IntroductionIntro to desert landscape photography| 00:08 |
(MUSIC).
There are people that say that the desert
| | 00:10 |
is empty, that it's barren, that it's a
wasteland, that there's nothing there.
| | 00:15 |
And honestly, I just don't understand
that perspective at all.
| | 00:19 |
There is light in the desert that doesn't
exist anywhere else, the colors of light,
| | 00:23 |
a purity of light because of the dry air,
and contrast in textures that you just
| | 00:27 |
don't see other places.
And for a photographer, that's something
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that you can explore endlessly.
And in this course, you're going to come
| | 00:36 |
along with me as I attempt to do that.
We're takin a road trip into the desert,
| | 00:39 |
a three day road trip, where we're just
going to do nothing but shoot.
| | 00:44 |
Now when a lot of people hear the word
desert, they think big, pillowing clouds
| | 00:47 |
of dust blowing off of a sea of dunes
that goes all the way to the horizon, and
| | 00:51 |
certainly, that is one kind of desert.
But desert simply means an area of
| | 00:55 |
extremely low rainfall.
There's just not a lot of water in the
| | 00:58 |
desert, and there are a lot of different
places that fit that description.
| | 01:03 |
We're going to the low desert.
The very low desert.
| | 01:05 |
We're going to the lowest place in North
America.
| | 01:08 |
Death Valley.
Along the way you're going to see me
| | 01:11 |
trying to carve compositions out of this
incredibly vast landscape.
| | 01:15 |
You're going to see me dealing with
simple logistical issues.
| | 01:19 |
How do I make the best use of light that
comes at the beginning and end of the
| | 01:23 |
day, over an area that spans hundreds of
miles?
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How do I get by in an environment that's
incredibly harsh?
| | 01:30 |
What kind of gear do I use?
We're going to tackle all of these issues
| | 01:33 |
as we prowl back and forth across Death
Valley, and a little bit into the
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surrounding area.
So I hope that this course will help you
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see the photographic potential of the
great outdoors.
| | 01:44 |
As well as give you an interest in coming
to a place that a lot of people describe
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as empty.
But which I see as overflowing.
| | 01:51 |
(MUSIC)
| | 01:51 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Understanding where this course will take us| 00:01 |
Had a really nice drive out yesterday.
It's important to remember on a trip like
| | 00:04 |
this, that your shooting doesn't have to
start at your destination.
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We were actually driving through desert
on the way to get to Death Valley.
| | 00:11 |
So I was able to do some shooting along
the way which was nice.
| | 00:13 |
I didn't get as much done as I thought I
was going to.
| | 00:16 |
I really thought that the drive would
actually be a good day of shooting.
| | 00:19 |
And I was thinking, oh, that's that's a
whole extra shooting day that I'm
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going to get.
And it didn't really happen because, just
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a lot of times on a drive there's a lot
of practicality that comes into play.
| | 00:27 |
We got a later start than we thought we
were going to, had to stop and buy food
| | 00:31 |
and had to gas up, do some other things
and that ended up eating a lot of daylight.
| | 00:36 |
I didn't want to get here too late
because, for one thing, it gets really
| | 00:40 |
dark and also it gets cold very quickly
out here at this time of year as the sun
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goes down.
So, (SOUND) ended up just kind of making
| | 00:47 |
a big push at the end, and didn't do as
much shooting as I thought I would have.
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So that's something to think about when
you're planning your drive.
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Either, if you, if you want to have a lot
of time to shoot on the drive, pad your
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drive time.
If not manage your expectations.
| | 01:02 |
Don't worry if you don't actually get as
much shooting done as you thought you
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were going to do.
With that in mind, I'm going to do a
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little bit more planning today.
So we're here at Panamint Springs.
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It was a very nice place to stay in
Panamint Valley, which is just next to
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Death Valley.
It's morning.
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Had a good night sleep, which is going to
help and, which is sometimes difficult in
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the desert.
