The final day of the photography workshop that I have been at this week started dark and early at 0410 when our alarm went off.  Under the barely blueish pre-dawn light we made our way up to Dead Horse Point State Park to photograph the sunrise.  As I mentioned before, we photographers are a very rare breed.  Not only do we like to get up for things like sunrise, we like to do it multiple times in the same week.  If you think getting up before dawn and being out till after sunset is hard one day out of the week, try doing it twice!  I am quite happy though as these “golden hour” shoots are something that I really wanted to do at some point here in Moab, so being with people who also wanted to do that was great!

Dead Horse Point State Park is an incredible place.  My grandfather likes to describe it as a “mini Grand Canyon.”  When you see it, it is not too far from an accurate statement.  From the park you look out over a canyon carved by the Green River, though not as deep or as large as the Grand Canyon, the concept is similar.  Sunrise yielded some amazing colors and views.  It was also another time to experiment with shooting some HDR images.  I am still trying to figure out what I need in terms of shots for HDR and what all the options do when you composite them in the computer.  I have been able to turn out some interesting shots though.

This entire trip I have managed to find some precarious looking positions to shoot from.  Sometimes you have to do something crazy to get the shot.  This morning I was the first person to climb over the wall on the rim of of the park to set up for the sunrise shots.  I think I actually spent a lot of time on the other side of the wall.  I am told that my picking interesting places to plan myself led to a number of photos of me, though I have yet to see them.  However, I did think to whip out my little P&S camera that I have been carrying around all week to grab a photo of me on the edge.  It isn’t the best photo, so don’t look at it too big, but it will give you an idea.

This is me on the edge of the rim at Dead Horse Point State Park

After shooting for a while at the park we headed back into town for breakfast.  Certainly a welcome thing to do.  We got to the restaurant a little after 0800 which meant that we had already been up for at least four hours.  Needless to say, even though we were eating at Denny’s, breakfast was good.  We even almost had the whole group back together as the sickest member was finally feeling well enough to get out of the hotel.

From breakfast we went right over to Arches National Park again to walk through Devil’s Garden and over to Sand Dune Arch.  The big thing to see in Devil’s Garden is Landscape Arch.  Odds are, this will be one of the next arches to succumb to the relentless forces of gravity and erosion.  Back in the 1990′s (’91 I believe) a large section of the arch fell.  It is the widest known span in the park and it isn’t very thick.  I don’t think that I have ever been able to do justice to shooting Landscape Arch before, but I think that I may have got a couple good ones today.  It is a tough one to shoot because you can’t get that close to it, and it is really big.  Also, if you don’t have a generally upward shot, there isn’t much contrast between the arch and it’s surroundings.  You really need sky in the shot (or snow as I have seen in a few photos).

The last stop of the workshop (in terms of shooting locations) was Sand Dune Arch.  In my humble opinion, not the most exciting to photograph.  Of course today it was also complicated by high wind, tight spaces and too many people.  It was really hard to find a moment to get a clear shot with no people in it.  Couple that with the sand that was blowing around in the wind and the experience was just kinda blah.  It will be interesting to see if any of the images I got there are worth writing home about.  Having already played in the sand earlier at PIne Tree Arch, I think most of us were pretty ready to be done.

The workshop concluded with a wrap up classroom session back at the hotel before some people had to make their exit.  Overall, I was very happy with the workshop, I feel like I have learned a lot.  I learned how to really use my camera as the tool that it is and to interpret all the information and feedback it gives you.  I learned a lot of new ways to think about composition and ideas for how to continue to develop my “eye.”  Tuner was a great instructor, very knowledgeable and very helpful.  We also had a great group of photographers with insight from all areas of experience and everyone was willing and eager to share.  The biggest thing that I felt was lacking was sharing and critiquing our images.  I would have loved to get the group’s feedback to see if I was actually doing the things that we were talking about throughout the course.  In general though, a fun and educational experience.

