Forgotten Images

A couple of the bloggers that I read on a regular basis have been talking about the value of taking the new post-processing skills that you have learned and revisiting an reprocessing images from the past.

That encouragement, along with a new e-book on processing landscapes, led me back to the images from an outing that is almost three years old. Debbie and I took a trip to Moab, UT where big skies, puffy clouds and castle-like towers abound.

These images are taken one evening as sunset approached. The first reaction of some people who have seen these images has been "Monument Valley!" I assure you it is not.

Moab is noted for the arches of Arches N.P. and for the courses of the Colorado and Green rivers in Canyonlands N.P. But upstream from Moab the Colorado valley broadens out for a few miles and it is ringed by these formations. If you look closely in the background of Road to LaSal and A Big Sky you will see the snow rimmed LaSal Mountains (famously seen in the background of photos of Delicate Arch or Mesa Arch and the Washer Woman).

Enjoy the images as I have in reliving the trip while inside on a rainy day.


Road to LaSal

Storm Castles

A Big Sky

Cisco Sunset

This sunset was taken at Cisco, UT. Cisco is a ghost town in Eastern Utah. We visited the town as part of the DLWS class we took back in May.

If you are a regular visitor, then you know the changes that have been taking place with the blog. This image is the background image you are seeing behind the blog entries.

I'm also started a learning curve for the new CS5 Photoshop. I'm just starting to learn both the Photoshop tools as well as the new CS5 features. Content-aware fill can do amazing things!

Photo Adventure - Flash Magic

A part of the class I took includes demonstrations and instruction on using off-camera flash. We have one of the best in the world as our instructor, Joe McNally. It is amazing to watch him work with a subject and push the light around to make an image.

Our final morning shoot was at Deadhorse Point. As you will be able to tell from the background behind the cedar it was a gray day. But with a couple of small flashes this colorful image is created. All of us with Nikon camera bodies were able to use our cameras in commander mode to trigger the flashes that Joe had set up for us.

The "sunrise" on the tree is from the flash. CTO gels to provide the warmth in the light. Two SB900 units, one to the right as the primary and one to the left as the secondary. Nikon D90 with the pop-up flash as the commander.

Photo Adventure - Layers

We are photographing in many of the iconic locations in the Moab region during our class this week. One is the Washer Woman formation in Canyonlands National Park. It is often photographed through the frame of Mesa Arch.

We visited the Mesa Arch overlook on our second morning. As can happen with very famous park locations it became very crowded with visitors, even at 5:30 AM !

The weather has been cool and hazy in this part of the desert. It is snowing today up towards Sale Lake City. All of our mornings have had clouds which have made for challenging and exciting lighting.

I shot this image especially to emphasize the 'layers' of the ridges, buttes, towers, etc. out from the edge of the mesa.

Photo Adventure - Tire'd

The main event for our trip to Moab is a photo school. It is a landscape photography oriented class. So what did we do for one of our first shoots? We went to visit a ghost town and worked on an assignment to shoot small details.

This old truck wheel has been setting in the grass for a long time. There was more interesting junk on the ground and around the abandoned buildings.

The class is also focused on Photoshop for post processing. All steps in CS4

Photo Adventure - Nine Mile Canyon

Debbie and I are out in Utah for some time off. Of course that means photography.

We will be in Moab for most of the week, but today we drove up Nine Mile Canyon near Price, UT. Nine Mile contains what may be the largest collection of ancient native american rock art. This petroglyph panel is one of the most impressive in the canyon. The amount of content is amazing.

Sadly, much of the art has been vandalized. This panel shows a little. Other locations have had images drawn on, shot at, or initials or names put next to or on top of the original images.