More Tanyard

I've been wanting to do a black and white study of the rock at the top of the waterfall at the Tanyard Creek nature trail. I took several different shots with a couple of different lenses, but I could never really get comfortable with a composition. (Oh yeah. That "stop sign" at the overlook station at the top of the trail? Ignore that. I do.) The rocks are really pretty cool, and it's one of the few times when you'd like a little more daylight to promote some natural contrast. But the sun was just coming up and the fog beginning to lift, so there wasn't really enough contrast.

So I piddlied a little bit and then took this shot, looking down at the rocks. I don't shoot enough shots with my Sigma 10-20mm lens--it's a fantastic piece of glass. This shot is at 10mm (15mm on a full-frame camera), and that's freaky wide; I kept having to move my feet out of the bottom of the shot. I love the exposure on this shot--other than a levels adjustment layer, there's nothing else done to this shot. I may need to punch up the rocks a little just to make them pop a little bit. If you've been out there, you know there's a pretty good elevation change from the foreground to the background that's not really conveyed in the photograph.

But Julie likes it. That's gotta count for something.



EXIF is a little goofy. Out of the camera, it's ISO 400, f11 for 1/20th of a second, and -2/3 EV. A lot of times I'll set the white balance for cloudy and then dial in -0.3 to -.07 exposure compensation to make up for my camera's meter, which tends to try to save the highlights. I shot this in RAW and then added back in about 1/3 of a stop of the the exposure compensation back in. So, there's a little negative EV in here, but not much. I think it helps keep the fog in play.

Tanyard Creek Waterfall in the fog

Saturday morning was foggy. I woke up early, and thought about heading over to the White River. After getting to Lee Town Road in Pea Ridge and realizing I would lose the light before I got there, I turned around and took a leisurely drive back through Price Coffee and Ford Springs Roads, and went to the Tanyard Creek nature trail. I ignore the signs and actually get out into the falls. There was a fair amount of fog shifting around, and I took a lot of shots, experimenting with differing ISO settings and shutter speed settings. I used what Bryan Peterson would call a "who cares" aperture of f11, and ultimately settled on this version. Too slow of a shutter speed tended to lose the detail in the foreground water; too fast tended to lose the silky effect. One thing to note is that your shutter speed will vary the effect across the depth of field. In other words, a slow shutter speed will blur foreground motion more than something further back in the frame, at least with running water.

I don't have a good neutral density filter. But I do have a good circular polarizer, so I popped that baby on and used it to help me extend the shutter speed without burning out the exposure. It was pretty dark, though, and I probably could have done without it. Get out and shoot.

EXIF info: Nikon D80 + 18-135 @80mm, ISO 100, f11, .40 sec

UPDATE: Here's a second
picture from the same shoot:












EXIF data: Same camera and lens, at 75mm, f11 for 1 second.


The first shot is converted to black and white using channel mixer. The second was converted using a gradient map adjustment layer over a levels adjustment layer, and then adjusting the individual red, blue and green historgrams in the levels layer. If you don't have the full version of Photoshop or don't have a channel mixer plug-in, this second method is a great way to exercise a lot of control over black and white conversions.

The Hollywood Park Shoot

A few of you have asked me about Hollywood Park. Honestly, I think there's more to it than where I shot, but here is a shot of the 3 turrets I referred to in the Zoom Zoom post. I dodged and burned a little, and a little too much at that. One of these days I'll get better at that, but for this particular post it's not that important. This was shot with a Sigma 10-20 super wide angle lens. Oh yeah--if your subject is a turret, and it has a pointy top to it, don't cut off the top of it. This is the only one of the pictures of the 3 structures together that I kept, so I'll have to go back and do it again.

I mentioned that the Zoom Zoom picture was one of several. See the little windows in the turrets? There are little faces in there. I shot 3--here's a triptych.


The middle face is in the Zoom Zoom post. I think my dodging and burning is much better on these, but that may change--I haven't sharpened these yet. Converted to black and white using channel mixer. And actually, I'm going to crop #1 and #3 much closer to resemble the middle picture. I smell 16x20 on foamboard.

Zoom, Zoom

After seeing a picture in the Capture Arkansas project, I made a venture to Hollywood Park in Hot Springs. It's about halfway between Oaklawn and Hot Springs Country Club, in what seems to be a bit of a shady part of town. There are three odd turret-like structures made out of natural stone (I'll post a picture later); two of them have little "windows" in them, and in those windows are these little bas relief faces. Odd faces. Spooky little faces.