If you've never spent any time in a
| | 01:23 |
desert climate, you've gotta be ready for
just how dry it is and how that can
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actually impact your sleep.
It's really easy to get really dried out
| | 01:30 |
and congested in a way that is really
kind of disgusting to talk about so I
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won't go in to that now, but I got a good
night sleep.
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so I'm looking forward to getting out and
doing some shooting today.
| | 01:43 |
Because I don't want to repeat the
mistake of yesterday, I want to take a
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look at some maps and do a little
planning here.
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Before I do that, I just want to get a
couple of things on the chargers.
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It's great being based in a motel like
this because I actually have access to power.
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We've been shooting some with these cool
little GoPro helmet cameras.
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we didn't actually have them on helmets.
But I drained one of the batteries, so I
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want to get that going.
Charging my phone, that kind of thing.
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I brought a lot of maps of Death Valley.
and the reason I have multiples is, you
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get different information from different
maps.
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It's nice to have a range because some of
them will show things that others don't.
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So, I've got a few here.
I want to just take a kind of over all
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look at the land here, and start and try
and make a plan.
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Death Valley is the largest national park
in the country.
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It's enormous, which is great in so far
as seeing things and generally vacationing.
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It really complicates shooting though,
because it can take so long to get from
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one destination to another.
So it's a good idea to have some ideas in
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mind (SOUND) before you start even out on
the first day.
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I don't know why this map is stuck
together.
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Um, (SOUND) dried sunscreen or something.
this is another good reason that I
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brought multiple maps because this one
may now be less legible.
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So (SOUND) here's what we've got.
Now, Death Valley is actually only one valley.
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What we've got here, is a, series of
north-south running mountain ranges.
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We've got one here.
We've got one here.
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We've got one here.
The valleys in between are, most of the
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areas we're going to explore, Death
Valley is a valley between the Panamint
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Range and the Black Mountains.
We're in Panamint Valley, which is right
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over here, so Death Valley is one
mountain range over.
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So, there are a number of different areas
that I'm interested in exploring.
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Now, I've been to Death Valley before, a
lot.
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I've shot here a lot, so I already know
what a lot of these places are.
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There's different approaches when you're
going to someplace you've already been
| | 03:54 |
versus a place that you've never been.
Because I've already been here, I can
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narrow things down and really make the
most use of the three or four days of
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shooting that I have here.
So we are currently right here at
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Panamint Springs Resort.
Panamint Springs Resort is actually just
| | 04:10 |
this one building that we're in.
A very good restaurant, a really nice
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place to stay.
It's also a very good staging location here.
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From here, we can head down to Panamint
Valley.
| | 04:20 |
This is a wonderful dry lake bed that we
can actually see right outside right now,
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and it has a nice big dune field in it.
It's also a great place to camp.
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It's also a little bit difficult to get
to, it's it's a very rugged road that you
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gotta go slow on.
and the sand dunes are a good hour-long
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hike to get to them.
The reason I'm worried about those
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distance things is because part of my
planning effort here is to try to manage light.
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Sun is, the sun is rising at about 6:20,
but it doesn't come over the mountains
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for another 20 to 30 minutes after that.
Which means my really good morning light
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starts maybe a little bit before 7 and
goes for probably an hour, an hour and a half.
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If I want to be somewhere in that light
that means I gotta get a really early start.
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The really good morning light is gone by
9 or 9:30, so I gotta figure out what to
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do with the middle of the day until the
good afternoon light starts up again.
| | 05:12 |
So that's a location that might be
interesting.
| | 05:14 |
To the south down here there's a little
bit of there's a little ghost town.
| | 05:18 |
There is what is, allegedly, Charles
Manson's truck.
| | 05:23 |
One thing I love about looking at the
Death Valley map is the names are so great.
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we've got here the, the World Beater Mine
Surprise Canyon, which I, I just love the
| | 05:35 |
name of that because it's, begs the
question, what's the surprise?
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You know, you're hiking along and, look,
a nest of pythons.
