Why My Trees are Yellow

Posted by Mark on Jan 13, 2012 in nature photography | 24 comments

Yellow Aspens and Alaskan hillsides, Cantwell, Alaska

The new year has found me keeping to myself inside for these first couple of weeks, doing some reading, playing some games, and not a lot of new photography to contribute.   It has me sometimes perusing some of my archives in search of trying something new, something different, something to inspire me.  I suppose I have entered 2012 taking a breather before charging ahead.

Selective coloring on images really hasn’t been my cup of tea in the digital age, and it certainly isn’t anything new and adventurous.    I actually enjoyed doing this in the “old days” with a set of Marshall’s Oils and a black and white print.   Since then, I have read people call it irritating and trite.  For some, I tend to agree.   The black and white kid photo with a red strawberry, the urban street scene with a neon sign, or any number of things that have been done ad nauseam.

The labels and stigmas that we put on things seem to demotivate people from actually trying something that actually might work.   Thou shalt be damned if you actually enjoy it.   Then if you do cross that line, you are left with wondering if people are going to judge it solely because you have wandered into this forbidden territory.   Well, let it be known I have wandered.

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Three Bears

Posted by Mark on Dec 15, 2011 in nature photography | 10 comments

Three Bears departing, Kinak Bay, Katmai National Park, Alaska

Somehow this evening I ended up in my unprocessed folder from my 2009 trip to Alaska.   As I poked around a bit reflecting back on how great it was spending so much time around bears, I decided to bring a few out for processing and putting up in my gallery.

These three bears were a mother and her two yearling cubs.   We hung around them quite a bit while we were anchored in Kinak Bay in Katmai National Park.   I remember how one was still quite dependent on mom to catch fish, while the other seemed to be a natural fisherman.

I also remembered how much I liked this particular area of shoreline.  The zig-zag of the shore created a lot of triangles in the frame.   With the three bears, there is quite a bit of repeating threes in the frame.  Even the bears make a triangle.    It isn’t often when so much comes together in one frame.   All I was missing was a little girl named Goldilocks.   Maybe next time.

I added a few more images in my gallery here: Brown bear pictures

Seeing after having seen

Posted by Mark on Jun 23, 2011 in nature photography | 21 comments

Alaskan range and spruce trees

There is one thing about photography that I can count on, always an abundance of things to do and play with.  If I am in a slow time for actually being in the field, I certainly have plenty of images and tools to play with on my Mac.   Ideas on the back burner that need to be brought to the front.

I have been wanting to explore some warm tone black and white processing on some of my Alaska work.   These images were a set where I was so absorbed by the beauty of fall color in Alaska, I processed most of them in color.  After all, color was a dominant trait that made the scene so special.

I already know in my head that absence of color allows you to explore other details of an image, textures, more subtle shadows and form.  Sounds like it is straight out of a textbook.  But it is hard to make that connection in your heart until you can actually visualize it.   Get down in the mud and sling it around.  With color hitting you in the face like a bat, it is sometimes hard to consider anything else.

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Brown Bear black and white

Posted by Mark on Jan 16, 2011 in nature photography | 18 comments

Alaskan Brown Bear

This image is a survivor from a recent culling of my brown bear photos from my Alaska trip so long ago ago now.   I have developed sufficient detachment from many of these images that I can edit rather ruthlessly.   Yeah, I still have a lot to delete.   Many still remain in picture purgatory.

I particularly liked the rim lighting on this bear that accentuated the characteristic grizzly hump.   In fact, the lighting on the bear is what I liked the most, not necessarily the surroundings.   So I began to play with this image in Lightroom a bit to see if I could maintain what I liked the most, while reducing the impact of the rest.   I ended up going with a monochrome image.   But a pure black and white image just seemed too cold to me given the warm color of the bear’s fur.   So I added a little warm toning that resulted in this final verison.

Shelikof Sea Lions

Posted by Mark on Oct 27, 2010 in nature photography | 13 comments

Shelkiof sea lion colony with rough seas

Believe it or not, but I am still processing quite a few Alaska images.   I wonder if I will ever finish.  This one was from a boat trip we took from Geographic Harbor in Katmai National Park out into the Shelikof Straits.   The water was quite rough, making it quite difficult to compose much of anything.  You just see the horizon going from the top of the frame to the bottom of the frame in your viewfinder.   Fortunately I had VR working for me here and a high ISO, shot with a 70-200 f2.8 at ISO2500.  I absolutely love marine mammals, so I was happy a few of these ended up being keepers.