Station Fire burns at night over the San Fernando Valley

The wildfires in Los Angeles have been quite crazy.  The Station Fire extends from Pasadena to Acton and has burned over  150,000 acres.  This has caused some VERY smoky skies near my ‘hood (Studio City).  This has led to some great sunsets.  The other day I went up to Mulholland Drive, which runs along the ridge of the Santa Monica Mountains in LA.  I took the photo below just after sunset.  There were quite a lot of people up on Mulholland, watching the fires burn.  I found them quite beautiful but the damage they do is not.  Bottom line: humans have suppressed the natural fire regime for decades and have built up lots of fuel for huge fires like this.  Fire is a NATURAL occurrence in California and is necessary for proper ecosystem functioning.  We need to learn to live with wildfire, especially since global warming will increase the frequency and severity of fires throughout the Western United States.

"Station Fire above the Valley", Nikon D300, Nikkor 70-180 Micro

Luminosity Masks Example #2

I must apologize for such sparse postings to my blog this summer.  I have been extremely busy.  I was promoted at my job and I was appointed a Young Men’s Division leader in my Buddhist organization, Soka Gakkai International.  I have also been traveling a fair amount.  Though many of my travels have not been devoted strictly to landscape photography I have amassed a significant portfolio of nature photographs from this summer.  I will be sharing these on my blog through the rest of the summer, explaining technical aspects of each photograph as well as artistic and philosophical aspects. The shot below was taken on my way to High Sierra Music Festival over 4th of July weekend.  This festival is held in Quincy, CA every year and hosts some of the best independent music of many flavors in an ABSOLUTELY incredible location in the Sierra Nevada mountains (north of Tahoe). For this shot I chose to combine two images in order to control the dynamic range of the scene.  I used the Patels’ “iHDR” technique, which I like to refer to as “luminosity masking” since it should not be confused with the HDR technique obtained from Photoshop or Photomatix.  Luminosity masking results in much more natural looking images than other so-called “HDR” techniques.  I have wrote about the details of this technique in other blog postings but it involves taking multiple shots of the same scene at different exposure settings.  These different exposures of the same subject are then blended using “luminosity masks” which are carefully crafted for each image to ensure a natural looking result. This example uses two images: one for the foreground and midground and one for the sky.  This incredibly powerful technique is now a staple of my photographic technique for capturing difficult light and creating natural looking images in tricky lighting situations.  A Graduated Neutral Density filter could have also been used here though the transition between the sky and the far ridge would not look as natural since this filter has a straight line that does not properly mirror the natural ridge line.  Nevertheless a “soft-edge” Grad ND could have been used and would likely have resulted in a similar image.

"Self and Environment", Sierra Nevadas, CA (using the luminosity masking technique)

“Self and Environment” was taken with my Nikon D300 and my Tokina 12-24mm lens.  I used a circular polarizer to eliminate reflections from rocks and foliage.

iHDR Example

The iHDR workshop I did 10 days ago was awesome!  Jay and Varina Patel are both excellent photographers and great teachers.  I learned quite a bit about post-processing, including their “iHDR” technique.  This technique involves creating luminosity masks to blend multiple exposures.  It especially useful where a Grad ND filter would not work well, such as if there were trees poking their measly little branches above your horizon.

NOTE: the iHDR technique is NOT an HDR technique like that found in Photoshop or Photomatix.  These HDR techniques have their place and create very artistic results but are unsatisfactory to me since they produce unbelievable results with added noise, odd tonal transitions, and often excessive saturation.  iHDR is more akin to the “manual blending” technique of combining two images of the same subject but different exposure values.  It is just VERY advanced blending using luminosity masks/clusters.

I saw an AMAZING sunset yesterday at the Treepeople reserve in Los Angeles.  The sky was exploding in all directions.  One side was orange, red, and yellow while the other side of the sky was pastel blue, purple, and pink.  Foregrounds are hard to find at Treepeople but I was able to find some good ones (these shots are soon to come).  I am still processing these images but I thought I would post the following image – my first real attempt at the iHDR technique.  I thought this technique worked beautifully here, allowing a very natural tonal range even in the tree sticking out above the horizon.  I’ll be posting more images from this sunset later; I am going to High Sierra Music Festival this weekend, which is going to be an absolute blast, but I won’t be able to work on any photos for about a week.  I will be taking lots of photos of the wonderful musicians there however.  FESTIVAL!!!!!!!  =)

"Treepeople Sunset" - a blend of four exposures to capture dynamic range

Flare – the Contrast Killer

Some of you who are familiar with my photography know that I like shooting into the sun sometimes.  I love being able to get those beautiful sunstars right as the sun hits the horizon (see here for an example).  This is especially challenging as you only get about 30 seconds before the sun is gone and the beautiful sunstars are no longer available.  Sunstars occur due to optical phenomena inside of your lens and you must use a smaller aperature (f/16 or f/22) to achieve this effect.