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That's a surprise.
so I, I might want to get up in there.
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I think I've been in there before.
I think the surprise is actually that
| | 05:46 |
there's water there, which is a very
unusual thing in Death Valley.
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So there may be one or two other valleys
over here that I'm going to look at.
| | 05:55 |
Now after that, there's the Panamint
Range itself, which has some interesting details.
| | 06:00 |
it's a very high mountain range.
This time of year, late February, early
| | 06:04 |
March, there's possibly still snow up
there.
| | 06:06 |
I don't know what the conditions are
like.
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Might want to talk to a ranger about
that.
| | 06:09 |
And then there's Death Valley, which is a
good hour-long drive from here.
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So I need to think about how I'm going to
manage my light that way.
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So what I'm going to do here is take a
look at the map, pick out three or four
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different locations.
Try to figure out how far it is between
| | 06:24 |
each of them and then, figure out how I
can divide those amongst the different
| | 06:27 |
shooting times that I have over the next
three or four days.
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Again, I've got those couple hours in the
morning, couple hours in the afternoon,
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so I can use that middle part of the day
to try and cover some of these huge
| | 06:37 |
distances that I have to get from one
location to another.
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Now, right now I don't have much of a
weather problem.
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I think the high today is only supposed
to be in the high 80s.
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High 80s here at the first day of March.
If I was here later, even, even April or
| | 06:54 |
May, temperatures could already be much,
much higher.
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So then I might want to think about the
middle of the day being a time to run and
| | 07:01 |
flee into a shady area and just hang out.
And it's hard to find shade around here,
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so you kind of gotta work that into your
plan.
| | 07:10 |
The desert is an environment that you
have to manage very carefully.
| | 07:13 |
You gotta manage heat, you gotta manage
light, and you gotta manage water.
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And somewhere in there you gotta find
time to eat, and hopefully you're getting
| | 07:19 |
to the good light in time to be able to
shoot.
| | 07:21 |
So before you head out, it's good to sit
down with a map.
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Pick out some locations, plan how you're
going to divvy them up over the time that
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you have, and then you're going to be
ready to get started.
| | 07:30 |
So, I've got some ideas, we'll talk about
them along the way as we go.
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I think my next step is to get outside,
really see what the light is like now,
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feel what the temperature is like, and
start trying to pick my first location.
| | 07:39 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
1. Desert Roadtrip: Day OneLooking at the light on day one| 00:00 |
So if you step off the road just about
anywhere in this whole park, you've got
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these little creosote bushes everywhere,
and it's the middle of the day.
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The light's pretty drab.
It's really hazy over there, so it's not
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a great time for big landscape shooting.
But I've got so many of these things,
| | 00:18 |
it's silly not to try to look at them as
potential subject matter.
| | 00:21 |
So I've just been wandering around out
here.
| | 00:23 |
And the first thing that strikes me is,
because it's still winter, the sun's
| | 00:28 |
still kind of low.
So even here, it's coming on 10:30.
| | 00:32 |
We're still getting a nice, good, strong
shadow off of them.
| | 00:35 |
And it's kind of cool, because I get this
sort of symmetrical thing.
| | 00:39 |
If I'm shooting into the light, the bush
itself becomes more of a silhouette.
| | 00:44 |
And, and so there's kind of this axis
across the middle that's interesting, the
| | 00:48 |
shadow versus the bush itself.
that said, right here, this one I'm
| | 00:52 |
looking at, the ground's kind of rocky
and it, it drops off right here, so the
| | 00:56 |
edge of my shadow here is getting a
little soft.
| | 00:58 |
So I, I, I don't think I'm really that
into this shadow.
| | 01:00 |
But this bush over here, let me tell you
about it.
| | 01:03 |
It's got this wonderful sharp, distinct
black shadow underneath it.
| | 01:08 |
So I'm thinking this might be kind of
interesting.
| | 01:10 |
it's got some particularly big rocks
around.
| | 01:13 |
I'm not a real stickler for, some people
would go, huh.
| | 01:15 |
You will just move the rock.
