Photography.22 - The Natural Landscape

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Photography.22
The Natural Landscape

{Photography.22.1}: Which Hazel? {hazel2} Sat, 02 Aug 2003 12:37:18 CDT (6 lines)

For those of us who love to be in it and spend a lot of our
pixels/film on it! I'm finding that it has its own set of challenges:
light, composition, choice of lenses. I'd like this topic to be a
place where we can talk about this stuff too.

I've sent Kai a intro photo for posting.

{Photography.22.2}: Kai Hagen {kai} Sat, 02 Aug 2003 14:59:17 CDT (HTML)

Here it is...

Hazel:
"I love turning the landscape into abstract compositions, and rock formations seem to be what I keep coming back to. This image is of a sandstone formation called "tefoni", and was taken in a state park called Salt Point on the Northern California coast."

Attachment: RRtefoni48.jpg (48K)

{Photography.22.3}: Judy Johnson {judy} Sat, 02 Aug 2003 16:29:02 CDT (2 lines)

I love to do that, too. I don't know that I've ever go one that nice,
though.

{Photography.22.4}: Suzanne Griffith {sggriffith} Sat, 02 Aug 2003 20:16:15 CDT (HTML)

That's beautiful texture.

Here's one I took a couple of weeks ago of the "world's largest spruce tree" in Olympic National Forest in Washington. We hiked a little trail through the woods to get there, with tourists taking pictures of every plant, but when we arrived and I tried to walk around the tree, I found a golf course on the other side of it!

I didn't want a "world's largest spruce tree" snapshot, so I kind of worked around the edges of it. This is part of the crown of the roots. I want to go back and improve the focus. I do have another photo I might try to work on.

{Photography.22.5}: Miranda {mran} Sat, 02 Aug 2003 22:32:13 CDT (4 lines)

Some beautiful shapes to that tree, Suzanne.

Hazel, I love the formations.  Are those edges, the ones that look as
if they were cut and fitted by a mason, are those natural??

{Photography.22.6}: Kai Hagen {kai} Sat, 02 Aug 2003 22:41:27 CDT (HTML)

Totally.

I've been there myself.

It's a weird and wonderful bit of the California coastline!

{Photography.22.7}: Miranda {mran} Sat, 02 Aug 2003 22:47:01 CDT (1 line)

Oh heck, the whole CA coastline is weird and wonderful.

{Photography.22.8}: Kai Hagen {kai} Sun, 03 Aug 2003 00:58:08 CDT (HTML)

Most of it anyway! :-)

Here is a picture I took a few years ago at one of the parts of the California coast we went to often when we lived out there.

Point Reyes, California

Attachment: pointreyescliffsweb.jpg (38K)

{Photography.22.9}: Which Hazel? {hazel2} Sun, 03 Aug 2003 12:50:32 CDT (14 lines)

Thanks for the comments on the rock formation pic! Miranda, to answer
your Q, the cracks and edges are totally natural. The area is directly
over the San Andreas fault (it heads out to sea for the last time
about 20 miles north of here), so there are lots of flat stone areas
here that have these cracks and shifts in interesting patterns.

The other thing is that sandstone changes color as it erodes and
becomes exposed to the atmosphere, so there are all these weird color
shifts. The area is a favorite of mine, and I'm goint to have to get a
very wide angle lens to capture some of what I see there. You'll
probably see more of this stuff when the galleries are up and running.

Suzanne, if those are the roots, that must be quite a tree!
Challenging to photograph something like that.

{Photography.22.10}: Suzanne Griffith {sggriffith} Sun, 03 Aug 2003 21:33:28 CDT (5 lines)

Yes, it's a very old tree, about 1,000 years. So a lot of the roots
are above ground and they're very weathered. The remaining green
needles are way up there, and you can't walk back far enough to get
much a shot of the whole tree unless you go out on the golf
course... And that was prohibited ;-)

{Photography.22.11}: Ed Hawco {ed1} Mon, 04 Aug 2003 10:15:34 CDT (HTML)

Here's a scan of a photo that I took in the Canadian arctic in 1991. I printed it 11x14 in 1994 (hence the copyright notice) and this is a scan of an 8x10 work print. It's at a place called Nicholson Peninsula, about 100 miles east of Tuktoyaktuk.(Don't bother trying to find it on a map.)

That's the Beaufort Sea in the background, which you will find on a map (it's north of Alaska).

The terrain up there is, at first glance, utterly desolate, but upon closer examination there are small flowers, lichens, and bones everywhere. I found this dead caribou there, plus another one a few hundred yards away, as well as an arctic fox skull and some small rodent skulls.