Before really calling it quits from the workshop, most of us ended the week together at Buck’s.  Every trip to Moab should include a dinner at Buck’s.  On the outside it looks like it is just another road house, but inside it is actually a nice steakhouse.  We had a great time, exchanged business cards, and said our good-byes.  It is really wonderful how well we all bonded and how many members of the group offered their homes to anyone who wanted to come visit.  I don’t think that I could have asked for a better time.

With that, I shall leave you with one more photo.  This one is an HDR image from sunrise this morning.  A fisheye view looking out over the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park from Dead Horse Point State Park.  Hopefully no one reading this gets vertigo, and if you do, you have been warned.

Morning Needles ©2010 Alex Weisman

As always, comments and criticism are welcome.  I would love to hear from you.  I am sure that over the next week I will get through all of my images from the workshop and post them up at IceWolf Photography.

Thankfully today didn’t start wicked early, we got to sleep until about 0600 so that we could be ready for an 0730 departure.  On the other hand, we are doing another early morning tomorrow with an 0445 departure, so I m going to try to be brief so that I can get to bed.

We spent all of today shooting in Arches National Park with a break for some classroom time and lunch mid-day.  The morning we spent shooting in the “Windows” section of the park around Turret Arch and Double Arch.  Lots of fun opportunities there.  After the classroom time we headed back to the park to the other vantage point of Delicate Arch.  Certainly and interesting and different view, and much less of a hike to get there.  This was the first time all week that I pulled out my long lens!

I finally think, after four trips to Arches, that I have got shots of Balanced Rock that do it justice.  We got there just before sunset and the light was spectacular.  Then as the sun sank lower We saw some amazing reds and purples show up on the rocks and mountains.  This is the kind of like that allows you to see the “Purple Mountain Majesties!”  I would love to share on of those images tonight, but I have not even looked at them yet.  One of the other crazy things about the sunset was the line up of photographers all waiting for the magic moment.  There were probably over 40 people there with cameras on tripods.

After the sun went down, as we started to pack up, this Japanese woman asked us to pose for a photo of us in silhouette against the sunset.  So we did.  Then of course more of the Japanese tourists came over to take our picture.  This morphed into them asking us to do a jumping photo at which point almost 20 of them were trying to take our photo.  After they spaced us out and counted us off a couple times, we felt like we were done, when one man said to us: “More higher!” we just quit.  Of course we left them a card so maybe we will get a photo in email!

On that note, I shall leave you with an image for today as I hit the sack.  This is Turret Arch:

Turret Arch at Arches National Park ©2010 Alex Weisman

As always, comments and critiques are welcome!

Today began at the ungodly hour of 4AM.  Photographers are a rare breed like that, we think that it is cool to get up BEFORE the ass-crack of dawn so that we can catch the best light of the day.  Sure, there are other people who get up or stay up for bizarre times (like astronomers), but we photographers think that not only do you have to be out when the sun comes up, but also when it goes back down!  Why take only one when you get two for free!?

By 0430 we were rolling down the road towards Canyonlands National Park.  Mesa Arch in the “Island in the Sky” district was the destination.  With headlamps and flashlights and packs full of camera gear we made our way to the arch in the twilight.  Amazingly, we were the fist people to arrive there, so we got prime pickings for spots to shoot from.  It was also a very ominous  start to a day that would turn out to be fantastic.  The only downside was that one of the members of our group had fallen ill due to food poisoning and didn’t feel well enough to make the hike.

We wrapped up shooting at the arch around 0730 after one of the best light shows you could ever hope for.  Only the photos will really describe it, and I have one for you a little later on.  Once we piled back into the cars and headed out to the Grand View Point.  From here you can look out into the two other districts of Canyonlands, “The Needles” district and “The Maze” District.  Both of those districts I have yet to visit, but the drive is a lot longer and they are a lot more wild.  probably a trip to be done with my brother at some point.

We got to breakfast (finally) at around 0945 and then off to the classroom for  some photo editing and some lecture time.  I was so tired it was hard to pay attention, but I did and I have the notes to prove it!  From there we had time for a much needed nap before we were to head out again for the evening shoot.