I tend to bracket exposures in tricky lighting situations so that I can properly expose for the highlights (in the example shown below, the sunset in the background) and for the shadows (the bush with the white flowers).  I can then easily combine these two images in photoshop later by simply layering the darker shot on top of the lighter one, using a layer mask to reveal the shadows.  This is similar to what a Graduated Neutral Density (aka ND Grad) filter does – a technique that on film was mastered by the late, great Galen Rowell.  Shots can produce a very natural looking image, in many cases more natural than an ND Grad, when blending well (luminosity masks are the key to this).

Now the problem with shooting directly into the sun is that the light bouncing around in your lens will lead to strongly reduced sharpness and contrast, resulting in a flatter, lower quality image.  It is important to remember that lens flare does not just lead to funky colored orange spots (aka ghosting), but significantly degrades image quality as well.  On a recent shoot I decided to to test just how strong this effect is by shooting two shots: in the first shot I simply exposed for the shadows and in the second shot I took the same exposure but covered the sun with my fingers.  By covering the sun, I strongly reduced the effects of lens flare and greatly increased the quality of the image (note: covering the sun is not an issue if you use another shot for the sky exposure).  See the examples below for an illustration of the benefits of avoiding lens flare.

NOTE: these images would be blended later with an exposure for the sky, hence why the the sky is totally blown out.  They are also slightly underexposed, but that’s okay because they are here to serve the point of this lesson (flare is EVIL).  Don’t judge them on their artistic merit.  =)

Exposure for Sunset - This would be blended with the foreground image in Photoshop to acheive the desired dynamic range (an ND Grad also could have been used).

With Flare - Shooting into the sun gives you strong lens flare with ghosting but ALSO reduces overall image contrast.

Without Flare - Covering the sun reduces flare and greatly increases contrast, sharpness, and overall image quality.

With Flare (100% Crop from center) - Note the ghosting and general low contrast.

With No Flare (100% Crop from center) - Note ghosting no longer seen AND contrast looks much better.

The above images show just how much ghosting and flare can RUIN your image quality.  Note that the loss of contrast is not just in the center or where the ghosting occurs; the loss of contrast occurs throughout the image.  The examples below, taken from the bottom edge, illustrate this point.

With Flare (100% Crop from edge) - Note the low contrast.

With No Flare (100% Crop from center) - Note the better contrast.

You CANNOT get this contrast back by bumping up the contrast sliders in Lightroom or by using the Curves tool in Photoshop.  You certainly can get some of the contrast back but it will not look as natural as the image with no flare.

Options for reducing flare:

1. Do not shoot into the sun.  This is the LEAST FUN option =).
2. Cover the sun with your hand and blend exposures.  This will result in an image without flare but with your hand in the shot.  If you’re blending in a sky that is usually not an issue.  If you are not blending a sky in then you can simply take the same shot with the flare and blend that image with the image without flare.  Using this method you will likely still have flare in a small portion of your image (where your hand was covering).
3. Use Multi-Coated filters or no filters at all.  Multi-coated filters cost more but are much less prone to flare.  If you buy these try to get them multi-coated on the front and the back.
4. Use an ND Grad filter.  I have heard that using an ND Grad to lower the incoming light from the sun can lower the effects of flare.  I have yet to test this specifically.  Blending a flare and non-flare image would probably result in the best result when using an ND Grad.

Here’s another image from the same night, after my two image blend in Photoshop.  I show this image because I like the vertical crop better.  Note that there is no sunstar here due to light scattering/diffusion from those low level clouds.

"Reaching Up" - Santa Monica Mountains, Los Angeles, CA

(As a funny aside, I recently read my manual for my new Nikon 24-70mm lens, which stated that you should never shoot with your lens pointing towards the sun since this could lead to your camera catching on fire.  LOL!  Perhaps this is how the great Yellowstone Fire of 1988 started – pyrotechnics from someone’s Pentax 645!  I’ve never actually heard of this happening so hopefully I won’t be the first to lose their camera this way.)

iHDR Workshop with Jay and Varina Patel

This weekend I am taking an “iHDR” seminar in San Jose, CA with Jay and Varina Patel.  They are two landscape photographers from Ohio who have some wonderful imagery and who are especially proficient at post-processing.  I took the seminar to learn their “iHDR” technique, which standards for “intelligent high dynamic range”.  This is a way of acheiving high dynamic range in nature photographs without the over-processed look of typical HDR imagery.  As of right now the course is only half over; I will give a full report after the 2-day workshop is done.  If you’re in the midwest, they are doing a similar workshop in Ohio in August.  Jay and Varina are both great photographers, great teachers, and very nice people.

