Notes From the Field
Steve Kossack is an accomplished photographer, writer and workshop instructor. I first met Steve after he purchased one of our Ultimate Ballheads and wrote an article about it for the Luminous Landscape website. We have since become friends.
Although Steve is no longer affiliated with Luminous Landscape, his workshops continue to be popular. I am excited to be able to provide Acratech web site viewers the opportunity to read Steve’s new monthly column Notes From the Field.
Check out Steve's website to find information about his workshops at
http://www.f-8andbethere.com/workshops/workshops.htm
help me make it ... through the light
Yes, a play on the title of an older hit song. The thought, if not the song itself, is a good example of seeing a problem to its conclusion. Light (or the lack of) substituted for night in this case is what we all deal with when we are out in the field. Photographing through all different situations that sunrise and sunsets present is my favorite of all. Here is help to make it through the light :-)
Watching nature play out the ebb and flow of a day is at once awe inspiring and confusing. Anticipation and preparation are most important, as are equipment and the knowledge of using it. To know when and where is the prerequisite of how. If you know a location and have a composition in mind, I find the task then is only to follow thorough.
Scouting can be everything as far as preparation goes. Knowing the place and its logistics takes the guess work out of finding a suitable situation quickly or in the dark. The number of times that I have shot in a location only to find I was not where I would have liked to be when the "right" light appeared are many. I've learned that knowing the location before hand will eliminate this and I do it as often as possible. Judging where the sun will rise and set, at what times of the year and the logistics of getting there all play an important part in the process.
Sunset produced a flat image with little direct light. The help of the Singh-Ray blue/gold polarizer coupled with a 2 stop graduated ND produced the drama in the sky.
Once I have the location, time and the logistics set, the plan is to be on site as much as an hour before first light. By first light I refer to the glow in the east and not actual sunrise. I like to have time to get to my location, set up the equipment and then think through the impending shoot. This time in a shoot allows for a visual search for what possibilities may exist. If I can't see in the pre-dawn - it can be very dark on a moonless night at - 0 dark thirty - then I will make an exposure with my digital camera at whatever it takes to make a daylight exposure to see it!
The top composition in Canyonlands National Park is a sunrise done in early 2005. It was the first time I had been in this location and the light was great but there was not much more than that to work with. Since I did not have elements of interest in the sky I used a Canon 24 tilt/shift lens to bring the foreground, with its texture and shape, to the forefront and make it the focal point. The new Singh-Ray color intensifier LB was used and the highlights were balanced with a 3 stop neutral density filter, moved in and out by hand, of the very long exposure.
So now I had the composition and the location, now to let nature take its course and my chances with it. The first opportunity was a sunset shoot with beautiful light that disappeared the moment the location was achieved. While waiting for the clouds to present a break, I went to my filters for help. I find that the use of the Singh-Ray blue/gold polarizer, while a very useful filter at times, can be used unsuccessfully more times than not. The propensity to turn it to its maximum orientation is a strong one, but in most cases it's overkill. Instead I found the point where I had just a hint of both colors. Blue on the left moving very gradually to the right where the yellow gave me the place to enter or exit the composition. I thought it brought a calmness to a very dramatic setting. To accentuate the sky and hold the deep color a 2 stop graduated ND filter was also used.
The color intensifier LB from Singh-Ray brought the hue that I wanted for the highlights of the monoliths at sunset.
As the clouds brought the break that I had been hoping for, I lowered the composition just enough to bring the sunlit objects into the foreground and leave the unlit sky in the distance. Notice that the angle of the sun makes both sunrise and sunset images possible. At this location it's just simply a reversal of direction. Both the second and third images were done with the Canon 24-70 2.8L at about 40 mm. The use of the t/s lens gives a very different perspective.
 Having experienced now both a sunrise and a sunset it was with confidence that I approached another sunrise shoot. Having an idea of what I would like to do under certain circumstances but not with an outlook that would have prevented seeing some different if presented, I set up in the dark for the shoot. Not knowing what exactly was the situation in the dark an hour before sunrise I approximated a 3 minute exposure at f/4, as shown to the left, to get a look. The exposure produced the glimpse of the clouds and monoliths and gave me the elements I needed to compose the composition. Shooting digital has its rewards and one of them is certainly the ability to judge in the field what adjustments might be made. I realized that the sky was overexposed to the point of having lost its saturation but the lack of shadows combined with the reflected light coming from the faint glow in the east was alluring.
4 minute exposure at f/11 @ 400 ISO, color intensifier LB and 5 stop ND grad.
Once I made the first exposure, I adjusted the composition and then calculated an aperture and shutter combination that would give me depth of field, yet not exceed the limit for the clouds. The clouds were moving slowly, but I felt that more than four minutes might make them blur from the formation that I saw and liked. The final image was a 4 minute exposure using the color intensifier LB and ND grad.
Two sunrises and a sunset had come and gone. I had spent almost 3 hours in the same place doing pretty much the same thing 3 times. Did I get it? I don't kid myself. This is only the beginning. F-8 and be there rules #22 through rule #1, states that there are no rules! Photography is a catch-22 situation. In order to do photography, you must have first done photography. Well maybe I've put another piece of the puzzle in place is the best I can hope. One thing is for certain, I made it through the light!
Your comments are always welcome. f8andbethere@cableone.net
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