Sky Watch: Clouds with Virga Over the Canyon

I'll be regaling you all with countless, serene scenes of Fall color from Utah soon enough, but I thought I'd tease you with some black and white in the meantime.  This one just looks more foreboding in monochrome:)   I'm really disappointed if I travel somewhere to shoot and see nothing but blue skies... in this case the forecast held true and we had lots of interesting weather to go with the beautiful colors.  (No snow like I experienced a couple of years ago during the same weekend, though.)  This thunderstorm started as a little puff of cloud in the mid-morning and grew very rapidly as we were making our way down Bryce Canyon from point to point (my wife had never been here), finally dumping rain... and cooling the temperature from comfortable in a tee shirt to cool in a jacket, in a matter of a few minutes. It was pretty much like this every day, so a couple of times during the trip we had to give up or hurry up due to thunder and lightning, but overall it was very worth it for scenes like this and the temperature was quite pleasant the whole time.

Visit the SkyWatch home page each Friday for more great sky pics from all around the world.

Color Crazy

  Well, the redwood decks are all sanded and refinished, the woodshed is built and stocked with firewood, the new generator  is up and running and ready for emergencies... Ahh. At last I'll be off to color heaven in southern Utah.. I can think of no better place to be at this time of year. Even though we now live in a beautiful mountain environment and at pretty high elevation, we get hardly any fall color.. only the oak trees change and they mostly just go brown. Everything else around here is pine and cedar, so it remains green all winter... (very pretty in the fresh snow, however).
The forecast where we're heading: high elevation foliage at PEAK, mid elevation: near peak, skies: partly cloudy every day, with a chance of thunderstorms (excellent.. love those stormy clouds), temperature: around 70 during the day and 50's at night... made to order I'd say. Hope it holds true.
I'll be shooting mostly film this trip which I have not done for a number of years, so I expect my pace to be slower and more contemplative.. it promotes a mindset closer to that of a painter.  We'll have to wait and see how the end results compare to my recent all-digital stuff.

Good Glass is Forever

Yes, a long time since my last post... but I've been busy behind the scenes, I swear...

This little stream view is from a field testing session last week, a few miles up the road from home. I had no intention of shooting anything worth looking at, I just wanted to run some new lenses (and this one old one) through their paces to verify that everything works as it should (unlike with digital, you can't just press the preview and see what you've done).  This Schneider 135mm lens has been sitting in a closet at my father's house in Massachusetts since I finished school (more than 30 years ago-wow!), but I was pretty sure that it could still work, so I had him dig it out and mail to me here in California... I especially wanted to shoot the same scene under the same conditions with both this and 2 newer Rodenstock lenses I recently bought that are the best you can get. I was prepared for this one to pale by comparison, but surprised to find that I can see little if any difference in sharpness, so I guess this will do fine as a "normal" range lens (135-150mm in 4x5 format is equivalent to 50mm in 35 format) without any further shopping, at least for now. Back in my student days I used to use this on an old Crown Graphic press camera.. I still have that too, but am not planning to coax that back into service anytime soon:)
Why mess around with film in this day and age you ask?  That's what I have been asking for years too.. I loved digital right from the start and will continue to use it, especially for paying work, but recently I've been feeling the need shake up my way of thinking and working artistically... getting back to the "old" ways, so to speak. I'm sure moving away from the big city to a slower paced life had a lot to do with it. Seeing these first samples of Fuji Velvia back from the lab with their incredible, clean detail and rich color convinced me it is certainly the right decision. Really just a matter of adding some new tools/options to the old bag of tricks. If you like to produce large prints, like me, then there are some definite quality advantages too, that I will talk about coming up...
Too bad I ran out of DOF in the upper right corner here, otherwise I kind of like this shot, but I was only experimenting after all. (A little tilt on the front standard would have fixed that, but I forgot!)

Tree and Hoodoos (Diggin' in the Archives)

Southern Utah, just inside the east entrance of Zion N.P., from Fall, 2008. I realized I have a good number of exposures from this trip that I have never even processed, let alone printed. I guess I was so concentrated on the foliage shots when I got home that I put some of this other, less seasonal stuff on the back burner and never went back.  Late September - early October in the area is just about as good as it gets if you love the outdoors (and photography)... the foliage of the aspens in the high country, the brisk air and the soft light are all truly outstanding. In this particular area you can park by the road, gather your gear and wander freely up on the rocks for hours without being disturbed by another soul, while you explore the amazing shapes and textures.  I really have to get back there this fall.
I'm still a few weeks away (I know, I keep saying that.. but seems like it never ends) from finishing up critical work on the new house and finally getting free to make some trips, so I'll be relegated to retracing more old steps in the meantime.