Now it's not, you know, how you found it.
| | 01:18 |
I'm not shooting photojournalism here, so
I'm not too worried about that.
| | 01:22 |
I've got a wide angle lens on my camera.
This is a full-frame camera.
| | 01:25 |
I'm shooting with a 16 to 35.
And, I'm just going to see about, kind of
| | 01:31 |
following this initial impulse.
That maybe if I put the, right where the
| | 01:34 |
bush hits the ground.
Just put that in the center of the frame
| | 01:37 |
and shoot.
Now, before I even take a picture, I'm
| | 01:40 |
already seeing this is a black and white
image.
| | 01:42 |
I don't mean that I've got a perfect
visualization of what this scene looks
| | 01:46 |
like in black and white.
What I mean is, I'm understanding that my
| | 01:50 |
impulse here in what I'm seeing is just
all line.
| | 01:53 |
It's just the lines of the branches in
silhouette.
| | 01:55 |
The lines of the shadow.
That means probably a black and white
| | 01:58 |
image is going to be best.
There's not really any color here to be had.
| | 02:01 |
So if I just shoot this, I get this.
It's, it's a very busy image.
| | 02:08 |
Because of all the rocks on the ground,
and because there's that other bush back
| | 02:11 |
there it may work, it may not.
It's not knocking my socks off right now.
| | 02:17 |
But as in most cases, what I should do
next is get closer.
| | 02:21 |
Getting in, trying to simplify, trying to
cut out any extraneous stuff, is often
| | 02:26 |
what leads to a more interesting image.
So I'm going to just go in even tighter here.
| | 02:32 |
And it's kind of interesting, because
now, I'm confusing maybe a little bit of
| | 02:36 |
what's the plant and what's the shadow.
So that, that might work.
| | 02:42 |
Again, there are all these rocks, if this
is a, if this is an image that's about line.
| | 02:46 |
It's a little tricky because the rocks
are creating lots of other geographic
| | 02:50 |
elements that might be making the shot a
little bit too busy.
| | 02:54 |
So I'm going to see just what else I can
try here.
| | 02:56 |
working just the shadow is kind of
interesting.
| | 03:02 |
Leaving a little bit of the plant in the
shot like that so that I've got just the shadow.
| | 03:10 |
That's might be something, or maybe
really just going in right on the shadow,
| | 03:16 |
maybe taking the plant out altogether.
Now I'm also imagining that in
| | 03:21 |
post-production, I'm going to go really
nuts on the contrast here.
| | 03:24 |
If this is an image about line, if it's
an image about light and shadow, I'm
| | 03:27 |
going to want a lot of contrast, so I'm
going to be goosing that up.
| | 03:31 |
Finally, I do have this nice backdrop
here.
| | 03:33 |
It's a little bit hazy, but that might
actually help, because it's going to make
| | 03:37 |
it more of a background.
So I'm wondering about this bush in the
| | 03:41 |
foreground with a shadow and maybe a
little bit of a horizon.
| | 03:44 |
This is all being made a little bit more
complicated, but I'm not in super high
| | 03:50 |
contrast light right now.
Again, it's, I'm out of the good light of
| | 03:53 |
the day, but this is a good way to spend
your time in this bad part of the, of
| | 03:58 |
the, of our, of our lighting day.
as I've said before, we need to use this
| | 04:03 |
part of the day to get to other
locations, but it's worth stopping and
| | 04:06 |
seeing what you can find, working small
details, getting close up, and just
| | 04:10 |
seeing what you discover out actually, on
the desert itself in terms of light and shadow.
| | 04:18 |
It's not an area to work great color,
because we're mostly dealing with browns
| | 04:20 |
and greens.
