Joshua Tree National Park

Thank you elves of Photo.net, this is the first time I have had a photo picked for the weekly discussion and I'm thoroughly enjoying it. I've been curious and just reading the contributions. It is entertaining to see all of the varying thoughts, ideas and experiences.
I don't think how long a person has been light painting has enough merit compared to how often someone tries it or experiments with it. On the evening I created this image I had a planned to light paint through the night at certain spots here in Joshua Tree NP. The plan was to create rough drafts and pick the strongest view points and came back to a smaller amount of maybe three images to recreate at a later date. The other image in my portfolio consecutive to this one was the original vision before arriving at the scene here. This was a spontaneous thought and since the cresent moon was lingering in the sky I spent a little more time painting the large amount of space. We all know how much better a flash works off camera and them more strategic with it you are the better the results. If you use your imagination to find where the sources of light are emitting from you will attain a better knowledge in how to create a similar scene. Distance between subjects in a frame can create problems, less distance less problems and less work in painting. I like to work in percentages of light and dark with one more dominant than the other so they compliment each other harmoniously.
The distance from the furthest rocks in background was too great for me to illuminate them so I painted the rocks adjacent to them this added the extra depth to the scene. All shadows here are solely for the perception of depth. This was initially a rough draft in the creation process but came out far better then a rough draft and well enough to connect with what was imagined. Regardless, this location is easy enough to comeback to and perfect if I choose to do so. In the end I wanted the viewer to be left with the curiosity of what lies beyond the horizon and just how difficult it might be to get there in the dark maybe with a small artificial light source as well.

John, thanks, I looked up Misrach's work and I liked what I saw. Some might not like it because of the date it was created but nothing more than it being outdated. If you can imagine what it was like back then with what was available to acheive any kind of results from capture to web file or print then you really can appreciate the past. It is easy to think I can do better than that but it would be foolish to think how many decades of technology we have over what possible in the past.
You wanting more could just be your curiosity setting in? Not sure wether that is a bad thing or not?

Stephen, thanks. Trying to keep that harsh beam of light undercontrol is one of the hardest things to do.

Christal, You definitely have the right idea of starting with something small. Your lighting is subtle and not blothy which is very difficult to avoid when painting 30 ft tall boulders. The moon you are asking about was there. It's an overexposed cresent moon so you can't tell it's a cresent moon. That portion of the scene has not been digitally altered. Not sure wether it is ethical or not to just clone it out, replace it with a zoomed in properly exposed shot with a black sky and replace the old with a larger vesion of the moon? Just curious because I've seen many moon shots that have been digitally rescued in this way. A wide angle lens shrinks the moons which can be a bad thing but it also shrinks the background so I feel leaving it the way it is distorted like the rest of the scene is fine.
However, I find the film photograhper that has created a double exposure with his imagination and not photoshop to most creative night photographer of our time. It may not be natural but it really does seperate the photographer from the digital graphic artist. There are a few digital SLR cameras out there than can do this. Otherwise in photoshop we can just stick the moon where ever we want if we chose to do so and call it art but when someone asks me if that moon was really there answering yes and feeling good about it at the same time is what is important to me.

Bill, thanks. There is only one source of artificial light here but it can change locations during a long exposure.. . .

Hi Steve,

Fantastic image. Kind of reminiscent of the film 2001: I almost expect to see the Monolith framed nicely within the arch!
I'm curious, is this the arch just near the White Tank campground? I stumbled onto this area last April and although JT is in general a rugged place, that location seemed particularly primordial, which you've captured perfectly.

Glenn, Thank you. Yes that is exactly where this is. It is very easy to get lost in the sea of rocks and boulders in the day or the night.

very nice shoot

Steven...what a wonderful image and thank you for explaining "light painting" and the way you achieved your results. Very interesting for a newbie like me. Congratulations for having a POW. It's a wonderful photo and again, thanks for the background details. Much appreciated.

I really like the composition and the light. Of course we have two sources of light here, the setting(?) sun and the artificial light use to light the foreground. I think it is fabulous how you can create dept with light. Only recently I learned how to create depth/separation in portraiture outdoors using both flash and ambient light! Cool and lots of fun!
Lovely work!

