Tag: Sun

Black and White World

The first week of this September this year my family and friends went to Pacific Coast of Olympic Peninsula. We went to First Beach, Second Beach and Rialto Beach. We had a lot of fun. My son as always was heading numerous construction projects on the beaches or maintaining fire. And I as always used any time available to do some photography.

This time there were no breathtaking sunsets, no amazing colors but there were spectacular clouds, textures, reflections. Sounds like a good opportunity for black-and-white photography.

I’m mostly doing color photography nowadays but whenever I try converting some of my photos to black-and-white they still look great. Which leads me to thinking that color can add something to a photo but it cannot make a photo. The photo should be strong even without color. Color is just an icing on a cake.

Other times the color is weak, or unpleasant, or destructive. Like on this trip the color was boring, it was not adding anything to photographs. And sometimes it was unpleasant yellowish color on the clouds that I did not like. Thus I was completely focused on making black-and-white photography.

Rialto

Waterfalls is just one kind of moving water. Another one is ocean waves breaking on the coast.

Here are two photos at the same location – Rialto Beach in Olympic National Park. I like both of them. Each in its own way.

I like the first one for the wave breaking on the rock:

The second one for the nice S-curve that curves around the rock and leads to sea-stacks:

Which one do you like better?

Fog over Golden Bridge

I always wanted to photograph Golden Bridge and Presidio in fog but in many times I had been to San Francisco I had never seen fog over Golden Bridge. Other photographers seemed to get it every time. Not me.

This May on the way back from The Lost Coast we spent a couple of days in San Francisco. One morning Very early before sunrise I went to photograph hoping to get lucky and see that mythical fog. And lucky I was. The was fog. And not just in the morning. It was there whole day. In fact it caused our flight to be delayed in the evening.

The fog was different from the one I used to. I’m used to fog in still windless weather. Golden Bridge fog was combined with strong winds. It was constantly on the move, thickening and lightening, lifting off and dropping back to the ground, letting sun in or blocking it off all together, constantly reshaping landscape.

It presented me with new and constantly changing photo opportunities. I could not get enough of it. I was running from one place to another and then back. The only limit was time.

Sunsets over The Lost Coast

Only the first morning at Shelter Cover had clouds. All the days after that the skies were incredibly clear. The only thing that was left to photograph at dusk was gradients in the sky:

Combining with long exposures of moving water which I love to photograph:

And sun rays:

Misty Morning

The first morning in Shelter Cove was filled with fog. And it was the kind of morning fog when the air is still and quiet. It was moving, swirling, raising and falling back to Earth breaking into myriad of due drops.

We chased the fog around but it was tough to find a good view point to get a good photos of Shelter Cove in fog. Eventually we found one:

_MG_9923

_MG_9960

After that we dived into the fog and went to Black Beach:

_MG_0213

_MG_0249

_MG_0275

Chasing the Light

After dreadful first day in Palouse the second day everything a landscape photographer could have dreamed of. The sky was filled with puffy clouds moving fast across the sky dragging spots of light across the land. All I had to do was watching those light spots highlight something interesting in the landscape.

I enjoy chasing light and shadow moving across the landscapes, its continuous change of scenery. It is like looking in kaleidoscope. There is an infinite amount of beauty in it and all you need to do is watch.

Here are two photos of the same place and same composition but different light. The first one is about the barn, since the light is on it:

And the second one is about fields behind the barn, since they have light on them:

Which one is better? Not sure. They are just different and I like them both.

Here is one more example. The white silo stands out of landscape with the light on it and a cloud shadow behind it:

And here it blends with the landscape:

Just a Little Bit of Water

Day 5, Sunset

Finding water is a bit of a challenge in Death Valley. On a rainy year (which was a few years ago) there was water on Badwater flats and lots of photographers and spectators were taking photos of reflections. This year there was no water at all on Badwater.

As I was driving thru the valley I noticed a brisk reflection of the Sun. It must have been water.

Indeed there were a few small creeks with salty banks. And where water is there is life. There was some grass. Most of it dried out but there was some still green. The dry ones mineralized with salt turned into sharp spikes.

That’s where I settled waiting for a sunset.

Here are a couple of images I took at that place. The first one is right before the Sun disappeared, the last rays just touching the tops of the greenery:

Last Rays
Last Rays

And here the afterglow:

Afterglow
Afterglow