Here is the first shot from my latest trip to Hawaii with Jon Cornforth.  We’re out here for 10 days on the Big Island doing a landscape shoot in some of the most dramatic and beautiful regions the US has to offer.  Yesterday we scouted and shot on the coastline near Place of Refuge National Park near Kona.  Jon has been out here many times but had never been to this area before.   We spent the afternoon hiking over very rough lava to get to this spot which had waves exploding against it and shooting up through blowholes in the lava.

After a brief break for coconut pie and some snorkeling, we hiked the 1.5 miles back to this spot to set up for dusk.  We had to be very careful where we were setting up because the waves were huge and were crashing against the rocks were were sitting on.  At times, we had to grab the cameras and run back a few feet when a bigger-than-usual wave hit soaking the very rocks we were using.  After a few practice shots, a couple of perfect waves came in and I got this image of the water cascading back off the rocks.

The other problem with shooting at an area like this at dusk?  The walk out from this spot was in the dark over very rugged lava.  That was interesting to say the least!

Vital Stats: Canon 5D Mark II w/Canon 17-40 f/4L @ 22mm  ISO 100, f/22, .3 sec.

Today’s picture flies in the face of all conventional landscape photography wisdom.  I know this, because I tried doing it by the book and it wasn’t half – or even a quarter – as nice.

Rule #1 in landscape photography:

Thou shalt shoot at dawn or dusk – and none other – lest thou be smitten from the earth along with thy manservants and maidservants, thy flora and thy fauna, and all the creatures of the earth that revere thee.

It’s the golden rule – if you aren’t shooting in the ‘golden hours’ of the day, it’s not as good as it could be.  And, 99.99% of the time, that’s true.

In this case, I was on a 4WD trip near Animas Forks – a ghost town in the San Juan mountains.  It’s not too tough to get to – passenger cars can endure the 14 miles from Silverton, but it’s a rough ride.  We were in Animas Forks late in the morning, and the sun had been up for hours.  No opportunity for sunrise or sunset here!  To make matters worse, it was a clear blue sky with not a cloud in sight.  Again, normally a kiss of death.

In spite of all these technical shortcomings, I could see the makings of a very nice shot.  To get the right composition, I did some bushwhacking at 10,500 feet of altitude to get close to the little polluted stream that flows out of California Gulch through Animas Forks and past Silverton itself.  I adjusted my circular polarizer to get maximum sky darkening and contrast.  I adjusted my aperture to get the longest possible shutter speed since I wanted to smooth out the stream.  I also needed the small aperture in order to keep the foreground and background in focus.  After a couple of test shots – I got the image shown today.  So far, I think it’s my favorite of the trip!

For the record, I got up at 6AM and drove to Animas Forks in the dark to get a dawn shot here.  I couldn’t throw it away fast enough.

Vital Stats: Canon 5D Mark II w/Canon 17-40 f/4L w/B+W Slim MRC polarizer @ 40mm.  ISO 100, f/22, 1/10 sec.

Believe it or not, I didn’t get around to downloading this image from the camera until about a week after my trip.  When Heather and I were out at Whitefish Dunes at dawn, we brought my old 40D as a second camera in case Heather wanted to shoot.  As the sun came up through the mist over Lake Michigan, I set up the 40D on my gigantic studio tripod (I don’t have a lightweight 2nd tripod) and tried for a sunrise shot.  Since I only shot a few shots on the 40D, I forgot there were pictures on that compact flash card.  Imagine my surprise when I downloaded this picture!

Technically, this was a big challenge.  Shooting directly into the sun brings out the worst in a lens since lens flare can occur.   I also had to contend with heavy fog that hadn’t quite burned off – which you can see along the tree line.  To deal with the wild dynamic range differences between the sun and the shadowed tree line, I used a 3-stop graduated neutral density filter.  I also shot three images bracketed at +2, 0, and -2 EV so they could be combined as an HDR.

Vital Stats: Canon 40D w/Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8  ISO 100, f/16, .6 sec. +/- 2 stops

This is *the* shot from Rockport.  You’ve seen it before – it’s pretty hard to miss.  It’s still fun to take a shot at getting an interesting shot of this icon.  It’s a crab shack that has been photographed or painted millions of times.  I first shot it back in the fall of 2000 with my first digital camera – an Olympus 3030z.  I’ve always wanted to get back there and shoot it ‘for real’.  I’ve got several more shots of this building that I did at the same time – I’m sure you’ll see them over the next few days or weeks.