For the evening shoot we hiked up to Delicate Arch, the iconic symbol of both Arches National Park and the State of Utah.  We got up with plenty of time before we got to the golden hour so we shot some fun stuff like a jumping photo under the arch.  I managed to have a guy yell at me for being under the arch on account of the “dozen photographers waiting to take a picture without you [me] in it!”  The irony being that: A) This man was not of of those photographers, in fact he left almost immediately after the incident, and B) Nine of those photogs were in our group.  Whatever, I paid the same amount of taxes as anyone there and I have every right to take my time!  So, bite-me crazy-man-who-I-will-never-see-again!

After capturing some great sunset images we hiked back to the cars in the dwindling light with a family from Israel who realized the stayed a little too long and didn’t have flashlights.  They were good company on the walk, fun to talk to.  We hit up Zax for some pizza and beer and now it is basically bed time.  Tomorrow will be another long day.

With that, I suppose it is time for the photo of the day.  This is tough because there are so many great ones.  I haven’t even had time to got through them all.  So I picked this one because it was kind of the iconic shot for the day.  So here it is, Mesa Arch:

Mesa Arch at SunriseCanyonlands National Park©2010 Alex Weisman

As always, comments and critiques are welcome!  I will post more images over at IceWolf Photography as I get through them (I know I am way behind already!).

Today was the first day of the Photo workshop.  So far it has been a blast.  I am not going to write too much on account of the fact that I have to get up at 4AM to be out the door by 4:30AM so that we can shoot sunrise at Mesa Arch in Canyonlands National Park.  That should be a lot of fun aside from the getting up before the ass-crack of dawn.  Actually, tomorrow has the potential to be a very long day as I believe we are also suppose to do sunset at Delicate Arch.

Anyway, we kicked off the day with a lame breakfast at the hotel.  I suppose it could have been worse.  Then we headed off to the meeting location in town to meet the rest of the group.  Ten people, mostly from around the western park of the country make up the group.  I am definitely the youngest in the group, but I don’t think that people mind, I certainly don’t.  There is very large dynamic of knowledge, which is great.  The instructor, Winston “Tuner” C. Hall is a great person.  he has a lot of energy and experience and he is fun to work with.  It will be interesting when we get to our first processing session tomorrow.

Today we spent a couple hours in the classroom getting to know everyone, making settings on cameras and talking about techniques.  Some things were basic, some were new.  My goal here is to really learn to make better compositions, and i think that a lot of the information will help.  We then headed off to the “Birthing Stone” which is a stone with some amazing petroglyphs.  It isn’t in either of the parks here, it is on BLM land.  Currently you can get pretty close to it which made for some interesting shots.  It is so named due to the depiction of a woman giving birth.

From the Birthing Stone we headed into town for lunch and then off to Canyonlands to scout the location for the sunrise shoot and also to climb Aztec Mesa.  Aztec Mesa has some old Aztec granaries just below the top.  We hiked through some of them and I captured this image with my new 15mm full frame fisheye lens.  This image is an HDR image.  HDR stand for “High Dynamic Range” and is a technique that has ben developed with digital cameras to more closely mimic the dynamic range visible to the human eye.  The human eye can see a range of around 16-stops whereas a digital sensor can see about 5-stops.  HDR images are composed of a series of images taken to expose for details in the highlights, shadows and mid-tones.  I am still relatively new in the HDR scene, so I am still playing with software and technique.  Here is the image:

Triple Arch View HDR 1From a series of 5 images shot in 1ev steps to +/-2ev. Handheld, HDR composite using Photomatix Plugin for Aperture.
©2010 Alex Weisman

As always, comments and critique are welcome.  I will post more photos later, for now, I am off to bed!

I can’t believe it is Friday again.  Another week that has gone by incredibly fast.  So fast that I piled another post onto today by virtue of writing it so late in the evening (or morning).  We have our meting where they will actually announce next year’s season for the theatre today.  That should be interesting.  Anyway, here is the photo that I have picked for this week:

Fin Climbing at Arches

This is my brother.  He is always hanging off something.  He is pretty safe about it… Except for the time that he broke his arm swinging from the rafters in our room.  It happens.  This is at Arches National Park in Moab, UT.