Saturday, May 14, 2022
I know, I know…It’s been a while since I’ve been out on a trek. It just really seems that time is getting away from me here lately. I’ve had so many things going on that I just haven’t had time to get out and get any photographs for myself. I believe that the last time I went out for a landscape trek was right before my Spring Landscape Workshop at Stone Mountain. That was just over a month ago, yet it seems like just yesterday. Since that outing, I have only been on one other, and that was right around the house looking for some nice rural and rusty subjects. In the introduction to that blog entry, I detailed some of the things that have been keeping me busy which happily have mostly been photography related reasons. For the last week or so, I have been getting geared up for two different workshops that were both taking place this weekend. The first of which, was a mini workshop at Doughton Park dealing with forming a composition in the landscape. The second one was a photowalk in downtown North Wilkesboro the following day. This one was also going to be a half day workshop. Sadly, that workshop had to be canceled due to a lack of interest. Fortunately, the composition workshop had almost sold out and it was definitely going to happen. The caveat to that good news was the fact that the weather was looking like rain for pretty much the whole day. This is never a good thing with a workshop because doing any kind of photography in the rain is difficult and cumbersome which is no good if you are still learning.
I kept an eye on the weather and tried to look at the trends in order to predict what was going to happen during the afternoon workshop. I sent out an email with a hopeful message to the participants that it looked like we might be spared the major rain which was likely going to be in the morning. That was what I was seeing on one of the forecasts, but the other one was just showing a washout of a day. I wasn’t sure which one to believe and knew that they could both be wrong just as easy as they could be right. All I knew was that I had six people expecting to have a workshop on Saturday afternoon, and I needed to make sure that I could fulfil that expectation.
As Friday night rolled around, I was looking at the weather and saw that the best chance of rain was early in the morning and then it was a matter of passing thunderstorms through the rest of the day. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a workable forecast. I also noted that there was a good chance for fog during the morning hours as well. That got me thinking about possibly going out with the camera to get some photographs to start the day off. I wanted to do this for one primary reason. I’ve learned that when I do an afternoon workshop, I tend to be a little lazy about it because I’ve settled into whatever I get started with at home during the morning. With the morning being a tad dreary, I fully expected to be spending my morning down in the office or sitting in my recliner. Either way was not going to be a good warm up for the workshop. I also know that if I get started bright and early going out and working on photographs, I tend to stay focused on photography through the entire day. This was much more desirable with a workshop looming during the afternoon.
With the chance for fog, I wanted to get out early and try to get some nice Spring photographs in the lighting that I prefer which happens to be moody and cloudy skies. Since Toni was getting up early and heading to work, I decided to get up with her and work on getting ready to leave around 6am or so. That would have me at the Parkway right around sunrise. I wasn’t expecting any colors in the sky at all, but I was looking forward to fog that was going to last until about 8am. I grabbed my gear and the workshop filter kit and off I went. It felt like old times leaving in the dark to go out to the Parkway.
I had no expectations on what I was going to find but figured that I would start off around the Mt Jefferson overlook because there was a tree there that I thought would benefit from the morning fog. As I got to the Parkway the rain started falling. It was light at first but eventually started coming down rather hard. This wasn’t any good, but I had asked my workshop participants to work through the rain and that took away any chance I had of avoiding getting wet. I hate asking people to do something I’m not willing to do. I just set my sights on finding a good subject to work with and hoped that I would be able to make something work.
When I got to the Mt Jefferson Overlook, I saw the tree that I was interested in photographing. It looked fine in the fog, but it just wasn’t as interesting as the last time I had photographed it and I saw no real need in trying it again. I looked at a couple of other areas nearby and just couldn’t find anything at all to work with. I got turned back around and started North on the Parkway towards Doughton Park. I was hoping to find something that caught my eye between here and there.
I found a little road that had a nice fence with a red gate attached North of 16 which caught my eye. The rain was still falling pretty heavy, but the scene looked nice. I decided to get my gear out and give it a try. I loaded up my 16-35mm lens knowing that I was going to try for a wide-angle approach to the scene. I didn’t want to bother with any filters because I wanted to leave the lens cap on as long as I could. Since I didn’t have any lens hoods, and the one for this lens was near worthless anyway, I pulled out the umbrella to hold over the camera. Over the last few years, I’ve gotten pretty good with that piece of equipment and have found out how to best hold onto it while getting the camera in position on the tripod.
