wildforlight

Last year I came home from one of my Columbia River Gorge workshops to the greatest personal loss of my entire life. Not knowing how to process the acute grief, I turned around and went back into the Gorge and stayed their in solitude for another month. During this time I often slept in the Eagle Creek area, in my vehicle and every day challenged myself to go farther and deeper into the Gorge than I ever had before (including spending nights in the forest). I have a large load of unprocessed files from that season, but I have not had the time this year to get to processing them. This is a less commonly photographed waterfall up Moffett Creek (Wehe Falls). I was very inspired, refreshed and in some ways restored by going to some new places. There is nothing quite like hiking way in to a new place and being the only one there all day. Sometimes I would just sit and look and rest for hours not taking a single shot.I hope you enjoy.

A brand new, original take on Metlako Falls. After 3 years of attempts I finally found a difficult yet relatively safe way to get here. More information found at my Facebook page: www.facebook.com/mark.metternich or my Website: WildForLight.com

Software: Adobe Photoshop CS6 (Windows);

More at WildForLight.comEver notice how, sometimes, your photography may reflect the kind of season that you are going through, the moment your photo was taken? Of course life is flavored with a myriad of seasons, some beautiful, maybe nearly euphoric. Some dark as the depths of night. Most somewhere between these two extremes. The approach: this image was taken in late July, after finishing my Glacier National Park workshop. My assistant and I simply could not get enough of the area (when can you ever get enough of Glacier NP?) so we decided to stay in the park an extra week and spend an entire day 4-wheeling every accessible dirt road we could find around the park. Just as we were coming up an incredibly steep hill I caught this scene to my left, abruptly stopped, locked in the parking brake, jumped out of my vehicle running, while emphatically telling my assistant “there’s a photo right there!“ Hand held, we shot immediately as the moment came and went within a minute or two.Techie stuff for those techy-ish: This is a single raw file (shot to the right of the in camera histogram) mainly finished in Camera Raw 8.2 / Lightroom 5.2 Raw (I often go back and forth between the two interfaces, because I teach both). As always, my somewhat innovative approach to Blending using the Layer Style “Blend if” options was used for a wide variety of processes including (but not limited to) blending for dynamic range, advanced B+W tonal control, very subtle advanced dodging and burning, sharpening fall off of the extreme darks and lights, and to pull the deep shadows of the land, a little bit, out of complete silhouette (which I do not always believe is necessary). Lastly, the image was sharpened for web using some twists, turns and improvements on what some may call the “Adamus” advanced pre-sharpening and then downsizing technique.Canon 5D Mark2Canon 24-105L105mmf/8 (sharpest f/stop)1/1600 shutter (w stabilization on)100 ISOFeel free to Facebook me if you so desire. I generally share even more gruesome details there. Thanks for looking! 

Just 20 minutes from my new place in outdoor paradise Bend, Oregon sits one of the most majestic lake scenes in the world, Sparks Lake (I know a lot of you already know of it!). Going for something a little different I decided to blow the entire sunrise on just one 7 minute shot. Processing was pretty straight forward. As always, I used my innovative "Blend if" techniques (See WildForLight.com) for the masking to make tonal work a lot easier and more subtle. *Most accurately viewed on a well calibrated monitor and on Safari, Firefox or Chrome - color managed browsers... Thanks for looking!

To be as brief as possible, I have been off the grid for quite a while due to the busiest workshop season in my career and then after finishing that, I came home to some major personal losses, yet also some beautiful gains. Not one to dwell on the negative, I focus on the gains. Here is a photo that represents (at least to me) some of those beautiful gains. One gain I will share is that I now live in my dream of dreams locations: BEND Oregon! This truly amazing small town (population 80,000) is very often voted the greatest outdoor recreational town in the US. This has been a lifelong dream for me and I am now living in the very heart of it all! On the "Bend Ale Trail" even! Pinch me! Literally, this photo was taken just a couple weeks ago, just a short drive from where I live. My new place (see my Facebook page if you want more details and images and such...) along with the largest backlog of imagery I have ever had from a crazy spring and summer of furious shooting has me finally back behind the computer working on post production. You know I love that! Lastly, yes my backlog is coming, BUT I am so inspired about my new surroundings (Crater Lake, Smith Rock, Sparks Lake, about 13 mountains in close proximity, too many rivers, lakes and waterfalls to count...) that I just had to start there. About the photo: I was grieving some losses and so to shake it off, I decided to take off and go to this location (a place my dad had me climbing and repelling as a teen). I simply went to the central vista spot and sat in solitude (surprisingly almost no one was there) and just enjoyed the show not worrying about taking a photo so much. At sunset I was met with one of the craziest light shows I have seen in a very long time (most of which was out of the frame directly behind me). I just sat, triggered off some bracketed shots and took it all in. Once the show was over I felt quite rejuvenated as nature often does for me. Techie stuff and miscellaneous information: A double processed RAW file easily blended using my "Blending for Dynamic Range - Blend If" technique. Canon 5D Mark 2Canon 24-105 @ 24f/8 (sharpest f-stop)100 ISO8 second exposureYes, I cloned out a path or two... As always, more accurately viewed using a color managed browser like Safari, Firefox or Chrome, of course meticulously calibrated and maybe even on a wide gamut monitor. I hope you enjoy.Thank you for any comments or suggestions.

Tech stuff: Canon 5D Mark2 (still waiting for Canon to step up their game if they ever do) Canon 16-35L2 at 16mm 100 ISO 16 shot DOF blend at f/5.6 (the sharpest for the lens) Also a single raw file, double processed, using my innovative "Blend if" technique for dynamic range/tonal control. First time ever experimenting with "Camera Neutral" as my base profile in raw 2 second exposure Adobe Camera Raw and PS CS6 100 foot waterfall The tree tilt is really tilted, not lens distortion Interestingly, I broke three photographer "rules" on this one: 1. Don't shoot in the Gorge after its spring peak. 2. Don't shoot when there are no clouds. 3. Don't shoot anywhere near mid day. *As always, more accurately viewed using a calibrated monitor, browsing via Safari, Firefox or Chrome.