wilderness boundary marker along Smith Lake Trail. iPhone photo with edits in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik Efex Pro 4.

This boundary marker has nothing to do with photography, I just thought it interesting to see this marker. Someone, wondering around in the forest, not hiking along a trail, would never know when entering or leaving a designated wilderness area.

Smith Lake in the Flat Tops Wilderness, Colorado. iPhone photo with edits in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik Color Efex Pro 4.

This view of a mountainside with Smith Lake in the foreground, suggested that early morning light would make this a good place for a sunrise shoot.

Smith Lake Panorama. iPhone photo with edits in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik Color Efex Pro 4.

A panoramic view of Smith Lake and the mountain in the background, suggests possible multiple compositional possibilities.

Columbines and fallen tree. iPhone photo with edits in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik Color Efex Pro 4.

I found this batch of Columbines down the slope from the roadway south of the campground. (Click on the photo to view on Flickr).

Approaching storm. iPhone photo with edits in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik Color Efex Pro 4.

Looking up the hillside south of the campground, it was apparent that it was time to return to the camp before getting caught in a storm. However, after getting to the Sportsmobile, I did take a chance and try to shoot at a field of Columbines, but I had to beat a hasty retreat again as the storm came in.

Near the end of the storm. iPhone photo with edits in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik Color Efex Pro 4.

As the storm began to subside, a double rainbow appeared to the east of the campsite. The complete semicircle rainbow was visible at one time, but I could not get a shot of it with my iPhone. One can see sunlight from the west striking the mountainside in the lower left, so as long as the storm clouds, which were moving westward, did not obscure the sunset, we would get good after the storm light.

Possible good indication for sunset light after the storm. iPhone photo with edits in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik Color Efex Pro 4.

A fuller view of the sun lite mountainside south east of the campsite as the storm passed, gave us some hope of getting sunset light on the mountainside.

A subsequent post will cover the actual sunset shoot after the storm.

Ken

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

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 2019 Road Trip – Bisti – Day 4 – Scouting Photos

During the mid-day hours of day 4 in Bisti, my son and I scouted in the northern area of Bisti. The unofficial parking area for access to this area is several miles north of the official south parking lot and it is on Navaho land.

A short distance along the dirt road access to the “unofficial” parking area is another spur road going south. This road leads to a rocky drainage crossing, which can be made with a high clearance vehicle and maybe best with a 4 wheel drive. We decided not to drive across the drainage or to drive all the way to it, since the dirt road had much broken glass on it. It appears that this area might have been a dumping site for trash at one time.

We hiked across the drainage and towards hills and rocky features a few tenths of a mile in the distance. There we discovered interesting features. We think this area is on BLM land, outside Bisti proper, but maybe some of it is on Navaho land. Where we parked is probably on Navaho land.

Although, there are interesting photographic subjects in this area, note the human infrastructure items along the horizon, which will present problems getting compositions that exclude those structures.

Another view of the area in the previous photo is presented above. Note the two steel items. We have no idea what these were used for nor why they are here at this location. It appears that they were designed to lift or hold something. These will present some compositional problems.

A close up view of one of those mysterious steel items is shown above.

The portion of a weathered, petrified log shown above is near the previously photographed features. There is much petrified wood in the Bisti Wilderness, so apparently this was a lush forest area many years ago.

Another portion of a petrified log with scattered pieces of weather petrified wood around it. This is very common in this area.

The photo above puts the petrified long into context with the other local features here.

One possible composition that eliminates the nearby human infrastructure is shown here.

Another interesting looking hoodoo in this area is shown above. Big mouth rock?

I named the hoodoo above “Snail Rock” for obvious reason.

Another view of “Snail Rock” is above.

More petrified wood protruding from the ground.

A small bridge formed by harder rock overlaying softer, faster eroding rock is shown in the photo above. Such features are common in Bisti.

I will have more scouting information for Bisti North proper in a subsequent post.

[Note: None of these scouting photos are posted on Flickr].

Until next time,

Ken

Spring 2019 – Bisti Day 3 – Scouting

My son and I scouted an area in the southern portion of Bisti that he had previously visited and nicknamed “Scalloped Rocks”. This area has a rich variety of oddly shaped rocks and small hoodoos.

Day 3 March2019 Scout @ Scalloped Rocks — “Scalloped Rocks” area in South Bisti. iPhone photo, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DXO Nik Color Efex Pro 4.

I just happened to be in a good location to snap a photo of my son framed by these rock forms, while we hiked around this area looking for potential photographic compositions.

Small eroded hills with rocks balanced on their peaks near the “Scalloped Rocks” area in south Bisti are in the photo above.

The slender hoodoo and attractive rock formation is typical of this area. (Or is that an alien being next to its space ship? Perhaps, as one reader has suggested, the isolation in this wilderness may be warping my mind and leading to wild imaginings).

There are many rock forms similar to those shown in this post and many other interestingly shaped rocks in this area. I liked the potential of this area, so we will plan to visit here again either at sunrise or sunset on one or two of our days here.