I spent about 15 minutes on the scene and tried a lot of different compositions but in the end, I wasn’t really happy with any of them. The balance seemed off and I was really lacking a compelling subject in the frame. It was worth about 7 frames, but in the end, I ended up deleting all of them. It was not the best start to the day by any stretch, but I didn’t let it get me down. I just got back in the truck and continued North to see what else I could find.
The rain didn’t let up at all, and it wasn’t until I got into Doughton Park that I found a scene that appealed to me. It was a section of fence that I had driven by countless times but never photographed. When I had been out this way on Thursday to scout the location before the workshop, I had seen that there was a roll of barbed wire hanging on one of the fence posts. It had caught my eye, but there was really no context to put it in, so I didn’t really pay much attention to it. This time things were a bit different though. The distant mountains were full of interest as the fog was laying in the folds of the earth which added a lot of depth and visual interest. In fact, I kind of liked the mountains all by themselves so it was worth stopping to see what I could photograph here.
I grabbed my long lens so I could get a nice isolation of the mountains. I set the camera up on the hill behind the truck and started to make exposures. The composition was simple and seemed to be working out, so I was starting to feel better about the day. I shot maybe a dozen or so images like this and started to think that this might be just a little too boring. I swapped out my lens to a 24-70mm and started to work a composition around the barbed wire. My first attempt was a good idea, but it failed miserably as I had the barbed wire on the right side of the frame so that the face of it could be seen. What I ended up with a large amount of negative space which I didn’t like in the photograph and the fence kind of got lost in the composition. I had to re-evaluate what I was doing and needed to do it fairly quickly as the rain was slacking off for the moment.
As I considered things, I had been to two different locations and so far, had nothing that I was excited about recorded by the camera. That really needed to change, so I put all my effort into finding a composition that worked with this barbed wire and foggy hills in the background. I decided to have the fence go diagonal entered in from the bottom left corner with the barbed wire used as a visual anchor for the image and a framing element to keep the eyes from exiting via the fence rails. I then got into position so that the focal point for the foggy hills was slightly offset to the right which gave a nice balance to the image. It was almost what I was after, but I had too much grass in the lower right corner and the fence was bisecting the frame which I didn’t like. Since it was the barbed wire that held my interest, I decided to crop in closer to the fence to minimize the negative space to the right and reduce the visual weight of the fence. That seemed to do the trick and the composition flowed much better after that. This was the composition that I committed to, and I shot a number of frames as the fog moved around.
It was after that series of images that I felt that I was on track again and was pretty certain that I had my first image in the bag. It was harder than I had thought it would be, but I also had to keep in mind that I am a little out of practice dealing with landscapes. My focus has been on people photography for quite some time now, and I realized that this was a much needed and well-timed trek. I really needed to get in the landscape mindset once again in order to prepare for the workshop that was coming up in just a few hours. I think at this point, it was around 8am which gave me five hours to play with before the participants started to roll in.
I got back in the truck and continued North which put me deeper into Doughton Park. One of the areas that I had seen the other day while I was driving was Alligator Back which is an overlook on the back side of the picnic area where we were going to be spending some time later in the afternoon. I had seen the Spring greens looking rather vibrant when I had gone past and thought that if the sky looked good, I would like to stop and try to photograph the scene. I had finally come about a composition that I liked from this location back in the Fall last year. I wanted to try and build on that composition using the overlook itself in the image. When I arrived, I got out of the truck and went over to the platform and saw the sky looking really good with the Spring colors still looking nice and vibrant. I went back to the truck and grabbed the camera with a 16-35mm lens attached. I also added a polarizer because the rain had all but stopped and I felt like it was not going to be a problem to work with filters at this point.
I stood further back than I had the last time, and also used a much wider lens. My goal was to capture much more of the view and more of the colors than I had during the Fall. The lighting was more forgiving here and that allowed me to include the distant hills and I had no need for an ND grad, so the exposure was much simpler. I tried several different variations on the composition until I landed on one that I liked. I committed to that one and shot a series of exposures as the light changed. It was almost too easy, so I tried a couple of other compositions just for good measure. None of those other ideas worked out nearly as well as the initial one that ended up being a keeper here. I felt that I was getting back in the groove, so it was time to get back in the truck and head on to the meeting point for the workshop.
