Survival

Survivors. Great Sand Dunes National Park
Nikon 1 J4, 1 Nikon VR 10-30 mm f/3.5-5.6 at 10mm, f/8.0, 1/160s, ISO 400

This is one of many images I took strolling around the interior of the Dunes. There are so many amazing little scenes you can find all around the dunes with plants clinging to life in the most extraordinary circumstances as you can see here.

Black and White Images from the White Sands

On the last few days of January, I drove down to the White Sands National Monument to meet up with photography buddies Dan Orcutt, Dave Peterman, Bill Wallace, Dick Negaard, and Steve Wapon. I already posted some images from this trip on Facebook, flickr, Google+ as well as on this blog, but I have not shown everything as this place is crazy and magical and there are too many keepers. So bare with me as I slowly make my way through. I shot a total of 521 raw images and undoubtedly would have shot more if my original plan to spend the night on the sand hadn't been scuttled by the schedule of the nearby missile range. They shoot actual rockets over the sand dunes and the monument is sometimes closed due to this for overnight camping. If one goes astray, you don't want to be there. Also, even if there is no missile test, it opens way too late for sunrise shooting, so you really want to camp in the back country camping for sunrise shooting. We'll do that next time. Luckily, another morning, Dave had arranged for the rangers to let us in before sunrise (which they do at a price ;-) ). However, the missile range at the last moment decided to do some tests that morning, making it impossible to get in to the main dune areas. The Monument, feeling bad about it, was nice enough to let us enter a corner of the park where missile danger was low so that we could experience the sunrise anyway. Here is an example image from that morning. More on that later I am sure.

This post will focus on the black and white images I created in this place. There are quite a few. Especially during the day (i.e. not near sunrise or sunset), there are lots of compositions that lend themselves very well to black and white. These images will be mostly in chronological order. Clicking on the image will bring them up much larger and you can get prints from the links too.

Survival

Nikon D600, Tokina 16-28 mm f/2.8 at 17mm, f/22, 1/20s, ISO100, handheld
I really liked the wispy texture in the sand here and the glow near the plant.

Ridgeline

Nikon D600, Tokina 16-28 mm f/2.8 at 16mm, f/22, 1/60s, ISO100, handheld
The dunes are rife with compositions such as this. In the top left, you can see the little stick that is the subject of the next image.

Point break

Nikon D600, Tokina 16-28 mm f/2.8 at 16mm, f/22, 1/80s, ISO100, handheld

Radiowaves

Nikon D600, Nikon 70-200mm f/4 at 70mm, f/8.0, 1/500s, ISO 100, handheld
I loved the juxtaposition of the shapes in the twig with the waves in the sand.

The reveal

Nikon D600, Nikon 70-200mm f/4 at 200mm, f/11, 1/200s, ISO 100, handheld
telephoto lenses are nice to compress the perspective. Those mountains are quite far away in reality.

Lonesome

Nikon D600, Nikon 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 at 24mm, f/16, 1/160s, ISO 100, handheld
Life must be hard for plants on the gypsum dunes.

Ridges

Nikon D600, Nikon 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 at 80mm, f/11, 1/160s, ISO 100, handheld
In the inter dune areas, one finds these intriguing ridges that look to be formed by water flow and evaporation. I've seen few pictures of this but they offer many opportunities for interesting compositions. More views of these ridges below.

How many grains?

Nikon D600, Nikon 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 at 24mm, f/22, 1/30s, ISO 100, handheld
Classical ripple composition. I use this one as background on my twitter feed.

Turning a corner

Nikon D600, Nikon 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 at 24mm, f/16, 1/50s, ISO 100, handheld
It is getting close to golden hour here and the sand is taking up a gorgeous iridescence. This will be especially clear if you are viewing this on a retina (HiDPI) screen. My blog is smart enough to serve you high resolution images on those.

Phoenix

Nikon D600, Nikon 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 at 24mm, f/16, 1/60s, ISO 100, handheld
A little later some wispy clouds moved in that reminded me of a bird. This is the same ridge as the image immediately above.