But there is potentially a lot of
| | 04:22 |
interesting line and contrast.
| | 04:24 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Getting a shot that includes the road| 00:00 |
So we were driving down this road and
it's just a really great dramatic stretch
| | 00:07 |
of, of ribbon of highway going off in the
distance.
| | 00:09 |
And also, to the left of it, there's a
big dust cloud forming, it's got this
| | 00:13 |
very strong ceiling on it and that's
kind of backlit.
| | 00:17 |
And so it seemed like a good time to take
a picture.
| | 00:21 |
Sometimes, it's very difficult to figure
out how big things are out here, and the
| | 00:25 |
road gives me a good queue in my photo.
Now, we pulled over, but this is a
| | 00:32 |
highway, we were going on a highway
speed.
| | 00:34 |
Saw the photo, then pulled over, takes a
while to slow down.
| | 00:37 |
So actually, where we've stopped is much
lower than where I was when I had the
| | 00:42 |
initial impulse about the image.
We were driving down a very long, sloping
| | 00:47 |
hill here.
And so, as I frame up my first shot here.
| | 00:51 |
And now, I'm using just a regular kind of
walk around lens.
| | 00:55 |
This is a 24 to 105.
I'm shooting at a pretty small aperture
| | 01:00 |
of 10 or 11 to be sure that I've got deep
depth of field.
| | 01:03 |
I'm focusing in kind of close about a
third of the way into the shot to
| | 01:07 |
maximize my depth of field.
So I can get this kind of stock.
| | 01:11 |
It's maybe a little too much road in the
foreground.
| | 01:15 |
We're right on the curve of a road.
So, I'm a little confused, because I had
| | 01:21 |
this initial impulse about an image, but
now as I pull over and take the shot, it
| | 01:25 |
doesn't quite look the same.
And a lot of times that is because you're
| | 01:28 |
not shooting from where you had the
initial impulse.
| | 01:30 |
The initial impulse is quite a ways back
up the road.
| | 01:32 |
But in fact, it's around the curve more,
and it's a little bit higher.
| | 01:36 |
So I could start heading back that way.
But before that, I'm going to just see
| | 01:39 |
about getting a little bit higher.
I happen to have this van with me, it's
| | 01:43 |
actually the same van that I'm using to
get around in.
| | 01:46 |
So, your car can sometimes be a good way
to get up higher, you can try climbing up
| | 01:51 |
on the wheels, this van, because it has a
door in the side.
| | 01:57 |
This is definitely better.
I've got more of a perspective, so that
| | 02:01 |
the road is not so dominant in the
foreground.
| | 02:05 |
That said, it's still a little bit big.
So I could drive further down the road.
| | 02:09 |
I could also go back and work the curve
of the road.
| | 02:14 |
But, I want that dust storm thing, there,
to be pretty prominent in the image, and
| | 02:20 |
I'm not working with a long enough lens
to really zoom in.
| | 02:24 |
I've also got all of that big empty sky
there.
| | 02:26 |
That's just boring.
So I think that what I'm going to
| | 02:29 |
actually do is frame this in and with the
idea of cropping it.
| | 02:32 |
Then I get a nice long strip.
That's going to bring more attention to
| | 02:35 |
the dust cloud.
I've still got the strong road element on
| | 02:38 |
the right side of the lens.
It's the middle of the day, the light's
| | 02:41 |
hazy, or, or the scene is hazy, the
lights not super contrasting.
| | 02:45 |
So I'm not sure how great a shot this is
going to to turn out.
| | 02:48 |
But I, I like the actual, just straight
composition of it.
| | 02:51 |
I'll see if I can fix it in
post-production.
| | 02:53 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Why shoot in places you've shot before?| 00:01 |
I've been to Death Valley a lot and I've
shot here a lot.
| | 00:05 |
So you might be thinking, then why did
choose Death Valley as a location for
| | 00:08 |
this course if you've been here so much?