[None of the photos in this post are on my Flickr page].

Thanks for following,

Ken

2019 Spring Trip – Guadalupe Mountains National Park – Day 2 – Part 1 – Scouting Photos

After a strenuous previous day and getting to bed late with no firm plans for where to go for early morning photos, I decided to sleep in a bit and scout the area again during the morning and afternoon for possible locations for sunset photos.

After breakfast, I walked the trail to the visitor center looking around for possible photo locations along the way. Since I had hiked a substantial portion of the Guadalupe Peak Trail the previous day, I figured that I had earned the right to purchase and display a pin from the park in my collection, so I picked up the pin and inquired about the road into the Salt Basin, hoping to get time to visit the gypsum sand dunes in the western portion of the park. No one there had any update on the condition of the long clay road into that portion of the park. After thinking about this, I decided against attempting to get into the Salt Basin on this trip. I only had that afternoon and the next morning to spend in the park and the Salt Basin area is a day use area only, meaning no overnight camping or parking there. For sunrise photos, I would have to get up early the next morning and drive quite a way to get to the access road and then there was no way to know if I would be able to drive the last portion of the road and I would have no idea of where to go, anyway. For sunset photos, I ran the risk of losing my already paid for second night in the RV site, where the slots are on a first come basis; but there seemed to be no way to show that a site was already taken, if no vehicle was parked there. This eliminated the gypsum dunes for sunset photos.

Upon returning to my vehicle, I decided to check out the Tejas Trail from which I thought I might be able to get late day shots with golden hour light as I had observed it the previous evening on the mountainside to the east of the trail.

The lower portion of the Tejas Trail is much easier than the Guadalupe Peak Trail. Again I hiked with only my Camelbak with water, snacks, GPS (for safety and for recording waypoints at possible photo sites) and iPhone. I looked for possible photo sites along the trail, making a number of iPhone scouting shots. These shots were all taken around mid-day to early afternoon, so the light was harsh with the sun almost directly overhead, so there were not even any shadows to give the photos depth.

I am presenting a few of those scouting photos in this post with comments regarding the ideas for later DSLR images and some notes on editing photos.

Someone from McAllen, TX left this mark on a tree along the Tejas Trail in Guadalupe NP. iPhone Photo

This first image is an example of what is seen much too often and illustrates what one should not do in our national parks. Someone just could not resist defacing one of the trees along the trail.

An old tree trunk with highlights along the Tejas Trail in Guadalupe NP. iPhone Photo

Even with mid-day light, it is sometimes possible to get interesting images. The one above is a portion of a gnarly, weathered, fallen tree, mostly in the shade of another tree with sunlight dappling across it. This is a jpeg image, so the editing is limited; but I’ve tweaked it a bit in Adobe Lightroom, then applied additional editing in DXO Nik software. I typically like to add several filters in Color Efex Pro 4, depending upon the photo, with a slight touch of brilliance, detail extraction, sometimes a graduated neutral density and a slight skylight filter. One has to be careful not to over do it with these filters. Sometimes, I will note that a favorite filter is just too much and I either have to tone it down or eliminate it.

A scouting photo along the Tejas Trail, Guadalupe NP. iPhone Photo

I hoped to get sunset light on the features in the mountain side, but I also needed something in the foreground and/or framing objects. So I experimented with these concepts as I walked along the trail. I applied a little lens fall off vignetting in the above image to tone down some of the unattractive foreground and to reduce the plain sky.

A scouting photo along Tejas Trail, Guadalupe NP. iPhone Photo

Another foreground/framing possibility is illustrated here. Again, I used a little lens fall off vignetting to reduce the foreground clutter and to add a focusing effect into the image.

The image above has a vignetting filter, that I do not often use, applied in Nik Color Efex Pro 4. I thought it worth experimenting with in these flat, bland photos. I think this one serves quite well in this case. It tones down the foreground clutter, reduces the plain sky and focuses on the main subject.

I kept hiking along the trail, trying to get closer to this particular feature on the mountainside, hoping to find a good vantage point to photograph it later in the day. Here, again, I’ve added vignetting to reduce the foreground clutter and focus the eye on the main subject.

The boulder in the lower right anchors the foreground in this image and I think with it located diagonally from the peak in the upper left, helps to give this image some depth and visual tension. Vignetting is used again to reduce the unattractive clutter around the edges and guides the eye into the image. The vignette center can be moved and in this case, it has been moved slightly to the left.

This is just an experiment with a monochrome version of the previous image. Sometimes harsh light images can be more appealing images in monochrome. In this case, the lack of shadows results in too flat an image to be interesting.

Just another experimental foreground for the prominent feature in the mountainside. The Cholla is weathered and not very attractive; but there is at least a hint of clouds developing in the sky.

Ah, if I could find this at sunset, I think I would get a good image!

Stay tuned for the late day results,

Ken

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Tag: Scouting Photography

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