{Photography.22.12}: Suzanne Griffith {sggriffith} Mon, 04 Aug 2003 11:39:16 CDT (1 line)

I like that one, Ed.

{Photography.22.13}: Which Hazel? {hazel2} Mon, 04 Aug 2003 13:29:11 CDT (3 lines)

What an evocative picture, Ed. I can see why you want a digital with
a wide angle lens. It is usual to find so many animal remains in an
area like that?

{Photography.22.14}: Kai Hagen {kai} Mon, 04 Aug 2003 13:54:54 CDT (5 lines)

I imagine so.

I like that, Ed.

Nice of the creature to die in such a photogenic pose, too!    :-)

{Photography.22.15}: Which Hazel? {hazel2} Mon, 04 Aug 2003 14:01:18 CDT (2 lines)

Ed, are you shooting large format? Amazing detail, foreground to
background.

{Photography.22.16}: Ed Hawco {ed1} Mon, 04 Aug 2003 14:34:17 CDT (10 lines)

Thanks for the compliments. Hazel, that was 35mm, on Tri-X 400. Back
when I was doing B&W I was pretty good at processing and printing for
detail. I was studying photography in the faculty of fine arts at
university, and I sometimes even had the professors not believing my
prints were from 35mm.

I did one project of night images shot on ASA 50 film (I think it was
Ilford) and printed 16x20 and you couldn't see grain anywhere. Mind
you,   I would often spend 8-10 hours in the darkroom and emerge with
only two finished prints!

{Photography.22.17}: Diane Hamilton {dianeh} Mon, 04 Aug 2003 16:07:48 CDT (1 line)

Ed - that is awesome.

{Photography.22.18}: Which Hazel? {hazel2} Mon, 04 Aug 2003 19:35:36 CDT (7 lines)

Well, I am impressed! Hope you don't mind another question: I can see
that you're using a wide angle lens - what focal length? I've never
shot with one shorter than 35mm, and I think it would open up a new
landscape world if I got something else. Also would improve depth of
field. I see the horizon has a slight curvature (not objectionable) -
at what focal length do those kinds of distortions start to become
bothersome in a landscape?

{Photography.22.19}: Ed Hawco {ed1} Tue, 05 Aug 2003 00:33:16 CDT (6 lines)

Hazel, that was a 28mm, which I always considered to be my "standard"
lens. It can be tricky to use 28 when there are a lot of verticals in
the scene, as they will distort towards the edges. You can minimize
that by holding the camera as straight as possible (i.e.,
perpindicular to the ground). The distortion is amplified when you
tilt the camera.

{Photography.22.20}: Which Hazel? {hazel2} Tue, 05 Aug 2003 01:30:20 CDT (HTML)

Yes, I can see it wouldn't be the lens for cityscapes. Those kinds of gross distortions in buildings really bother me!

****

Here's one of mine, taken at a beach called Dry Lagoon, a couple hundred miles south of the California/Oregon border. It was a 70 degree Thanksgiving Day and the sky was a very strange color at sunset with all the humidity in the air.

{Photography.22.21}: Kai Hagen {kai} Tue, 05 Aug 2003 02:05:08 CDT (HTML)

I like that.

it is very simple, in a way, and yet there is a lot going on - a lot to engage a second or closer look..

And the unusual color in the sky contributes to that.

{Photography.22.22}: Ed Hawco {ed1} Tue, 05 Aug 2003 09:29:49 CDT (1 line)

Gorgeous! And there's that northern California fog line!

{Photography.22.23}: Kai Hagen {kai} Tue, 05 Aug 2003 09:44:49 CDT (HTML)

There is an old "Fog" topic in the {Nature} forum, by the way: {Nature.177.1-}

I like the way the fog came out in this shot, also from the California coast. It was taken looking out over the Pacific from the hills in Marin County, on our way home from a chilly day at the beach.

Attachment: bolinasridgefog94web.jpg (46K)

{Photography.22.24}: Ed Hawco {ed1} Tue, 05 Aug 2003 10:18:32 CDT (HTML)

Hey, I love that terrain! I was there a few weeks ago with my girlfriend. That looks like it was taken from Mount Tam, which overlooks Bolinas, and if you're standing in the right spot, San Francisco.

Here's a fuzzy shot I took looking towards the city, with the ubiquitous fog, and although you can't really see it in the photo, San Francisco is in the blue haze in the background.

I love the light brown grasses and the patches of green trees one finds in the landscape in Marin county. Gorgeous!

{Photography.22.25}: Ed Hawco {ed1} Tue, 05 Aug 2003 10:21:10 CDT (2 lines)

Incidently, mine is pretty much just a snapshot. Kai, your photo is
awesome, with the light and shadow on the grass and all...

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