This week we are sharing images, stories and ideas from Daryl Benson's recent trip to the Baffin Islands in the Canadian North. Here's his Tuesday report:
"Icebergs are fairly common in Eclipse Sound, a narrow stretch of sea water (about 12kms wide at this point) that flows between Baffin and Bylot Islands. This pinnacle was attached to a larger iceberg but made for a dramatic image when isolated (by using a long lens with my ColorCombo) against Bylot Island and Kaparoqtalik Glacier in the background. This water is only open for two months of travel by boat each year. The rest of the time it's frozen and easier to cross by snowmobile or dog team.
"It's a popular belief that the Inuit have dozens of words describing snow. In fact, this is not true. They have about the same number of nouns and verbs explaining snow as the English language has. However, in their world "snow" and "ice" are considered the natural state for water to be in, not liquid."
Be sure to click the picture above for an enlarged version, and tune in tomorrow when we present another arctic anecdote from Daryl's Baffin expedition.
Since early July, when Master Photo Workshops released the 100-minute DVD featuring veteran landscape photographer and Singh-Ray blog contributor Steve Kossack, we've heard lots of positive feedback -- especially on his discussion about why certain images have become his favorites. So we asked Steve to review a few of the images made in the course of his demonstrations for the DVD. Here's what he had to say about the four images below.
"Well, I'll start by saying it was a fun trip for me -- doing an in-the-field workshop exclusively for the video team directed by Gregory McKean. We followed as our theme the DVD's title, Every Picture Tells a Story. So let's talk about the stories I tried to tell by these images produced in the process.
"If we believe in putting the horse before the cart, then we need to begin each photograph by asking -- and answering -- the question 'what is the story?' before deciding how we will say it. These are the two basic steps that prescribe every photograph I make. When I take my workshops into the field, I feel I am revealing a part of myself. It’s almost like asking 'how do you like my place?' Even if they like the location, the challenging part has just begun. I try to explain why I brought them to this place and how we can all go about setting the story of this place into pictures. Let's revisit four of the places featured in the video.
The Wave of Sandstone and Light
"Everyone should see and experience this amazing place in southern Utah called The Wave -- not just this spot but the entire area. With or without photo gear in hand, this is one of the great places anywhere on Earth. No matter how many times I’ve been here, it always holds the power to surprise and delight! The story here on this day was the light and the weather that created that light. This is a good place to be a couple hours after sunrise and to have patience if bad weather is passing through. By waiting for the shadows to deepen and the cloud pattern to open just above Top Rock pictured here in the middle distance, I set up my composition low and wide to show how I think the formation got its name and then opened the view even more to show the lines moving away. The Singh-Ray ColorCombo helped both the color saturation and contrast in the clouds. It also helped control the reflected glare in the highlights. A 3-stop soft-step ND Grad was used to balance the exposure in the shadows with the highlights on the right side and in the sky. I intentionally burned the left corner to aid the eye in finding Top Rock and the cloud opening quickly.
Coyote Buttes
"Telling the story of this place in the spectacular wilderness spanning the Utah-Arizona border is to follow the continuous surface erosion and its constant shifting through flash floods into the canyons and washes. A favorite topic of mine has always been the struggle for life that goes on here. In this case, it's been an unsuccessful struggle for the tree in the foreground. The story contains all the elements except the floods themselves, which I think adds both mystery and anticipation. In order to straighten the buttes overhead at this low angle, a Canon tilt/shift lens was used along with the ColorCombo to heighten contrast in the clouds. A 2-stop soft-step ND Grad was then placed in front of the ColorCombo to further balance the exposure. Of the various images taken during our DVD shoot, this one is perhaps the strongest of the storytellers.
Cactus amid the Color
"In the DVD we demonstrated how this image of a small subject in a small place was visualized and made. A simple scene to be sure, however achieving this image took some deep thought as well as trial and error. Looking at all the elements dictated a slow study of what those elements were and how to accentuate them. As we went through the filter kit trying to bring forward different parts of the 'life on the rocks' story, we discovered several possibilities. In this image, we finally came up with an added touch of contrasting color in the overhead rocks by polarizing the reflected light with the Gold-N-Blue Polarizer.
Horseshoe Bend in Another Light
"The DVD also includes a visit to this bend of the Colorado River that's long been an icon of the American Southwest. Having seen so many images of this spectacular scene for many years, visiting photographers can find our preconceptions of Horseshoe Bend to be both an advantage and disadvantage in terms of telling our own story of what we are suddenly seeing with our own eyes. In most pictures, the story involves not only the rhythmic bend of the river or how deep the canyon is, but also the continuous variations in weather, time of day and the ever-changing light that's not at all controllable.