When something is perfect, words are unnecesary, this is one of them. You have made a perfect moment. Awesome shot. COngratulations Steve

Spelunkers have been using this technique for decades since the only light available is what they bring with them. You did a great job of matching exposures of sky/foreground with an attractive result. Regards, Jerry

Steve, I think my last line really was a clarifying statement about what I meant by wanting more. I have a pretty strong predilection for more concept in imagery than just looking at nice images. I can enjoy a nice image, but find more when there is more of a concept behind a piece. I guess it is because you have to make so many singular images as a commercial photographer or maybe just the realization that pretty images are relatively commonplace. As I said, possibly this experiment with light painting is not yet resolved and so we are only seeing the "sketches" for what is to come.

As to Misrach's work, your comments pretty much leave me baffled. The beauty of that work, especially the desert work, is its timelessness. It certainly doesn't suffer from being, if I might paraphrase, "archaic" or out of date! It has a simplicity, intent and content that is much more sophisticated and transcends time. To think we can do better because we have more advanced tools is pretty much to miss the whole boat!

To elaborate a bit more on your image here, I think it is a nice image. My comment about the light was really that I felt that the right side was a bit brighter than the rest without an apparent reason--at least from my reading of things. I think that both the lighter rim on the arch here and the hotter boulder sort of anchor the eye, or at least pull it, off to the right and make the image slightly out of balance. Seeing your "dimmer" version indicates the possibility of what I was thinking, that you could use the techniques we have in this modern age to better balance this area with the rest of the image. Of course, what we see might be your intent, I certainly don't know, I just couldn't conclude a reason for it being so from a visual perspective.

John, I appreciate your thoughts but do mind elaborating on your idea of a concept. First thing I thought of would be a caveman with a small fire or something else along the lines of that.

I did not mean to baffle you on my comment on Misrach's work. I'm agreance with you on the timeless of it. What I'm saying is there are a lot of photographers out here on the net and there only source or main source of inspiration does not come from any book or studying the work of people of the past. It is possible that the only source of inspiration comes from what they find on the internet and not much of anything else. My source of inspiration is pretty broad and comes from a variety of different means such as books old & new, galleries, advertising materials, and enviromental projects. I do know some of the history of landscape photography before Ansel Adams and many other hard working professionals of the present that do many things except spend their free time in internet forums. How do we find these photographers if they do not come to us on the internet?

I created the dimmer version after reading your comment and Bill's comment on light coming from the inside of the arch.

Brilliant !!
not everyone can see the beauty of your side, but everything changed after you press the shutter and shows it.
congratulations,best Regards.

Steve, when I saw the image in photo.net for the first time, I liked it very much and congratulated you for your 'painting with light.' After seeing your dimmer version, I feel that this version is more natural and enhances the beauty of the sky with the moon & stars.

Glad that this week the Elves have choosen a real photo like a POW!!!! Bravo! i was begining to be bored to see fake works in this section, Good work Steven, i also do lot´s of light painting in my work, i animate photonet members to experiment more in this kind of work or other creative stuff and to forget PS, About composition i want to said this photo has a clear approach to an infinity sensation beacause the lots of circle forms.
f.

Very nice light and colors. I have no suggestions for improvement. Good thing you have some artificial light on the foreground rocks, too, but the disadvantage is that it feels necessarily a little "formatted", a little "artificial"... Never mind, it's still very nice. Best regards.

A striking and unusual image.
I had one immediate problem with the moon in the image and figured it was manipulated. That is the impossibility of having a full or nearly full moon in the image near a sunrise/sunset. That close, it would have to be a crescent. Your explanation makes sense. I assume its circularity is due to a combination of overexposure and its movement during the exposure. I think it would have been fine to take another shot that would register the crescent moon as it appeared, and insert it later in place of the blurred crescent. That would make the depiction more accurate.
I would leave the moon the size or nearly the size it is. The image has a wide angle feel to it and a large moon would detract, as well as being rather cliche'd. A small moon image can give a greater sense of space and isolation.
I've spent a lot of time out in JT over the last 35 years and I'm happy to say that your picture is different enough that it has inspired me to go out and approach some familiar places in a new way.

Steve - this is a stunning image, and I love the depth you created in the foreground.