Snake and Bird

Nikon D600, Nikon 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 at 44mm, f/16, 1/60s, ISO 100, handheld
This is the same cloud and I composed it with an interesting sand structure that looked like a snake to form a mythological image. Appropriate for the southwest I think.

Dreams of faraway shores

Nikon D600, Nikon 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 at 24mm, f/22, 1/30s, ISO 100, handheld
These are the ridges one finds in the inter dune areas. They are just fascinating and give many opportunities for leading lines.

Sleeping bird

Nikon D600, Nikon 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 at 24mm, f/22, 1/30s, ISO 100, handheld
This of course is a horizontal version of the previous image. The dune reminded me of a (cartoonish) bird.

This really was just a subsection of all the black and whites I created, but these are my favorites. I hope you enjoyed them. Also see the entire White Sands gallery at smugmug, on Facebook, on Google+, and black and whites at flickr,

Black and white sunset

Buy a print. Same image on flickr. Google+ post.
Assembled from 9 images Nikon D300, Nikkor 35mm f/1.8 DX, f/11, 1/100s, ISO 200.
Created on a recent evening walk along Beaver Brook trail on Lookout Mountain near Golden, CO. I photographed the sunset at this exact spot many times before.

Butler Gulch sunset in black and white

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Black and white version of the high resolution image from yesterday. I love the luminosity/glow of the rocks in the foreground.

Black and white conversions of snowy landscapes

I was rummaging through old material in Lightroom recently and I noticed some shots from an awesome multihut ski trip I did a few years ago (2008) with some friends. I wrote then about it on my blog and my friend Teresa actually made a writeup of that trip at that time here, where you can see some of the very few photographs that ever got made of me (elusive guy). I am in the red wind shell most of the time in the pictures from Teresa.

Anyway, I noticed that I never got around stitching several multi-image shots I made back then. For weight I was carrying my old Nikon D50 with the kit lens and I did not bring a tripod (more booze could be packed this way). In some cases I was doing handheld multishot panoramas to create higher resolution landscapes. If you do this right, they can still be stitched well even though you might have to do a little touch up afterwards. I worked up a few of these lost landscapes and below I'll post some. I am most focusing here on the aspect of black and white conversion as I noticed that this really works well with some of these. For example, this shot from the front of the Goodwin/Greene hut was captured around sunset. The sun was coming through a thin cloud of snow crystals and generated this absolutely gorgeous light. I cannot believe I never stitched this image.


5 shots using a Nikon D50, 18-55mm kit lense at 18mm, ISO 200, f/10, 1/320s. Assembled in hugin. Pretty much as shot - no nasty HDR. Buy a print

This image really has to be seen large, which you can if you click on the link. To get back here use your browser's back button.

I converted this to black and white in Lightroom simulating a light red filter which again has to be seen large.

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Another new image that I really like is this panorama of our group coming up on a pass, rising out of a foggy valley.

5 images from a Nikon D50, 18-55mm kit lens at 30 mm, ISO 200, f/11, 1/500s. Buy a print

In the same place, but looking in the other direction, I took this image:

6 images from Nikon D50, 18-55mm kit lens at 24mm, ISO 200, f/11, 1/500s. Buy a print.
At the moment, my blog's banner has another version of this image that was taken a few minutes later after the clouds on Castle and Cathedral peaks cleared up a little. This cloudy view is also quite nice and will print really nice large for on your wall ;-)

I have several more images waiting to be born in my library from this trip. We'll see when I get to them. I still have a gigantic backlog to deal with with some very nice images in them too that I haven't spoken about yet. I have a little picasa gallery of new snowy black and white conversions here.

Tires on the mesa

I came across this scene of some tires on top of the mesa while doing a little lunch hike. This pile of tires is visible from all around the mesa which is a beautiful open space area. There is more trash around (old oil cans, car parts, mining remnants, etc.) from an era when people did not really care, but most are not as visible as this, especially with a little hiking trail leading right next to it. This is on a training area of the Colorado State Patrol. They must test tires there. Anyway, I like the scene for its visual qualities, but dislike the dumping of stuff in this beautiful place. I converted to black and white because of the added drama.

Also check out this photo's page on flickr