brad_hiltbrand

This ancient bristlecone pine is at an elevation above 11,000 feet

in the White Mountains of California. It survives because of the

single strip of living tissue seen on the left. Trees nearby have

been dated at up to 4600 years of age. I really like the form this

one displays. Some clouds would have been welcomed but

there were none to be had. Still, the bristlecone pine forest is a

place of infinite photographic possibilities. Comments?

This photograph was taken in the late afternoon looking directly

into the sun at about 9000 feet just below the Sonora Pass in the

Sierra Nevada. Forest fires burning nearby had created a lot of

smoke, and made the light more (or less) interesting than it

otherwise would have been. I like the play of brightness from

foreground to background in this image. The huge contrast

range meant losing the sky to overexposure and required the

use of gradiated layers in Photoshop as ND filters to try and

retain some detail in the receding mountain ranges and lighten

up the foreground a bit. But I dunno. I think this might make a

great large print, but it does not completely satisfy me in this

small size on my monitor. What do you folks think? Does this

work or not?

It is nice to see your effort but you in the right place and the right time to capture great light. I don't think a cloudy sky would have helped the image framed this way. The light, the mountain, and it's reflection are quite enough. Wonderful image Ken.

 

(BTW, I was on something of a quest last fall and early this year trying to come close to the beauty of your Baker Beach image, but never had the good fortune of encountering the great light you found. Chasing the light is fun, but sometimes seems like searching for the proverbial pot o' gold at the end of the rainbow. You know it is there, but you almost never find it)

Great composition. I love this image.

This is a tree detail shot a few minutes after sunrise. The deep

blue is from the 11,000 foot elevation of the ancient bristlecone

pine forest. No polarizer was used. This treee is typical, mostly a

dead sculptural form, but parts are still living. In the full scan one

can clearly see the small pine cones amidst the foliage. Some of

the trees nearby have been dated at up to 4600 years old.

This is North Lake in the Sabrina Basin just East of Bishop

California. The Aspens in the lower elevations were just starting

to turn yellow, but there was lots of more advanced color

developing at higher elevations. This shot shows how fall color

depends on altitude (temperature). The shot may have been

better a couple of hours earlier closer to sunrise, but I like this

brightly lit image. The use of the polarizer and high altitude

combined for a unaturally dark sky, but I think it does not detract

too much from this very colorful scene. Comments welcomed.

Just before sunrise the sky in the west was tinged with magenta

and the light on the tree much less red than a few moments

later. I like this variation on my previous bristelcone pine image,

with a slightly different perspective and different mood.

Constructive comments are welcomed.

This image is of an ancient Bristlecone pine tree above 10,000

feet in the White Mountains of California. I do not know the age of

this particular tree, but others nearby are in excess of 4000 years

old. This specimen is hanging on by a couple of thin strips of

living tissue. Most of the tree has long since died leaving behind

this incredible scuptural form.

 

The early morning light changed very rapidly as the rising sun

shown directly on this tree. I took some of the red in this frame

out with photoshop because the combination of light, velvia

saturation, and my scanner did not mix well :)

 

There is so much up there to photograph that is hard to pick

single subjects and compose successfully. I think this

composition works, but am interesting in hearing other's

constructive opinions.

Thanks Michael. I am glad you like it.

 

I think Tim hits on the key problem with this shot. The horizon is not quite flush, but at least in this small viewing size, it might as well be. That diminishes from depth as Ivo comments.

 

I want to print this large (12 X 16) and see this image still displays a lack of depth. I think it will not, but nevertheless I agree with the critiques about the depth/horizon(s)

A crop of an earlier submission to focus attention on color and

texture. Is it better or worse than the full framr Hole in the Wall

image? Comments and suggestions welcomed.

An unusual perspective on Bryce Canyon I hope. Not all the rock

there is red. This is my favorite of my Bryce photos on display.

 

Is the composition OK, or could it have been better? Comments

and suggestions welcomed.

Nathan Cohen sent me an email stating that in his opinion my comments constitute libel and defamation of character and reminded me of the statute of limitations in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Given this reaction I will no longer comment publically on any of Nathans contributions to this forum. I reported this email for abuse to photo.net authorities.

Thanks for taking the time Nathan. I am glad you like it. I need to make a few comments on your interpretation of this shot and the technical details that you have interpreted erroneously.

 

First, I am more convinced than ever that your monitor settings are much dimmer than mine. I have played with adjusting the brightness of my monitor while viewing your images and it does improve things a great deal. I have calibrated mine to the best of my ability, but I strongly suspect there is a huge difference between what I see on my screen and what you see on yours. This is further supported by your persistant comments on other photnet member's photos about deep dark shadows that I fail to see. This image is no different. I am a Mac user and am very frustrated by the apparent differences in color space between Mac and PC, and the artifacts created by photonets autocompress (in this case Expand) software.

 

Second, this shot was taken around 8 AM. I rose early to do sunrise at Bryce point, returned to camp to pack up and get my son out of bed, and did some quick handheld snap shooting before leaving the park. We were at Zion at noon for about an hour (a few hundred miles away), took the tram to the top of the canyon and biked back down to the visitor center. After that we drove all the way back to Pasadena in California. No way this shot was taken at "high noon".