The only thing I would potentially consider doing differently if I recreated at a later date would be the placement of the moon within the overall composition. For me, it's position in the image -- slightly off-center both veritcally and horizontally -- is somewhat distracting, as is the intensity of it created by the long exposure. I assume there are limited options with regard to the overall composition, so I imagine that the only way to change this (other than through digital manipulation) would be to recreate the image at a different time of night and/or at a different time of year?

In fact, I actually wonder how the image would look with no moon at all? Maybe worse, maybe even better.

Minor nit-pick aside, superb. Keep up the great work.

Picture perfect, a really beautiful photo with lots of mood and character! Congrats! -g-

Just beautiful. Perfect to my eye. But Fernando this is a "fake" in some sense. Light painting, whether in photoshop or running around with a flashlight, is a procedure mostly designed to produce an effect not present in nature. We can go on and on about whether any photograph at all is authentic, but I'll bet that most classical landscape photgraphers would consider light painting to be fake.

I'm not partial to obvious manipulation in landscape photography. The fact that I find this image beautiful is, to me, an admission of how well done it is. Bravo!

A comment on the matting of the darker version. To me, this sucks the life out of the image. Maybe something lighter than black would work better for the mat.

Cheers, JJ

Just beautiful. Perfect to my eye. But Fernando this is a "fake" in some sense. Light painting, whether in photoshop or running around with a flashlight, is a procedure mostly designed to produce an effect not present in nature. We can go on and on about whether any photograph at all is authentic, but I'll bet that most classical landscape photgraphers would consider light painting to be fake.

I'm not partial to obvious manipulation in landscape photography. The fact that I find this image beautiful is, to me, an admission of how well done it is. Bravo!

A comment on the matting of the darker version. To me, this sucks the life out of the image. Maybe something lighter than black would work better for the mat.

Cheers, JJ

Just beautiful. Perfect to my eye. But Fernando this is a "fake" in some sense. Light painting, whether in photoshop or running around with a flashlight, is a procedure mostly designed to produce an effect not present in nature. We can go on and on about whether any photograph at all is authentic, but I'll bet that most classical landscape photgraphers would consider light painting to be fake.

I'm not partial to obvious manipulation in landscape photography. The fact that I find this image beautiful is, to me, an admission of how well done it is. Bravo!

A comment on the matting of the darker version. To me, this sucks the life out of the image. Maybe something lighter than black would work better for the mat.

Cheers, JJ

In terms of exposure and composition this is a very good picture. However if you look carefully at the rocks in the background you will see sharpening artifacts. Most sharpening programs increase the apparent sharpness of a photo by lightening one side of a line and darkening the other side. They don't actually make a sharper line, they increase the contrast around the line.

When magnified you will see a pure white line between the sky and the rocks. If this were made into a larger print the line would be easily visible. However once you know what to look for, it is easy to spot in smaller images. Reducing the sharpening just a little bit would elliminate the artifacts.

Steven, I appreciate your concern.
I don't know anyone that prints web sized or files sharpened for the net except for people that do it against a photographer's permission. If you visit a pro's website you will find smaller files and the smaller they are the better the quality usually is. The larger the file is the lower the quality will be. It's an anti theft precaution.
Photographs for print are sharpened in a completely different way. I have a set of large photos on display at the Four Season Hotel in Westalke Village, CA you can further your sharpness examination there. Thanks for your time.

Steven, I appreciate your concern.
I don't know anyone that prints web sized or files sharpened for the net except for people that do it against a photographer's permission. If you visit a pro's website you will find smaller files and the smaller they are the better the quality usually is. The larger the file is the lower the quality will be. It's an anti theft precaution.
Photographs for print are sharpened in a completely different way. I have a set of large photos on display at the Four Season Hotel in Westalke Village, CA you can further your sharpness examination there. Thanks for your time.

Steven F,

Why do you only comment on photos and not post photos yourself? Are you a photographer? If so are you afraid your photo will not be perfect?

Sorry for the off subject remarks people.

Jeremy Jackson,

In a natural world, photographs nor cameras would exist, either would the photographers that create. Light painting is cleary unnatural, the dark mat is there for a reason it's merely a clue for you to cover up you white screen and begin see more detail.

Thanks