Anyway, I decided to try a zoom lens trick where you open the shutter and then zoom the lens before the shutter closes. I took over 30 shots, alternating between starting wide and zooming in, starting close in and zooming out, switching lenses, changing exposures, etc. I started with my super-ultra-wide Sigma 10-20 and learned that you don't get much action over 10mm, so I switched to my 18-135 and found that this worked better. Apparently, telephoto to wide is the way to go, although I'm not sure that's what I actually did on this shot. I was aiming to get something supernatural. I think I got close. I've got a few more that I'll post in an update later this week.

EXIF Data: D80 at ISO 100, f/16 for .60 sec., focal length variable.

Abstract in the Park

I am starting to warm up to the idea of just getting out and shooting. Sunday, I took Hadley and Annalee to the park and I was determined to shoot something. Anything other than kids on swings and slides.

This picture is of a side-by-side slide, converted to black and white, and very little else. One thing I did notice is that, although this was shot at f8, the focus is not sharp from the front of the slide to the back. Why? I suspect the compression from the zoom lens was the culprit. Lesson 1: There's this thing called a LCD screen--use it and zoom in to check sharpness every once in a while.

EXIF data:

Nikon D80 + 70-300 VR at 300mm
ISO 100
f8 at 1/320


This shot was inspired by those pictures you see from the desert southwest. You know, somebody has crawled down in one of those wind-blown, striated rock formations and taken a picture that looks like one of Saturn's rings on acid. It's a close up of a plastic rock wall-looking thing near the slide shown above. Not a whole lot was done to this in post--simple black and white conversion using channel mixer, minor curves adjustment, unsharp mask, and some selective dodging and burning to accentuate the curves (guys like that sort of thing, you know). I dig the potential of this one, and I'll go back with the tripod and get a sharper capture.

Nikon D80 + 70-300 VR at 122mm
ISO 100
f9 at 1/100


Lesson #2 (and this applies to both shots). Both of these shots were taken in a small park in bright sunlight at a little after noon, hopelessly poor light for shooting many things. But remember, black and white is about contrast--whites, blacks and many shades of gray. Mid-day light is harsh because of the shadows it makes, and shadows makes for good contrast in a black and white photograph. This one needs more black, but you get the idea.

Capture Arkansas

Update: As of August 19th (5 days left to submit), Boy Fishing is up to 83 votes (thank you Brandie and Shane for letting me post the photograph) and Hitching a Ride is up to 37 in its 8th day of being posted. I Am Sorry picked up 6 today.


There are about 11 days left in the Capture Arkansas project. Tons of photographs have been submitted for this project, and a great number of them are excellent. I have submitted 10 photographs (well 9 actually because one somehow got posted twice). The picture of Beck Perry fishing has picked up nearly 75 votes to lead my little pic pack. I'm thrilled--that's one of my favorites. The hitch-hiking grasshopper has picked up over a dozen votes since I posted it Monday. Everything else runs the gamut in a surprising way. A couple of the pictures that I think are interesting have fewer than 10 votes. The Cooper Chapel picture has some fundamental flaws, but it's second or third in my vote count. One Tree Hill has 7 votes, but was warmly received at Nikonians. Nice little marketing test.

I want to thank Dalas for making me aware of Capture Arkansas in the first place. I also want to thank those of you who have voted for my stuff. Go check out the site if you haven't--it's a great pictorial of our state.

Hitching a Ride

I was hauling off some weeds and yard stuff out to our little nature dump yesterday. Driving through chest-high grass, this grasshopper decided to hitch a ride. On Saturday, I had put my camera in the truck and left it--just the camera and 18-135mm kit lens. I didn't have my full bag, so this was a lesson in getting a shot with what you have on hand (I would have loved to have used my 70-300 VR to get in closer). Even though this shot is at f5.6, the close-in range lets the compression do its job and limit the depth of field.

I struggled with the crop. I really wanted to leave this guy some space to jump, sort of a kinetic composition. Then I had the unintended reflection that I really felt made the shot unique. Then a little bit of the Rule of Thirds. Then there's my tendency to compose on the right side. Were it not for the reflection, I would have probably put him in the bottom right hand corner and brought in a lot of the out-of-focus green background to give him a grassy place to jump. But I like the reflection, and it just worked out to where I could get him in the top right third of the frame and still convey (I think) some space for him to jump (which he did when I tried to move in for a closer shot.)



EXIF information:

D80+18-135 lens at 135mm
ISO 100
f5.6
1/160 second
aperture priority mode