2019 was a good year for photography, with two intense tour/workshop experiences (the Palouse in June, northern Arizona in September) plus less photographically intensive trips to locations in Puget Sound and the Oregon and California coasts. The following ten images, presented in chronological order, are my personal favorites from the year. They are not necessarily the best photographs (whatever that means) or the most popular, but they are landmarks for me along my continuing photographic journey.
1. Sea Smoke
I spent a couple of days in April exploring the California coast near Santa Cruz while Carol attended a conference in San Jose. I was led to Bonny Doon Beach, north of Santa Cruz, by a photography guide to northern California. The author of the guide identified the north end -- this end -- of Bonny Doon Beach as the most photogenic but also cautioned that it is a "clothing optional" area. On this particular foggy morning I was the only one there, so I didn't need to worry about whether or not I was dressed -- or undressed -- properly for the occasion. This 46-second exposure, made with a 10-stop neutral density filter, created the dreamy mood that I was looking for.
2. Undulation
We spent a week at the end of June on a photography workshop tour in the Palouse region of eastern Washington. The views across the rolling fields of wheat and canola, seen from the top of Steptoe Butte, invite the exploration and extraction of more intimate elements of the landscape using long telephoto lenses. In June, the dominant colors of the Palouse landscape are the bright monochromatic green of the wheat fields and the intense yellow of flowering canola, interspersed with the rich brown of manicured fields waiting to be planted. This photograph was selected by the editorial staff at nikonians.org as the Editor’s Choice for July 28, 2019.
3. Folded
Despite the brilliant palette of the Palouse in June, I found myself turning to black and white processing as a way to emphasize the texture of the landscape. Here, abstract patterns are created by the low late afternoon light skimming across the wheat fields. I knew when I shot this that it would wind up being a high-contrast B&W image.
4. Cloud Shadows
2019 marked my first serious exploration of infrared (IR) photography. About three years ago I bought Singh-Ray’s iRay 690nm filter, which permits the capture of IR images on a conventional camera by filtering out all visible light at wavelengths shorter than 690 nm. I hadn’t used this filter much until the Palouse trip. However, I was surrounded there by other photographers shooting in IR using dedicated IR-converted cameras so I decided to join the party, and I was rewarded with several images that are among my favorites from the trip. In this photograph, IR light produces an ethereal mood, with strong contrasts between the sections of the fields in light and shadow.
5. Out to Pasture
The Palouse region is full of a lot of abandoned stuff: farmhouses, barns, grain elevators, working trucks -- and cars. This old Dodge outlived its usefulness and was left to the elements along side a farm road. I intentionally bleached the long grasses and added a white vignette to create a high-key effect and a strong contrast between the car and its surroundings.
6. Sunrise at Wotan’s Throne
This and the remaining images in this blog post are from our September photography tour in northern Arizona. Here, the rising sun highlights the promontory known as "Wotan's Throne" as viewed from the Cape Royal overlook at the Grand Canyon's north rim. I found photography at the Grand Canyon to be challenging due to the overwhelming magnitude of the landscape, and my most successful images were, like this one, the result of focusing on smaller details.
7. Survivor
After my success with IR photography in the Palouse using the 690nm filter I had our spare Nikon D7100 body converted for full-time IR photography at 720 nm, and I put it to good use in Arizona. This tree, along the trail to the Bright Angel overlook at the Grand Canyon’s north rim, was a perfect subject for IR. I was drawn to its stark asymmetry, with dead branches on one side and lush foliage on the other. It's pretty clear which side the weather comes from.
8. Convergence
Our second stop on the Arizona trip took us to Page, a base for exploring several sites in northern Arizona and southern Utah. In this IR image, the lines in the clouds and the sagebrush seem to converge on this promontory overlooking the Paria River Valley.
9. Afterglow
The high point for me of our Arizona trip was the chance to spend an afternoon and evening at White Pocket, a small area of multicolored sandstone formations lying at the end of a 2-hour drive over gravel and sand roads in a high clearance 4WD vehicle. The colors and shapes at White Pocket, amazing in any conditions, were accentuated by the warm twilight immediately after sunset. This photograph was recently selected as one of two winners (out of ~130 entries) in the monthly themed landscape photography context (the theme was "on the rocks") at nikonians.org.
10. Canyon Sunrise
On our final morning in Arizona we left Flagstaff at oh-dark-thirty to make it to the south rim of the Grand Canyon for sunrise. As we approached the canyon the low fog was so thick that we could hardly see ahead of us, and I was sure we'd be completely shut out. Instead, the sun broke through above the canyon and we were rewarded with some unique images. Here the rising sun, the fog-filled Grand Canyon, and a convenient leafless tree provided an image that evokes for me the feeling of watching the fog roll over the canyon rim.