Sunset Golf

At sunset yesterday, I was finishing a round of golf with some friends. After the sun went down, we agreed to play one last hole. Fortunately, my drive went straight down the fairway, but I had to make a detour before I hit my next shot.

I spotted perfect red tree, standing alone on the horizon before a blue and pink pastel sky. I had to pause and capture a few photos on my iPhone. Little did I know that day that the highlight of my golf game would be a photo. But I must admit it was a well rounded afternoon with the camaraderie of friends and a relaxed nine holes when we had the course to ourselves.

Sometimes the best part of a day on the golf course is Nature. After sunset, on a western Pennsylvania golf course in October, this lone red tree makes a statement.

Uniting Earth and Sky

This stark and jagged tree on the rim of the Grand Canyon makes an interesting natural sculpture by itself. But give it the leading role in the landscape, and the tree unites the earth and sky into one composition that is filled with color and contrast.

The dark, gnarled tree branches stand out on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon against a sky and landscape that is also filled with color and contrast.

Afternoon Lightning, Grand Canyon

Why do I specify “afternoon lightning”? Because evening lightning is coming soon in a future blog post! You can see in this photograph that the canyon is well lit by afternoon light. I was standing on the porch of the North Rim Lodge, watching the darkening clouds for a stroke of lightning over the South Rim when this image was captured. A custom-made lightning trigger helped.

Warmly lit Grand Canyon beneath a dark and stormy sky, seen from the North Rim looking Southwest. Lightning reaches from the cloud to the ground on the right above the Oza Butte.

Enlarge this image on your screen to see the lightning best.

Jackson Lake in the Mist

Jackson Lake water levels are at record lows this Fall (in 2021) after a very dry summer. From this location on the dry lake bed, we could see mist rising on a cold Fall morning and snow covered Mount Moran in the background.

Misty Jackson Lake on a chilly Fall morning with fresh snow on Mount Moran.

Lasting signs of Irma

Hurricane Irma lashed Naples Florida in early September 2017, stripping and uprooting trees, knocking out power and damaging homes. Three and a half years later, the year-round tropical growing season has filled in the gaps and erased most signs of Irma’s destruction. The landscape looks lush and green again.

This mangrove preserve in Pelican Bay still tells the story of Irma, when she stripped the trees bare of leaves close to the Gulf coast. This infrared photograph shows some of those bare tree trunks along the boardwalk that leads to the beach.

Like bony fingers, the bare mangrove tree trunks tell the story of Hurricane Irma’s forceful winds in September 2017. Infrared photograph in Pelican Bay, Florida in February 2021.

Creative Possibilities

Having converted a Sony mirrorless camera (a6300) to “Infared and SuperColor,” I’m now learning how to process these odd images. When you capture an image with infared light and visible light only 590 nanometers and up, you get some unique color effects, so you need to adjust white balance, swap blue and red, set white and black points, adjust the tonality of each color and adjust hue and saturation. While that sounds like a ridiculous amount of work, the process becomes interesting because you learn about what each individual color (red, green and blue) is doing and how each individual color looks as it interacts with the others.

While you may or may not find that color study interesting, you will probably like the creative possibilities in the different results one can achieve. Here are some examples:

This image is essentially black and white with a blue filter applied. Processed in Lightroom, Photoshop and Nik’s Silver Efex Pro. Infared is known for giving you the raw material for a high contrast greyscale image.

I like the effect of showing the foliage as white while rendering the sky in a deep blue hue. I find it ethereal.

Since I like images that are somewhat realistic, and I love Fall color, I also like to render the foliage as yellow or golden, while maintaining the sky an attractive shade of blue. I could render the foliage as light pink or magenta, but that’s not my style.

Thinking in Black and White

I’m challenging myself with learning a new discipline in photography. The first step is having a digital mirrorless camera converted to capture infared light, and I’m learning about the techniques for capturing and processing these new types of images. But the camera won’t be back in my hands for a few weeks.

In the meantime, I was daydreaming about the places I would love to photograph with the infared camera — like the Florida Everglades and Joshua Tree National Park in southern California. With the limitations on travel during the pandemic, those excursions will come to pass down the road.

The scenery of Joshua Tree is fresh in my mind, since I visited the park in 2018. I decided to process one of my color photographs in black and white, as a first step in my journey to see in black and white. What do you think?

I love the bold silhouettes as well as the textures in the Joshua Trees found in the high desert of California. A monochrome image makes the image more about shapes, textures and contrast, as it subtracts color. Processed in Adobe Camera Raw and Nik’s Silver Efex Pro.

From the Brooklyn Bridge

Early morning is a great time to walk the Brooklyn Bridge, because it’s not too crowded. On this cloudy and windy morning, I was a little sad that I missed the clear blue skies of the day before, but in the end I think the clouds enhance the image.

Looking west toward Manhattan, you can see the Millennium Tower in the center of the skyline.

This photograph was shot with Sony and processed in Lightroom, Photoshop and Luminar 2018. Lightroom does a great job of correcting the distortion created by a wide angle lens.

Back to the moment when I walked the Brooklyn Bridge, winter is here! I had to hold on to my hat as I coped with the wind on the East River.

I Wish I Were There

I know: the typical line on a scenic post card is “Having a great time, and wish you were here.” This weekend the opposite was true. My daughter Erin was hiking and loving the scenery in Grand Teton National Park, and I wished I were there!

My memories are fresh and sweet from Grand Teton National Park, because I was there recently in late September 2018 for six days of photography from before sunrise to after sundown. I’ll look up an image that I haven’t already shared with you.

The majestic Grand Tetons in early morning light. A patch of golden trees reveals the season: Fall.

Jackson Hole, I will be back! While some of roads are inaccessible in winter, I’m sure the Tetons are beautiful in all four seasons.

A Blanket of Color

The setting sun turned the blanket of clouds vivid shades of orange and pink in Grand Teton National Park, September 23, 2018.

While the sun’s brilliant orb slipped behind the Grand Tetons, the clouds reflected the orange glow of sunset. That evening the clouds took on a rippled texture as well as a misty, ethereal quality.  We could feel the temperature fall. The light show was brief. Soon it would be dark.