landscapephotography Archives - Page 35 of 40

April 11, 2016

Hometown Sky

I live in an urban area so landscape photos require a little driving. In the afternoon I watch the clouds and if I think they’ll be favorable for a good sunset I may get in my car in time to drive to a location. However when aIl else fails and I only have five or ten minutes, this is where I go. It’s a little park by the water about two blocks from home. This is my go to location for emergency close-to-home sunsets.

Landscape photography gets me out and allows be to experience some beautiful settings. When I do, it becomes addictive, I want more. And in a way it allows good things to fill my head. Of all the things that can fill my head, I could do worse than scenes like this.

more images from my hometown of Palmetto

The days are getting longer now and sunsets are happening later and later. That makes it easier for me to get my act together for golden hour.

I’m lucky that I live in Florida, there are a lot of scenes like this that include the sky and water. Nonetheless, I think it’s important to be practiced at images close to home. I repeat a lot of local locations and each time I improve a little. Then when I travel I bring all that experience which helps tremendously with all kinds of situations that come up. Moral of the story? Practicing landscapes is kind of like tasting a good wine, the more you do the better you feel.

April 10, 2016April 10, 2016

Queenstown Reboot

This is an image I took on my first day in New Zealand about two years ago. As you can see from the colors it was autumn in the southern hemisphere. If I recall I was so happy to see all the fall colors that I quickly processed the photo and posted it a few hours later.

Now when I look back on that image I realize my tastes have changed. That’s a nice way of saying the other picture makes my eyes bleed. The colors of the original are amped up quite a bit and appear too bright and unrealistic.

And so as I was looking at some of my old photos the other day and I thought to myself, why don’t I reprocess this? Since I have the original RAW files I did, only his time I used different tools and techniques I’ve acquired over the years.

More New Zealand images from the Gallery

This is a three image HDR that I originally combined in Photomatix Pro, this time in AuroraHDR Pro. Last time I wanted the colors to blast so I oversaturated them, this time I wanted it to be a little more realistic. I think both versions have their pros and cons, (I’m being kind again). The old image looks pretty good as a thumbnail or on a phone, this one looks better on a large screen or print.

Each image has its place, but as I continue to evolve as a photographer and artist my taste change and so do my techniques. This is just another example of that. I plan on reprocessing a few more from that trip so stay tuned.

April 6, 2016

Out of the Box

This image is right out of the box, basically just as I shot it, nothing added or subtracted. I consider myself a pictorialist and it’s not often that I post an image that I haven’t processed, but this just seems to work for me.

I took this on Fort Lauderdale beach in southern Florida along the Atlantic coast. I got up early one morning to take pictures before the beach got too crowded. Actually, this was my second walk on the beach, I had been here before sunrise as well but as you can see the beach was still quite deserted, normal I suppose for a Sunday morning.

check out more images in the Florida gallery

One thing that struck me was how the sand felt. As I walked my feet would sink in several inches, almost as though it were a type of quicksand. That made for an arduous trek up and down the beach. Another way to put it would be to say it was a good workout; either way it took serious effort. Anyway these imprints were left in the sand where others had walked. I like how it looks well trodden yet empty at the same time.

Funny thing is I didn’t notice the seagull when I took the picture. That happens a lot, I’m usually so engrossed in looking for a scene that things can happen that I don’t see until I look at it later. I think that’s just a natural consequence of being out taking photos, good stuff is bound to happen.

April 4, 2016April 4, 2016

Coastal Fog

I took this in British Columbia while returning from a whale watching trip at a group of islands just offshore. Patches of fog started to form in the afternoon as we made our way back to port. The coast of BC can be treacherous and only the most experience sailors have any right to navigate here. There were buoys with bells and fog horns everywhere. The fog renders your eyes useless and so without electronics you must navigate by ear; not for the faint of heart. Even so it makes for ethereal scenery, especially from a boat.

There is an automated lighthouse in Ucluelet not too far from here. Basically the horn begins sounding whenever the fog rolls in. I’m sure it’s reassuring to sailors because from what I saw the fog rolls in pretty fast. I was told the month of August is also known as “Fogust”. Standing safely on shore I could hear the bells of the buoys and the horn of the lighthouse for miles around. When I first arrived the sounds were new and unusual but by the time I left they’d become an integral part of the sights and sounds of these costal communities.

more black and white images from the blog

There are many forms of water in nature but perhaps not so often do we think about it in it’s gaseous state. Yet it can shroud the sky, land and water in a cloak that despite it’s willowy nature, becomes impenetrable to all but the most skilled among us. It was after staying here a week that I gained a whole new respect for sailors and, for that matter, pilots too.

more black and white images from the gallery

April 3, 2016April 5, 2016

Deserted Island

Today I visited the deserted island known as Egmont Key. It’s near the big city of Tampa but completely removed from civilization. There is nothing here but an old fort, a ghost town, a lighthouse and miles of empty white sand beaches. Today was warm and sunny, yet there was only a handful of people that bothered to take the ferry out here. That meant I could walk for miles along the shore without seeing anyone. I walked the circumference of the island and somewhere halfway between one end and the other I spotted this couple.

The island reminded me a little of the island on Lost, except there are no mountains. I think that during WW2 there was a lot of activity on account of its location as a gateway into Tampa Bay. But now it’s a state park accessible only by boat and so remains largely deserted save for a park ranger, sea birds and a few daily visitors.

More beaches from the blog

To get here you catch a ferry from Fort DeSoto Park in St Petersburg. There are only two scheduled departures in the morning and then two return trips in the afternoon. The last return leaves at 2:30 so if you miss it you’re on your own. You might as well look for a place to shelter for the night. In that case you could wander over to the ghost town, I’m sure they’ll have a room there.