Varina’s Site

Jay’s Site

Video Tutorial on what iHDR looks like

Free webinars with world famous photographer Art Wolfe

I just had the pleasure of attending a free webinar on “Composition: Point of View” with the wonderful photographer Art Wolfe.  Art went through a slideshow of his images, discussing his approach to using point of view as a compositional tool.  He had many unique photojournalism shots where he was either VERY low to the ground or above his subjects – these methods provided him a unique perspective, which in turn resulted in unique photographs.

Art is doing two more workshops offered by liveBooks.  They are:

-Composition: Focal Lengths (Monday July 6, 2009 3pm PST)

-Composition: All About Light (Tuesday August 4, 2009 11am PST)

He answered participant questions at the end, including one from a new photographer about how to shoot a graduation ceremony (LOL).  Sign up for Art’s upcoming webinars as well as other free webinars (including Lightroom tutorials) using this link.

Art also has a show on PBS called “Travels to the Edge”, which I now intend to check out.  Basically HD camera crews film him shooting various amazing locations.

Just got a Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8.

I just bought a Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 lens.  It is huge and heavy but the image quality (contrast, color, bokeh) seems pretty stunning.  I’ll be posting my thoughts and images from the lens as I continue shooting with it.

Photography and Luck

A large part of photography is being at the right place at the right time.  Of course, the more important characteristics of a great photographer are knowing where to be and when to be there.  The most important characteristic being the artistic and technical mastery of knowing WHAT to do when you get to a situation with amazing subjects in amazing light.

I happened to stumble upon some amazing light (referred to in the photographic community as “god beams”) last weekend when visiting La Jolla, CA.  Julie and I headed to San Diego for the weekend to see the Allman Brothers Band at Harrah’s Rincon – awesome show!  I’ve seen them a few times over the last five or six years and they sound as good as ever.  They next day we headed to La Jolla to catch a sunset and photograph the seals on the beach.  Unfortunately, they plan to move the seals by playing sounds of barking dogs from 6am to sunset every day (possibly for years) – see this link for more information.  We must remember they have lived along our beautiful California coast longer than humans.  Respect, respect, respect these beautiful creatures.

So, the light was behind the clouds, creating these amazing god beams, making photographing the seals less interesting (and more difficult in the lower light).  Therefore I concentrated on some waves crashing on some very cool brown rocks.  Here is the result:

"Mystical" - Waves crash under god beams in La Jolla, CA

I was certainly not expecting to see such spectacular light when we headed for La Jolla that day.  However, I was “lucky” to find myself witnessing such an amazing light show.  The only way I was able to take home these images was my knowledge of composition (I utilized leading lines and the rule of thirds to evoke a three dimensionality to the images) and exposure (I blended multiple exposures of the same shot to cover the large dynamic range of the image without blowing out the highlights and maintaining detail and color in the shadows on the rocks in the foreground).Hope you enjoy these shots!

"Raw" - A black and white conversion from La Jolla, CA

Obama announces stricter rules for vehicle tailpipe emissions

President Obama’s team announced yesterday that the federal government will be bypassing California’s request for a waiver to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from passenger vehicles.  Instead of granting this waiver, the federal government has decided to adopt the proposed CA standards nationwide!  This is a huge win for those concerned with mitigating climate change.

The new standards are approximately 40 percent more stringent and require car and light trucks fleets to achieve 35.5 MPG by 2016 (the current standard is roughly 25 MPG).  California had proposed the higher standards in 2002 but was stalled from implementing them since the Bush White House refused to grant the state a waiver, which it required to bypass federal standards.  Obama’s plan to adopt the CA standard as the nationwide standard bypasses the carmaker’s concerns about multiple conflicting standards and IS THE SINGLE BIGGEST STEP THIS COUNTRY HAS EVER TAKEN TO REDUCE GLOBAL WARMING POLLUTION.

As an environmental scientist I welcome this announcement with open arms and, while I am quite critical of some of the other moves this administration has been making, I truly relish in this announcement and the complete paradigm shift Obama represents on this issue compared to W.

Here’s the full story in the NYTimes.

Two of my photographs to be published by SGI-USA!

I am proud to announce that two of my photographs were recently selected for publication in the 2010 SGI Century of Life Datebook! SGI stands for Soka Gokkai International and is a buddhist organization with millions of members around the world; the datebook is a collection of inspirational photography in a small calendar/datebook format. The 2010 datebook will be available sometime in the third quarter of 2009.  The two photographs chosen are “Into the Light” from the Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve and “Waiting to Fly” from Santa Barbara, CA (shown below).

 

"Waiting to Fly" Santa Barbara, CA

 

"Into the Light" Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve, Lancaster, CA