Vital Stats: Canon 5D Mark II w/Canon 24-105 f/4L @ 28mm   ISO 200, f/10, 1/125 sec.

This is a picture of Acorn Street in the Beacon Hill area of Boston.  It apparently has the distinction of being the most photographed street in Boston.  I had actually never heard of it – but by searching through SmugMug for good photo locations, I stumbled across it.  It’s a good thing, too – because you’d NEVER find it if you weren’t looking for it.  Between the nonsensical one way streets and the draconian parking restrictions, it was tougher to get to than some wilderness locations that I’ve shot.  Still, the reward was worth the journey whether by foot or by car.

Vital Stats: Canon 5D Mark II w/Canon 17-40mm f/4L @ 40mm  ISO 200, f/11, 1/13 sec.

This shot was taken in Rockport, MA shortly before sundown last night.  The building in the background is a very famous subject – it’s called Motif #1 and there are zillions of paintings, drawings, and pictures of that thing.  In reality, it’s a crab fishing shack.

This is proof positive of the old adage “To get a good picture, start with good light”.  Shortly before dusk, the light was a nice warm glow low on the horizon.

Vital Stats: Canon 5D Mark II w/Canon 24-105 f/4L @ 47mm  ISO 200, f/10, 1/250 sec.

I’m going to share a couple of interesting tidbits about landscape photography with this shot.  This rock formation is called “The Dragon’s Teeth” and it is located near Lahaina on the island of Maui.

One good way to find locations to shoot is to look at other photographers work from that area – figure out where they were – and go make your own images there.  They’ll be unique because it’s impossible to set up in exactly the same position at exactly the same angle at exactly the same time of day, etc.   This is what I did for this shot – I saw a great picture of these rocks and had to find them.

The second tidbit is that wild locations aren’t always so wild.  Many fantastic pictures are taken from a parking lot – or a roadside – or something else pretty non-wild.  This bordered a golf course – and I had to hightail it out of there as soon as I got the picture because the first golfers of the day were starting to have their drives land near me.

Some photo notes – this shot was taken just as the first rays of light were hitting.  I also used a telephoto to ‘compress’ the rocks making the teeth look closer together.  This was also a hazardous location – I was precariously perched on several sharp rocks.

Vital Stats: Canon 40D w/Canon 70-200 f/4L @ 70mm.  ISO 100, f/22, .6 sec

You’ll want to be sure to click on this image – it is absolutely loaded with detail once you enlarge it!

This is a panoramic shot of the San Diego cityscape taken moments before dawn.  Jon Cornforth and I were set up on the ferry pier at Coronado Island across the bay from downtown.  We were hoping for a stunning sunrise – but the solid marine overcast prevented it.  There was a few short magical minutes of purple just before the sun came up – and I capitalized on it by shooting this image.

It’s a 5-shot panoramic stitched together with Canon’s PhotoStitch.  I had to make sure all five had the same color balance, exposure, and treatment before exporting to stitch.

Vital Stats: Canon 5D Mark II w/Canon 70-200 f/4L @ 70mm.  ISO 400, f/11, 6 sec.

3/17/09: UPDATE!  Here is the full resolution panoramic in all it’s glory!  San Diego at Dawn

We returned to the Motherload last night to give it one last shot at making a memorable picture.  It was a hot, dry day in Borrego Springs – and these conditions really took a toll on the wildflowers.  The amount of wilting made it clear that we really only had one more crack at getting the perfect shot.

We squeezed in this shot in the few minutes that the sun was good – and before contrails entered the frame to ruin any future pictures.

Vital Stats: Canon 5D Mark II w/Canon 17-40 f/4L @ 40mm  ISO 100, f/16, .4 sec.

This picture is of the harbor in Vernazza, Italy – the 4th town in the Cinque Terre.  The Cinque Terre is a unique and picturesque area in northwestern Italy made up of five small towns linked by hiking trails and a rail line.  We stayed in Vernazza in November, 2007 for a few days to enjoy the awesome scenery.   Being November, the sky that day was dull and flat – so I went for some HDR techniques to pull some details out.  I processed this single RAW file using Photomatix Pro as a pseudo-HDR.  Basically, this means that Photomatix created three versions of the same RAW processed +/- 1 stop.  Then it merges them into an HDR.

Vital Stats: Canon 350D w/Canon 10-22mm @ 16mm  ISO 200, f/8.0, 1/60sec