It was about 9:30 at this point and I was pulling into the Lodge parking lot where I would be meeting everyone at 1pm. I had plenty of time and I wanted to double check that there were no surprises on the trail before I put the participants on that trail. I had time for photographs and the sky was looking rather interesting so I grabbed my gear and figured I would try some compositions along the way. My first stop was very soon after getting started. I just love the bladed rocks and the trees at the main entrance. There is just something so unique about them. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve photographed this scene, so one more time couldn’t hurt. I know that I like the wide-angle look here as it really emphasizes the leading rock, so I fitted the 16-35mm lens once again and added a polarizer. Usually, I wouldn’t use that filter with that lens because it would cause uneven polarization in the sky at wider than about 35mm, but in this case the clouds were breaking up the blue effectively enough that I wasn’t too worried about that problem. I just dialed in about a half power on the filter which just gave a bit of extra contrast in the sky.
I spent some time working on the composition making sure that everything lined up the way that I wanted it to. I wanted the fence to be a meaningful part of the composition as well as the meadow in the background. I had to make sure that the trees stayed separated from the horizon and the fence remained unbroken as it passed above the rocks. I was taking mental notes of what I was doing because this was going to be one of my teaching points in a few hours.
The images were looking pretty good and as the clouds changed, I would go back and forth between this composition and a couple of others that dealt with the trees as well as the fence as different entities. I just kept coming back to this primary composition though and I felt that it was the strongest based on the weather. The one that you see above is from a second attempt after the sky started to break up and the sun was shining on the trees and rocks. What I liked so much about this one was that the clouds seemed to open up in the same rough pattern as the tree branches which I just really liked. It turned out to be my favorite exposure from this composition by a wide margin. In fact, it might be one of my all-time favorites from this particular location with the exception of my isolation of the trunk on the tree in the background.
In the middle of being rather excited about finally making images that I was really excited about, I noticed that I had an email coming in from one of the participants. It was a heads up that they weren’t going to be joining us due to a back injury. That kind of took the wind out of my sails because I hate for anyone to miss out on a workshop who wants to participate. I just tried to get my mind right and keep getting prepared for the remaining five that would be showing up. It actually didn’t take long to get my focus back on photography because as I was walking down the trail headed for the top of the meadow that can be seen in the photo above, I saw a cute little tree being lit by the sun causing it to stand out from the background trees. What made this even better was the trees in the background was resplendent in Spring colors.
I left the trail and started towards the tree knowing that the light was going to come off of it very soon. As I approached, I saw roughly 20 cows laying in field near the tree. They didn’t seem to mind that I was there, and they just sat where they were comfortably. I got as close as I needed to, knowing that I was going to be using my 70-200mm lens for the compression it offered. I got the tripod set up and mounted the camera to it along with a polarizer. I found the composition that I wanted and got the exposure set. I shot a couple of tests images to make sure that I had the exposure right for the sky as it was kind of bright and then I just waited for the sun to hit the tree.
While I was waiting, the cows apparently got tired of sitting there and decided it was time to get up and go on an adventure. One by one they got up and walked into my scene, stopping at the tree to take a bite from one of the branches. Of course, the sun came out and bathed the tree in that great light that I was after, but I couldn’t get the shot because I had cows all over the foreground which didn’t fit in the composition. I found myself talking to the cows much like I had done during a sunrise shoot in this same meadow a while back. I tried talking nicely to them, and then I started to beg for them to just move along. It finally did happen, and they cleared out of the scene just as the sun went back behind the clouds again. I had too much time invested in this one to give up on it so easily though. I stuck it out and waited for another 10 minutes or so until the sun had another cameo in the scene. I cranked off about 10 frames as the sun did different things on the tree in the foreground and the ones in the background. I wanted to be able to pick the best one out of the batch to process which is the one that appears here.
Once I had that shot, it was time to move on to the next area to check out the compositions there. When I arrived at the grove of trees that I had been looking for, I was happy to see that the sun was shining on the tree and foreground while the clouds were looking rather interesting above. I got the camera out and set up as quickly as I could. Not wanting to lose the detail in the background, I opted for my 24-70mm lens which would keep the scale a bit more comparable between the foreground and the background. Of course, I used the polarizer again because I wanted to add a bit of contrast to the sky and clouds. I quickly found a composition that worked and shot a quick series of images before the sun went back behind the clouds.
