Colorado landscapes: Mesa Verde - Cliff Palace

 

I grew up in an over 1000 years old city in Germany. My home town Bautzen was mentioned on a piece of paper for the first time in 1002. Many of the oldest buildings and towers are way over 500 years old. I realized it is not that old  if you look at Mesa Verde.  ;-)

Most of the cliff dwellings were built from the late 1190s to late 1270s. However, by about 1300 Mesa Verde was deserted. The reasons for the migration of the Ancestral Pueblo people are unclear and several theories offer reasons for their migration (source: Mesa Verde NP brochure). It is just great that these very old structures still exist, that they are preserved, and that they are protected for future generations.

We had to be patient to make some images of Cliff Palace, one of the community centers with about 150 rooms. We did not like the light during the day and so we came back to the overlook across the canyon in the evening. The light was gorgeous at about 6:45PM. I bracketed five shots for each image, each shot one f-stop apart. For this photo I finally took the 3 shots on the darker side and merged them in Photoshop into one 32-bit file. Bringing the 32-bit tiff-file back into Adobe Lightroom gives you a much wider range to work with on highlights and shadows. I also tried to merge five shots into an HDR image and tone mapped it, but I do not like this kind of a look, not even with a very subtle tone mapping applied. So, what you see here is just a “pseudo-HDR” but I like it so much better. I have no problem to imagine that the sunset over 800 years ago was exactly the same, except Cliff Palace was probably busier at this time of the day...

Stavkirke - but not in Norway

 

The third day up on the Door Peninsula was a gray one, and I mean a real gray one with no sun at all. That didn’t stop us to take an early ferry to Washington Island in Lake Michigan and explore this charming area. In this part of the country live many people with a Scandinavian heritage and therefor it was no surprise for us to find a Stavkirke (stave church) on the island. Almost all original stave churches are found in Norway and this one is a replica of one in Borgund, Norway. I have seen many of the Norwegian Stavkirkes during my frequent travels to Norway and the architecture is always awe-inspiring. The church belongs to the Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church on Washington Island and their present stone church is just across the road.

With no quality light present and the high contrast between the snow and the dark parts of the church I decided to bracket five different exposures and merge the images in NIK HDR Efex Pro. I know, it doesn’t substitute good light but the result is better than any of the single shots under these circumstances.

The two photos of the interior were made with an off-camera flash light that was directed into the ceiling. Joan assisted me with the flash light so I had both hands to hold the camera steady at 1/15 s. After a couple test shots I liked the results and didn’t even bother to use the HDR method.

IT'S A 59

 

Some people wrote me they liked my last photo and this made working on another one from yesterday's car event. This 1959 Chevrolet Corvette is a beauty and was parked in front of a bar, which made for a  better background than many of the other buildings in East Dubuque. I gave it a different vintage look, like Grandpa took it just out of the dusty shoe box with the old pictures in it... ;-) Have a wonderful weekend!

Vintage look

 

What have wildlife photography and shooting at a car show in common? Well, I don't really know but in both instances dealing with background issues would be on top of my list. But let me start with the event first. During the summer the owners of vintage cars meet ones a week over in East Dubuque across the Mississippi to show their cars and socialize with their friends and other car enthusiasts. The road going through the little downtown area is blocked for any other traffic and the cars are lined up on both sides of the street.

I have been there before and always wander slowly along the cars, look for the light, and for cars that are parked in front of buildings that make for a more natural setting and background. Quite often the car owners sit in their lawn chairs right behind the cars and this is usually a NO-NO for me. If the sun is out, the West side of the road is almost completely in the shade of the buildings and this is usually my preferred side to look for car details. For understandable reasons this is also the side where most people sit behind their cars.

All of the cars displayed in East Dubuque have  probably been photographed to death and I'm sure many pictures are technically perfect and good for any catalog, book, or brochure about vintage cars. That's good, because I don't have to walk in the same foot steps and ad another technically perfect image to the bunch out there ;-) .

Seriously, I thought giving the image of this old Plymouth a little bit of a vintage look would be worth the effort. I used NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 to produce a high dynamic range image, made from four exposures. As always with HDR images I'm staying on the more subtle side, keeping in mind the vintage look. The image got finished with a slight vignette and the usual spot cleaning and sharpening. I hope you like it. I may show a couple more sometimes soon, so please stay tuned...

Indoors with 32-BIT High Dynamic Range (HDR)

 

I like to share another image that I created with the same technical means I have described yesterday here in the blog. Indoor pictures with great architecture can really benefit from HDR, with or without ton mapping, as you can see in this photograph I made inside the St. Vitus's Cathedral in Prague, Czech Republic. There is just no way that you can catch the details in the sculptures without blowing out the highlights in the stained glass windows with a single exposure. You sacrifice one part for the other if you only make one click. By blending a series of exposures (here I used 4) into one 32-BIT image I was able to expand the dynamic range and the result is much closer to what our eyes have really seen in this wonderful cathedral. This image is part of a special project I'm working on at the moment and that I will come out with hopefully soon. So please stay tuned...

Digging into history using 32-BIT HDR

 

The photo I show you today was made April 18, 2008. You can't make the same picture anymore, not even if you go to exactly the same place at Arches National Park in Utah. This was Wall Arch, one of the numerous arches that gave the park its name. Wall Arch collapsed 109 days after I made the image. So what you see here is history.

