Monthly Archives: August 2012

Vista House in IR

August 28, 2012 by ScottWood | 4 Comments
Vista House

This image was made from the Portland Women’s Forum Scenic Viewpoint in the Columbia River Gorge of nearby Vista House.  According to Google maps, it is just under a mile from where I shot this to the stone building that you see in this image.  Times like this having a 500mm lens really does come in handy. :-)

I shot this scene with both my standard D7000 and my IR converted D200, but the IR body really had a distinct advantage over the standard body.  By the time we got there it was late morning and the light was already pretty harsh, and there was a great deal of summer haze in the air which was reducing the overall contrast of the scene.  IR does a good job with the harsh light and is great for cutting through the haze that is visible to the naked eye, but not so much in the spectrum that the IR converted body plays in.

I hope you enjoy this image and I would really appreciate your taking a moment to leave a comment and to click the share buttons below.

 

Posted in IR photography

Sunbeam Creek Falls

August 27, 2012 by ScottWood | 1 Comment
Sunbeam Creek Falls

Sunbeam Creek Falls in Mt. Rainier National Park

When most people think about Mt. Rainier National Park waterfalls are not typically the first thing that comes to mind, but there are actually a number of quite photogenic falls in the park. This falls on Sunbeam Creek is very close to Reflection Lake where yesterday’s image was made. The great thing about little falls like these from a photographic standpoint is that on a very busy day in the park, there is a crush of humanity at places like Paradise and Longmire, but little places like these are typically empty and you have them to yourself to shoot.

Posted in Photography Tagged |

Mt. Rainier Reflection

August 26, 2012 by ScottWood | 3 Comments
Rainier Reflection

Mt. Rainier from Reflection Lake

It has been many years since I have visited Mt. Rainier National Park and could actually see Mt. Rainier. We were up there in June during the free admission day, but clouds prevented us from ever seeing the mountain.  Not only that, but in June there is still A LOT of snow in many of the places where you would make one of those “iconic” images of the mountain reflecting in a lake.  The window of opportunity is actually quite short in the summer for those images, and even shorter if you want to shoot wildflowers on the mountain.

One of the advantages of living where we do now is that we are only about an hour from the park which means that while the conditions on the mountain can change quickly, you have at least a fair chance of making it up there when the conditions look favorable.  When things looked promising yesterday, my wife and I both had the urge to make it up into the park to take in some of the grandur that the mountain has to offer, we were not disappointed, but photographically it wasn’t really the best of days.

There was a little more haze in the sky than I would have liked, and there was a constant breeze at Reflection Lake that was keeping the water a little less than calm.  Sometimes though things just sort of work out the way that they should.  As I was standing there with my camera setup on the tripod, the wind died, but only for about 60 seconds, and it gave me a very narrow window of time to get the above shot.  If I would not have had my camera already setup, I would have missed it completely.

A short comment about processing of this image.  Since the haze was a bit heavier than I would have liked, I did have to bump up the contrast a little more than I would have normally.  I also upped the saturation a bit using an old channel mixer action that was designed to try to hint at the look of the old Velvia 50 film that I loved so much “back in the day.”

Posted in Photography

An Ocean Storm

August 22, 2012 by ScottWood | 4 Comments
Ocean Storm

I bet you are getting tired of seeing images from my weekend in Oregon with Dave Wilson, Jim Nix, Justin Balog and Jacob Lucas.  The truth is that it was such a great weekend of photography that I have a HUGE backlog of images.  It seemed that no matter where we went, there were great images to be made.

This image was made at Ecola State Park just north of Cannon Beach in Oregon with my IR converted Nikon D200.  I added back some digital noise in post to give it a sort of “modern vintage” look.

As you already know from previous posts, our plan was to be back at Haystack Rock for sunset and then astrophotography later that night.  The real variable was this band of rain just off the coast, it doesn’t take many clouds to ruin star trails, even if they might actually help a sunset image.  Fortunately for our plans, that band of rain stayed just off shore all afternoon.  It was almost like it wanted to sit there until someone took it’s picture. :-)

 

Posted in Photography Tagged , |

Kids at play

August 21, 2012 by ScottWood | 8 Comments
Kids At Play

One more trip to Cannon Beach today.  This image was captured during our first visit to Cannon Beach to scout things out.  It was quite hazy that afternoon and the beach was packed with people enjoying warm weather.  The light was pretty harsh for standard photography so I decided to use the IR converted body and see what I could get.

These kids really seemed to be enjoying themselves, and to be honest, I am a bit surprised that I was able to get this single shot of them without a ton of other people in the frame.

Posted in Photography