 

Third, I broke no rules of exposure, the mid tone is the upper part of the Hammer itself on my slide. The levels adjustment and the obvious difference in our monitor settings as created a situation where you incorrectly interpret how how metered this shot. It was pretty much a point and shoot handheld drive by image as I was in a hurry to get on the road.

 

 

Next, regarding the use of USM, there was no use of USM on the original 19 MP scan. I did two passes on the final small size file you see here. One at 20%, radius 30, threshold 0 to enhance local contrast. The second at 70%, radius 0.9 pixel, threshold 0 to sharpen an otherwise soft picture. There was no use of USM at a setting above 100%. I also do not like to use USM, but because my scanner always scans 'soft' compared to the slide, I have no choice. I apply it only to the final small size photoshop file prior to saving as a JPEG for web using the standard windows color space. What does "harsh zero crossing" mean? You lost me there. I agree that the USM aplied has created a harsh effect, but I do not agree that it is characteristic of my slides, nor Galen Rowell's work.

 

Since the original scan is about eight times bigger than this jpeg, and had no USM applied, your comment about limited viability in larger format is off base. Over 60 pixels have been lost for every one you see here in presenting this image online, and my scanner never produces as sharp an image as the slide. I am very anxious to buy a dedicated medium format film scanner, but have yet to come up with free $$$ for what is a hobby, not a profession.

 

 

Regarding the levels adjustment, the original slide is much redder and a bit darker than what I see on my screen. I adjusted ONLY the white point using the 'overexposed' area in the lower right side of the image. This brightened up the picture, and also shifted the color dramamtically from red towards yellow. I prefer the original, but wanted to lighten up the trees in the background which are indeed too dark on the slide. They are not on my screen but must still be too dark on yours. I do not know what I can do about that.

 

Neither the slide, nor this image really represent what my eye saw that day. Thors hammer seemed to be glowing and I like the light, so I took this shot, but have not manipulated this image beyond the white point adjustment I mentioned. I am still struggling with scanning and post-processing and am fairly unhappy that my cheap Epson scanner can not do justice to the slides themselves. This is compounded by the need to reduce the size and use a 20% quality JPEG compression to get the file below the 100K limit, and then having Photonets auto-recompress algorithm further create artifacts, and in this case INCREASE file size for 96K to 129K. I just hate that.

 

As just explained, this shot is neither a composite (I would have declared that and not checked the unmanipulated box) or burned or selectively modified in any way. You are now accusing me of dishonesty and misrepresentation Sir. Your accusation is wrong.

 

Fill flash? You have got to be kidding me. I don't possess any flash except the small unit on my camera, and there is no way it or any other hand held flash could illuminate this scene, it is just too far away from the boardwalk and you know it. The shadows are neither as deep as you say, or is your geometry correct. As mentioned before, you are mistaken about the time of day, the angle of the sun, and any number of other issues.

 

I wish I could do composite images because my rangefinder is not a good tool for using ND grads and I don't own any. I find it impossible to get film flat enough and perfectly aligned from frame to frame to allow blending of separate frames. If you notice, I have declared the exact exposure settings used. This is recorded on my film.

 

Now, all that being said, I am glad you like the shot. I personally do not find it to be aesthetically or technically among my best, nor are any of my Bryce photos from the couple of days that I was there last year. That is why that have not been displayed here before. I was using this medium format camera for the first time on ths trip and took many shots handheld that really need a tripod and a smaller apeture. I learned a lot from the disappointments of photography on that trip. Use a tripod all the time, expose carefully, choose film wisely, be at the right place at the right time of day, etc.

 

In any event, your are accusing me using techniques that were not employed, making assertations about the metering and time of day that are incorrect, and essentially accusing me of lying about how this image came to be. I have accused you of that, and you have denied it, so I guess I am fair game. Perhaps if I was wearing polarized sunglasses I would have seen this scene differently :)

 

Lastly, your name dropping of Galen Rowell as a colleague is specious and self-serving. I doubt very much that he would have regarded you as a colleague.

 

Thanks for dropping by Nathan. I certainly did ask you to comment, and I am glad you did, although I am not surpised by the obvious difference between what you see on your screen and what I see on mine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A study of the shadows cast in Bryce Canyon near sunset.

Comments and suggestions welcomed.

Shot from above Thors Hammer at mid-morning. Comments

and suggestions welcomed.

I think the blue earth really gets in the way of an otherwise fine image. Why the 'moon' child label? I think the symbolism is taken just one step too far here. This is one that is hard to rate, do I rate down the aesthetics, or the originality? Without the colored Earth, aesthetics 6, originality 6.

I like this except for the bit of tree on the right. Contrast and tonal range could be higher.

I love the shadows and composition of this image. Nicely seen!

Nice exposure. The sun is far to close to the center of the image however. Try cropping out the left 25% of the image and see if the image is not somewhat stronger.

A dead centered completely symmetrical image that works. Amazing!

Where did all the color go? Selective saturation/desaturation did not work here. The position of the bee is also not very interesting.

The contrast is too low and the brightness too high. It looks much better if I turn down the brightness on my monitor. Still, a fairly mundane scene

I really like the scene and the composition but wonder if it wouldn't be better with the upper rocks and sky darkened somewhat.

The submission is too small to see what is really going on. The foreground grass is very distractiing and there is too much sky and clouds. You need more emphasis on your subject(s) and less distracting elements.

An interesting image. Nice colors and textures. It would have been better with greater depth of field.