Category Archives: Daily Photo

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Get up early!

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I have to be honest  - I don’t like getting-up early!  I’m more of a night-owl as you can tell by many sunrise photos I’ve taken as compared to sunset.  On this day I managed to get out of bed while it was still dark to catch the sun as it hit the Teton’s.   This range runs north to south and so its fantastic for sunset or sunrise.  Sunrise is truly magical as it begins to touch the top of the Grand Teton, turning everything into pink.

On this day it was very cold!  I think from memory about around -10C (14F); my breath was freezing on the back of the camera!

You really can’t change lenses easily in these temperatures; moisture can get into the body.  So, I have a wide angle lens on one body with a longer telephoto (70-200mm normally) on the other camera.   Not a lot of post-processing was need on this single image; it was beautiful right out of the can!

By the way this was taken with the wonderful Canon 5D Mark III – expensive but worth it, I reckon!

Pink Tetons

Just goes to show that getting-up early can pay sometimes….

These tools helped me work the magic:

Early Morning in the Lamar Valley

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I had some fun taking this photo. It was just after sunrise in the Lamar Valley, Yellowstone National Park and I was on the hunt for some wildlife. I was looking for bears but I don’t think they are spotted much in this location anymore. I went quite a long way across the plain to get as close as possible to these pronghorns. There was a herd of about 30 or so grazing in the early morning light. I had a pretty long lens (300mm F4) attached to my Canon 7D with the other camera (Canon 5D) connected to the tripod for some nice landscape shots.

I was expecting the herd to get skittish and run enough; either they were pretty tame or I’m a good sneaker, as they didn’t scatter as I got closer. Then this doe actually came towards me – it was like she was saying “hey, who are you?”. In the end she was I guess about 20 meters away from me. She batted those long eye-lashes for me and I took the shot.

I carried on sneaking across the plain until I heard growling. Either I was hungry or I was getting tracked by another animal with 4 legs… I true adventure photographer style I made a whole lot of noise and then made my way back to the car. It felt like a long way across that plain! I like to think it was a mountain lion. Well, that’s the story I’m telling….

Pronghorn closeup small

These tools helped me work the magic:

Uncovering the hidden details

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I love roses. It’s not just the colours but also that wonderful bouquet. Unfortunately the latest cameras don’t include the “smell capture” function, so I am unable to get that sensation over to you!

What I can hopefully convey is the dynamic beauty of this rose. It had been raining pretty heavily and of course, like any self-respecting photographer, I was thinking how awesome these flowers would look. After the rain stopped, I hopped outside to take this photo.

I’m always a little torn with processing flowers and landscapes as black and white. I just love colour! I’m always shooting in what is known as RAW; its what you might call the “digital negative”. Basically it is exactly what the camera captured through its sensor. If you use JPEG (the default on most cameras) you are effectively “throwing away” information. That information is hidden in the shadows and even in some of those bright, “blown-out” areas. If you use RAW then your photo-processing software (Lightroom, Aperture etc.) can recover those hidden details. I’ll post in a few days a remarkable photo I took at the Grand Canyon that demonstrates how you can open-up these shadow areas.

Flowers are ideal for RAW as well; there is always those tiny details to be un-covered. It takes patience when processing but the results are worth it. One final thing about RAW – its great for shooting in black and white. The reason is you can immediately see the monochrome image (great for imagining and the creative process) but you still keep the colour. In this case when I imported the photo into Lightroom it appeared as colour (with the black and white profile embedded within it). From here I used Nik Software Silver Efex Pro 2 for the conversion.

One final thing worth mentioning is that I used a Lensbaby lens on my Canon 5D to do the actual capture. Shooting in RAW and using the creative drama that comes with the Lensbaby – what a great combination!

You can see this photo full-sized here.

Black and White Rose

These tools helped me work the magic:

Silent Reminders

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Yellowstone has so many wonderful scenes to capture. I can imagine you could go there every year and never get tired of it (as long as you can avoid the crowds!). I was on the constant lookout for wildlife of any description but this time I was captured by the sobering sight of these trees.

They are many remains like these from the great fires of 1988 and they stand like silent reminders of those terrifying days when almost 40% of the park was destroyed by fire.

Thankfully, vegetation and wildlife have recovered, leaving only these statures of wood.

These tools helped me work the magic:

Waiting for the Moment

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I was waiting for the sunset at the Grand Canyon with a whole bunch of other people. Sure enough it was a nice one! The moment after the sun went down most of them wandered off for dinner. The thing is that the minutes after the sun has dipped under the horizon is when you get the magic colours. So spotted a tree that seemed to have its own view of the canyon. This image is a 5 exposure HDR, processed through Nik Software’s HDR Efex Pro 2.

I love the colours that come after the sun has gone!

The same kind of thing happens at sunrise – get there 30-60 minutes before the sun comes-up.