I only had about 5 minutes to get things going before the lighting changed. Once that happened, I was not overly happy with the scene and started to work on my composition a bit more in the hopes that I would be ready when the sun returned. That never did happen though. I watched bright areas coming close on the landscape only to peter out and go back into shadow before they hit my composition. I stuck it out for about 30 minutes until I had to get back to the truck. I needed to get a bit of lunch and some water before folks started to arrive.
Just so I knew how long it would take to get to the parking lot in the event of rain, I timed the return trip. It turned out to be right at 15 minutes at a comfortable pace which wasn’t too bad. Hopefully we weren’t going to have to hustle to get back to the cars at the end of the day, but I was fairly confident that we could make it in 10 minutes if we pushed. When I got back, I grabbed a snack and started to wait for everyone to show up. One by one, all five of my remaining participants arrived. The clouds were coming back into the sky and there was a bit of thunder in the distance, but it was dry so far. Just as the last person arrived, the rain started, and we ducked under the shelter at the lodge to get started with the workshop.
By the time I was done with the initial talking, the rain had pretty much stopped so we started out at the trees and rocks that I had been at just a few hours before. While we were there, the rain came down and forced us to activate our foul weather gear to keep the equipment dry and safe. With the rain came some very thick fog and just like that we had no backgrounds to speak of which simplified compositions and focusing but made for a kind of boring view. After about an hour here, the rain stopped, and the fog broke up. In short order we had a background to work with and we started a completely new segment of learning.
After a couple of hours here, we moved on down the trail and checked off the stations that I had picked out one by one. We were right on time, and everything was going very well. It wasn’t until we got to the last station and had been there for about an hour that the thunder started up again and we could see the rain approaching. I made sure that everyone was satisfied with what had been covered and we started on our way back. Just a couple of minutes after getting back on the trail the rain started and came down as heavy as it had earlier. We all worked our way back to the parking lot which didn’t take long at all. Everyone stowed their gear and we met back at the lodge for a quick wrap-up.
After making sure that everyone was satisfied with how the day had gone and that all the questions were answered we made the rainy dash back to the cars and set courses for warm and dry places to be. It had been a very good day and one that was a bit unique for me in terms of a workshop. Not only had I had time to have a full trek before the workshop, aside from a little bit of rain, we had excellent conditions for landscape photography with some of the best skies that I had seen in a long time. I even made the comment that I wished that I had time to get my camera out and do some shooting because the conditions were so good. Of course, Shannon told me that it would be ok for me to get some photographs because the other workshops that she had been on had included the host taking photos during the entire workshop. I just can’t do that and affirmed that I was here for the group and not for my own photos. That is just how I conduct my workshops, and I feel awkward doing it any other way. If I’m going to be paid for a service, that becomes my one and only concern. I have plenty of time to get my own photographs when I’m on my own time.
Speaking of workshops, I will be releasing my next batch of workshops here in the next day or so. I have three on the books as of right now spanning the months of October, November, and December. I hope to be able to meet a bunch of new photographers during these workshops, but I have to say I am truly enjoying the fact that I’m getting a lot of repeat clients on my workshops. There is just no better testimonial out there than repeat business. If you haven’t been on one of my workshops before, come and see what all the fuss is about. You will have a great time and you will likely learn more than you think you will. I would like to send out a very special thanks to Bill, Jan, John, Richard, and Shannon for all your hard work today…well, yesterday at this point.
Thank you for joining me on this trek, I do hope that you enjoyed the adventure. I’m not sure when I will be getting out again, but my schedule is starting to get a little clearer than it has been in the past several months. That means that I have time for more mentorships if you are interested in taking part in this very unique approach to learning aspects of photography. I also have time on my hands for doing portrait shoots as well as intimate photo sessions so be sure and book me now while I am still offering introductory pricing plans. As always, if you have seen an image that you are interested in having on your own wall, let me know, and I’ll be happy to match you up with a print on your choice of media from photo paper to art rag, to canvas, and metal. I would also like to remind everyone that if you happen to need to shop at B&H or Amazon, please use these links whether you purchase the exact item listed or not. By entering the retailer through these links, I’m getting a few pennies without it costing you anything.
I’ll see you on the next one!
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