We had only two days in the National Park and not every photograph was made during a time with good quality light. Any time after 8:30AM we had to deal with high contrast scenes and harsh light. I shot many images with five different exposures in order to overcome the limitations of the dynamic range in the digital camera, at that time my Nikon D200. Back home it was a time consuming process to layer the pictures on top of each other and paint with layer masks to reveal only the parts of each photo that I wanted in the final image. I remember it took me at least three nights to do that, partly due to the fact that my Photoshop skills were still very limited. Needless to say that I was very proud about my accomplishment. High Dynamic Range (HDR) software was not available or at least was not known to me at that time. The photo below was the result.

Because of its historic value, that it has at least for me, I wanted to redo this image with today's software and better technology. This time I used a 32-BIT HDR method that I learned a little while ago in Matt Kloskowski's blog "Lightroom Killer Tips" (see the link for this blog in the side bar on the left hand side). Starting in Adobe Lightroom I merged my five original RAW files into HDR Pro in Photoshop. From there I just saved the picture as a 32-BIT tiff-file back into Lightroom. What you will find is that the range of the Exposure slider has changed from ±5 to ±10, giving you a much wider range to work with shadows and highlights in your picture. The 32-BIT tiff-file gives you a humongous dynamic range to work with in comparison to the usual 16-BIT or 8-BIT we have at our hands.

I prefer a very natural look in my images and this method, without any ton mapping, works very well for my style of photography. But here is the best, it only took me about five minutes to create the final image from my five bracketed shots and can still use the tonal range of all five shots together.

As you can see, I cropped the new picture slightly just because I like it now better this way. Can't really say anymore, "I will do it right in camera next time I'm there".... ;-)

More from Arizona, part 4

 

I'm still working on my images from last week's trip to Arizona and I like to show you a few more.

The little miner town Jerome has a very interesting attraction. The Gold King Mine and Ghost Town is just a mile north of Jerome. A fascinating place, hard to describe with words (at least for me).The location of the Gold King Mine was originally the community of Haynes, a suburb of Jerome in 1890.   If you like to read more about it click HERE. This will lead you to the Sedona Verde Valley Tourism Council website, which has a pretty good story about this place and its owner.

As a photographer you may get lost. It is not hard to make up your mind where to point the lens first. Lots of good old stuff. As an engineer, I just got carried away by looking at all the old mechanical wonders of the past. From old mining equipment, to probably more than a hundred old trucks and cars, machines and tools, and of course the old buildings of the ghost town.

The museum closes at 5PM and light is harsh during the day. But hey, we have HDR these days and subjects, like you can find them in a historical place like this, can bare quite a bit of "HDR-retro-tweaking", as I like to call it. Nothing to loose for me... ;-)

'God Beams'

My neighbor and friend Boris and I went on a short hike into Whitewater Canyon in the late afternoon today (Yes, there are canyons in Iowa!!!). Boris is not a photographer but enjoys being outdoors the same way I do. I didn't snap any pictures in the canyon today. There wasn't really any good light left because clouds had moved in and we even caught a few raindrops.

The showers were only short and I was hopeful that the sun would break through the clouds again on the way home. My hopes were not dashed. Clouds in front of the sun created wonderful crepuscular rays, better known under photographers as 'God Beams'. It doesn't get much better for landscape photography, especially here in Iowa. We are not spoiled with great vistas like so many places in the west of the country. Boris was very patient with me and didn't mind that I pulled off the main road several times for a good perspective. Thanks Boris!

Nikon D200, Nikkor 24-120 mm f/4G ED VR

The first image is an HDR made from four handhold pictures. I didn't go for the 'grungy' look and tried to keep it natural. NIK's HDR Efex Pro keeps it simple. Love this software! It is a really nice tool that helps me to develop my style of landscape photography in new directions.

Nikon D200, Nikkor 24-120 mm f/4G ED VR

The second pic is a single click that I underexposed by one stop. I went for the silhouette of the farm on the left hand side. The light was magical…

Clouds again, but also color contrast

Mississippi River at McGregor Marina, Iowa

This would have been another candidate for B&W but I decided for the colors. The color contrast between the boat cover on the left and the sky give the picture the punch that I like. The clouds provide drama, no matter what. The image was created from four bracketed shots in NIK's HDR Efex Pro. I actually had five pictures but didn't use the one with the longest exposure. I may try a B/W version as well but for now I hope you enjoy the colors.

Update and book recommendation

Even if I'm not able to post anything on my blog, there are people and friends that check it almost every day. I want to tell you, I'm very thankful for this fact. I guess I owe you an update about what's going on. I have been on the road or in the air during the last four weeks, mainly related to my job, and with very little time for photography.

Last weekend I spent a few hours with some German friends in Chicago, made some clicks, and was hoping to post them here, while I'm still on a business trip in Indiana. To make a long story short, I didn't bring all my gear as usual and one of the things I left at home is the CF-card reader. Means, my latest pics are still in the camera and I have to wait until I come back home. :-(

Thank you again to all of you who stop here regularly or even just ones in a while! You guys rock and your comments and emails encourage me to continue with the challenge to write this blog!

Above image was made in Norfolk, Nebraska. It is a trial with HDR photography and was created from five handheld pictures. I just finished reading Raphael Conception's  "The HDR Book" and can't wait to apply the new knowledge to my photography. If you don't know yet what photography book to take on your next business or vacation trip, that's the one I like to recommend. RC's writing style is straight forward and even for someone like me, who is not a native English speaker, this book is easy to understand and a great source of photography education.