"For me the weather and position of the sun on this day made the reflected blue light the key aspect of this story. The composition was adjusted to show more sky than I would usually include. This eliminated some of the foreground but I was careful not to exclude the rock faces that give the visual perspective needed for scale and scope. The clouds set up perfectly for counter balance. They appear to be moving left to right, which is usually the way we see, and the river appears to moving with them -- although, in reality, the river flows in the opposite direction and the clouds had very little movement and I realized the low light would end long before another composition was possible. Exposing for the water reflection was the main challenge. I balanced everything from there. An LB Color Intensifier was used in this frame to avoid losing the reflected blue from the water. I wanted to balance the cold blue with the warmth of the sunlit cliffs. A 4-stop, hard-step ND Grad was used to hold back both the sky and light of the cliffs in the distance."
As Arizona landscape photographer Steve Kossack prepares to lead his annual Yosemite high-camp backpack and workshop across 60 miles of rugged high-altitude trail, he's again feeling the inner excitement. "Once again," says Steve, "I'm feeling that compelling urge to photograph the wonders of nature. I'm always trying for images that convey my emotional response to the scenes before me. I find that it's never easy to put emotions into words -- let alone a photograph! However it's the emotional moments and places that are so special for me."The Sierra Nevada mountain range is famous for what is often called alpenglow -- a time when a layer of blue and magenta bands forms in the twilight sky at high altitudes. On most days you can see alpenglow even on cloudless evenings. I have learned not to walk away from a Sierra sunset until well after the light has faded to almost complete darkness.
"In capturing the dramatic alpenglow above Cathedral Peak in Yosemite National Park, a couple of problems were solved by the use of my Singh-Ray filters. The most obvious challenge was the deep and dark shadow that the bottom of the composition presented. The trees added to this because they were an element that I thought would be most important. I’m shooting from a position above tree line! I needed enough shadow detail to tell this story. If I exposed for the highlights and let the shadow go where it might, I knew I’d have the deep rich color of the panorama but lose the detail in the shadow. The solution for the shadows was to use a 4-stop hard-step Graduated ND Filter. By taking a meter reading of the shadow area, I shot a series of manually bracketed frames, starting with the shadow exposure and then opening up one stop for each of four consecutive frames.
"I also realized that by doing this I would lose more of the rich color saturation with each step of increased exposure. Here the solution was to use the LB ColorCombo with the polarization set for a bit less than maximum effect to avoid over-polarizing and thus increasing the contrast. After all, my purpose here was to balance the exposure, cut the glare off the granite and enhance the green of the shaded trees. This capacity to enrich the greens makes both the LB ColorCombo and the LB Color Intensifier filters two of my favorite filters. Now with a fairly long exposure induced by the filters, I came away with the benefit of a slight blur in the clouds, lending a tranquil touch to the image.
"On the banks of the Tuolumne River in early morning light the emotional attraction for me was seeing the steam rising off the river. The challenge was to find the angles that would offset, yet not overpower the subtleness of the setting. Once I found the lines that led into and out of the composition, the proposition became how to capture the colors. I set my exposure for the highlights and then opened up 3 stops using a 3-stop hard-step ND Grad. This gave me an exposure in the foreground that still rendered the right side of the bank almost in silhouette. I needed this contrast to set it all off. Next was adding the LB ColorCombo, carefully avoiding too much of the reflection in the water.
"These final two images were both captured along Merced Lake in Yosemite National Park, which is the second lake from the headwaters of the Merced River. The quiet seclusion of this high alpine setting, with deep granite walls falling sharply into the lake, create a setting as tranquil as any I’ve experienced."When I set up the image on the left it looked somewhat sterile through the viewfinder, however it was anything but when I surveyed the scene. What I was missing was the slight movement of the water in the foreground. I knew that a long shutter exposure was needed. The Vari-ND enabled me to extend my exposure just enough, and I also used my trusty LB Color Intensifier to step up the color saturation. As I increased the exposure I came closer to the glow of highlights that I liked but I was losing the one color that was most important to me. Green! The LB Color Intensifier is my usual choice to solve this problem.
"As I was shooting this image, the lake's surface was almost white-capped as the result of a strong wind. A 30-second exposure -- made possible by using my Singh-Ray Vari-ND -- changed the water's surface into a lovely gloss. Stacking the ColorCombo and then a 3-stop soft-step Graduated ND brought the exposure range into better balance and enhanced the green of the trees while holding back the glow of the granite. These steps resulted in a perfect rendering of the fallen tree in the foreground. By applying conscious thought to the choice of my filters and the way I use them, I have acquired a much better 'feel' for the way they will work in the field."
Steve and his unique approach to landscape photography are now featured in a new 100-minute DVD being released this week by Master Photo Workshops (Directed by Gregory McKean.) The new DVD, entitled "Every Picture Tells A Story," provides an in-the-field workshop experience packed with helpful information and clearly demonstrated techniques. You'll find more info o