More beach shots from the gallery

April 1, 2016April 5, 2016

The Last Flash

There is a moment, just as the sun disappears behind the sea, that you can get a flash of light across the water. This was taken at that moment. Even though it lasts no more than a second I don’t advise looking at the sun to see it. However since I started shooting with a Sony camera I’ve seen it several times. That’s because I can look though the electronic viewfinder and my eyes are protected from the harmful brilliance of the sun.

Even rarer is something known as the “green” flash, at least that’s what I call it. Anyway, under certain circumstances and at the exact second the sun disappears, you may see a greenish-blue flash. I did not see it this day but I have seen it once in Florida. I was watching the sun set over the water and a gentleman came up to me and asked me if I’d ever seen it before. I responded that I’d never even heard of it. He said it was somewhat rare yet he watches for it everyday. A few seconds later it happened and we both looked at each other in amazement.

More images of nature from the blog

Anyway, back in San Francisco where I took this, I was at the bottom of a set of cliffs at Point Lobos State Park. By the time I climbed back up and walked back to the parking lot it was after dark, but it seems a lot of people linger here late. A scene like this is hard to leave, and besides I didn’t want to miss the last flash.

Check out my favorites from the gallery

March 29, 2016March 29, 2016

The Number Three

I’ve heard it said that three is a magic number. Well, it’s certainly the name of a tune sung by Blind Melon, but I’m not sure how magic that is. If you’re a little lost don’t feel bad, I had to look that last part up on Wikipedia. Even without looking something up I can reasonably say that three represents a lot of things. The periods in a hockey game, dimensions of space, and of course, the number of legs on a stool. Deeper words have rarely been written.

More images from Fort Desoto State Park

This is the kind of scenery you can find at Fort Desoto State Park in St Petersburg Florida. Its also an example of how I’ve developed a tendency to see scenes in letterbox vignettes, one at a time, all around me. In fact there were things to the right and left, but I imagined this one little vignette in my mind and so framed the shot. Sometimes I might need more and use a wide angle, but for this 50mm was enough to capture the image I wanted. Having a zoom lens really helps in this department.

This is also another view of the seawall that I posted a few days ago. It’s a thirty minute drive north of me and one reason I like to come here is that I can bring my dog. Much of the shoreline in central Florida is off limits to dogs but this being a state park its pet friendly. There is a dog beach and places like this where you can walk with your best friend. So here I am; me, my bud and my camera, just the three of us. Magic.

March 28, 2016March 28, 2016

Crossover

The sun is setting and I’m at the beach. I have exactly three minutes left to find one more composition. Those are some of the thoughts going through my mind at moments like this, it’s like a game and it can be a lot of frantic fun. Such was the case when I found myself behind some seagrass and a tree that created a kind of frame and just then these folks walked by. Click.

Checkout some more of my recent beach photography in the blog here

Framing an image is an important aspect of street photography. Find some interesting scene and wait for someone to walk through it. When people are in an image we tend to put ourselves into that scene whether we realize it or not. In this way artistic images have a way of pulling us out of ourselves.

My earlier landscapes almost never had people in them. Someone once pointed this out and I started to take notice. Now I’m not so concerned with finding landscapes without people, if I do great, but not required. So this resulted in a blending of my love of both street and landscape photography. Now when shooting landscapes I will often look for a frame and wait for someone to walk through it. In a long winded way this is the thinking that went into this image. It’s a crossover of sorts.

March 27, 2016

By the Numbers

My eye is always in the sky whenever I’m outside. I suppose that’s a side effect of being a landscape photographer. It’s my opinion that clouds are fifty percent of what makes an image interesting. That’s a generalization and there are exceptions to every rule, but ninety percent of the time, clouds are fifty percent of the picture; photography by the numbers.

More cloudscapes from the gallery

Of course I’m being a little facetious, art cannot be divided and multiplied. At least I don’t think so. But I think art gives inspiration to ideas like mathematical theories. It’s a side effect of how we work. We look at something abstract and try to make sense of it. We look at clouds and each see something different. I think abstractions give our subconscious an opportunity to communicate with our conscious selfs, only we don’t realize it so we call it “sub-conscious”, one of life’s little ironies.

Back to the math. In photography we have something called the rule of thirds. Dividing the subjects on boundaries of one-third makes and image more interesting, so they say. Some of my images, like this, are a little more extreme. I’ll call it my rule of tenths. One-tenth of stuff on the bottom and nine-tenths of abstract at the top. That way, my sub-conscious has more room. It’s just a theory mind you, but you never know, I could be on to something.

March 25, 2016

Handing Over the Reins

This is the cargo dock in Vancouver Harbour. I’m standing at Canada Place facing east towards Burnaby. Half of this photo is a painting of sorts. I’m not really a painter but all of the reflections are my own doing, an example of an idea I get and then working to bring it out. I do it for no other reason than I get a enjoyment from it. The waters of Vancouver Harbour are not nearly this glassy, but that doesn’t stop me from imagining what it would look like if they were.

More sunset photos from the gallery

This looks almost like a lake with fresh water. But then there would not be such big cargo docs. Mr. Rational says things don’t make sense and deconstructs the scene. However in the world of my imagination I get to mix things up a bit and play what-if scenarios.

In fact the waters of this bay are really clean, especially for a port with so much shipping. It’s not uncommon to see otters and seals swimming about. Compared to other port cities this is probably one of the cleanest. Maybe that’s where I got the idea from. I’ll take it up notch and make it appear like a lake. One thing is for sure, this is the only image like this you’ll see because it’s one part reality and one part dose of my imagination.