Lone Tree On the Canyon

These tools helped me work the magic:

Removing the reality

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Sometimes its great when the photograph replicates close to what we see (not that you can really ever do that). To get really artistic though it’s nice to “remove the reality”. You can do this either when you take the photograph or later in Photoshop. Of course like anything you can take it too far or just plain get it wrong. The result can be pretty hideous. The rise of what is called “HDR” is a great example of what can happen if you get it wrong. HDR badly done can result in horrible over-saturated colours, artefacts and loss of fidelity.

All that said the black and white photograph is probably the best example of removing reality. Its hard to get that conversion into black and white just right; thankfully we’ve got powerful tools that allow us to experiment. If you don’t like the result then its “undo” and restart. Not so easy if you’re working with film.

By the way, do you know that if you shoot in RAW and then set a monochrome conversion on your DSLR you don’t lose the colour? In the Canon world you can exactly access these camera settings by using the DPP program that comes with your camera. Its nice to shoot in BW from a creative capture point-of-view- I often do it with portraits or street work.

The photo below was processed using Nik Software’s Silver Efex Pro 2; a powerful but expensive conversion plug-in for Photoshop. Another great plug-in that is a fraction of the price is Topaz Lab’s Black and White Effects. This is certainly worth a download and free 30-day trial.

Try some BW and see what magic can come when you “remove the reality” from your image!

7995451553 53422af5a0 b

These tools helped me work the magic:

Controlling the Light

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Light is the one thing every photograph has in common. In fact without it you have nothing. So as photographers we are always on a mission to control or use the light, sometimes by adding in additional light and other times by reducing it. In this photo I wanted to get a slow shutter speed and so that meant reducing the amount of light entering the camera. That’s where a Neutral Density (ND) filter comes in really handy. Basically it’s like putting very dark sunglasses in front of the lens. (In a pinch you could actually try that, too). The one I used here is a 9-stop ND; it’s really dark! In face it is so dark in the viewfinder you can’t really see anything and focusing is just not possible.

Getting around this problem is easy enough; place you camera on a tripod, set the focus to manual and then focus about 1/3 of the way into the scene. With the focus set it is now just a matter of screwing the ND filter onto your lens. You can use a calculator to figure-out the exposure or just count backwards from where it exposed without the ND on. That is easier than it sounds! If it was exposed nicely at 1/60th at f22 then dial-back the time 9 stops from there. If that sounds all too confusing then just slow it down and try a few test shots until you get it right. Given that you’re not using film, the trial and error approach is not a bad one!

Some things to keep in mind; use the best quality ND you can afford and you may see some vignette at the corner of the image. I usually either crop the photo or use Photoshop/Lightroom to remove it.

One more thing to note is that these slow motion water shots look best when the water is hitting a solid object (like the rocks in this photo).

In summary then:

-use the lowest ISO your camera has

- focus on manual (without ND on)

- use a good quality ND

- Use a small aperture (f13 – f22) if you want more in focus

- Look for solid objects to shoot against

Silky Sea

These tools helped me work the magic:

Sunset Wonder

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I just love sunsets.   The way the sun in those last few moments of the day causes everything to come alive in that last glow of the day.  I thought I’d put together a gallery of some of my personal favourite sunset photographs.

So, I hope you enjoy them and from now until the end of September you can use the coupon code “SUNSETWONDER” to get a sunny 25% off any print you order.   

How is that for a little sunshine?

Head-over to the gallery here:

http://stewartbaird.photoshelter.com/gallery/Sunset-Wonder/G0000svoPpPkLiuU

The Still Evening Air

Overwhelmed

Pink and Gold Delight

Remembering the Summer

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You know what it is like when you’re getting towards the end of winter; day after day of gloom with no end in sight. Winter can seem so long. Spring is almost here now and the first flowers are making their tentative appearance. Its almost like they are putting their “toes” into the cold water, testing it before jumping in!

I’m constantly looking for anything that looks vaguely like a flower and so I do find them in the strangest places. That said the best place in the depth of winter is the botanical gardens or anywhere with a decent glasshouse. Failing that I go back over my archives, longingly gazing at flowers I’ve photographed in the past.

Here’s a lovely rose I came across from the end of last simmer. My botanical knowledge is pretty limited I usually refer to flowers by the their colour. In this case I like the yellow looking one!

This photo by the way was captured using the so-called “plastic” 50mm 1.8 lens from Canon. At the price it is a must have if you’re branching away from the kit lens that came with your new camera. Often people think they need a big zoom or longer reach lens but really the standard 50mm is so versatile its hard to beat. I’ve got the Canon 50mm 1.4 semi-permanently attached to my Canon 5D as a great walk-around lens.

Takes pretty good “yellow flower” photos too, it turns-out.

Yellow from the summer

See it full-size here.

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