That's a good question and it's a
| | 00:11 |
question I will often find myself asking
myself when I'm wandering around Death
| | 00:16 |
Valley not getting any pictures that I
like.
| | 00:18 |
I'll think, well why did I come here, why
didn't I go somewhere new since I'm not
| | 00:20 |
seeing anything here, I feel like I've
shot it all before.
| | 00:23 |
The challenge of returning to a place is
to try to get out of your comfort zone.
| | 00:29 |
The way that I shot it before was
probably the way that it, it was most
| | 00:32 |
obvious to me.
By coming back to it now, I'm challenging
| | 00:35 |
myself to find a new way of shooting,
trying to find a less obvious way of
| | 00:39 |
shooting, trying to find a different take
on the same material.
| | 00:43 |
The advantage of coming to a place that
I've been to before is I know it well already.
| | 00:47 |
I know the places that I want to go.
I know the places that I can skip.
| | 00:50 |
I might have already shot someplace and
feel like that's all I need to do in that location.
| | 00:55 |
For example, Zabriskie Point is a very
famous photo destination here in Death Valley.
| | 00:59 |
Here's a picture of it.
We're not going to go there It's a nice
| | 01:02 |
enough place, but most of the time if you
go there you see this.
| | 01:06 |
Just a bunch of photographers.
And you're jostling for position and
| | 01:10 |
there's a lot of people around.
I come to the desert to get away from people.
| | 01:13 |
So I don't really feel a reason to go
back there.
| | 01:16 |
Honestly, it's pretty and all, but I
don't really get why it's such a big
| | 01:19 |
destination here in the park given
everything else that's around, so I'm
| | 01:22 |
going to skip that one.
I'm going to skip a couple of other
| | 01:24 |
things and really focus on the areas that
I know that I like, areas that I feel
| | 01:28 |
like, I've shot this before, but I think
maybe I could do something different.
| | 01:32 |
Of course, you return to a landscape at
different times of the year, and you find
| | 01:36 |
different things.
Seasonal changes, make changes in color
| | 01:39 |
and vegitation, and more importnatly,
make big changes in light.
| | 01:42 |
Winter light's very different from summer
light.
| | 01:44 |
So you might come back to a place because
you think, wow, if I would come back when
| | 01:49 |
the light was more like this, there'd
really be a great shot there.
| | 01:51 |
A lot of landscape photographers will
spend a lot of time with an almanac.
| | 01:55 |
Really trying to figure out exactly when
the sun is going to be in a very
| | 01:57 |
particular place to shoot a very
particular location, and they'll plan a
| | 02:01 |
trip around that.
So, if you really go to a place over and
| | 02:05 |
over, you're going to learn its potential
with different kinds of light.
| | 02:09 |
And be able to come back at different
times and get different types of photos.
| | 02:13 |
Now, how is that different from going to
a place that you've never been to before?
| | 02:16 |
When you first walk into a landscape that
you've never seen before, typically it's
| | 02:20 |
like going anywhere else new.
Your eyes are really open, and you might
| | 02:23 |
really be noticing things as very fresh
things.
| | 02:26 |
You'll tend to shoot a high volume.
But you won't necessarily be able to go
| | 02:30 |
as deep as you do when you return to a
place over and over because everything is
| | 02:33 |
new, because there's so much to shoot.
So going to a new place you might also
| | 02:38 |
find that you're getting into places that
aren't so interesting, because you didn't
| | 02:41 |
know any better.
So there're just different mindsets,
| | 02:43 |
different expectations.
But just because you've been somewhere
| | 02:46 |
doesn't mean you shouldn't go back to it.
It doesn't mean you shouldn't try to push yourself.
| | 02:50 |
I'm going to push myself in two ways on
this trip.
| | 02:52 |
One is just psychologically.
I'm going to try to make myself shoot the
| | 02:55 |
images that I'm less comfortable
shooting.
| | 02:57 |
I don't mean physically less comfortable.
Shooting the images that I think, well,
| | 03:00 |
that's probably a dumb shot.
I'm going to try it anyway.
| | 03:01 |
I've got good shots already at home.
I've got my safety shots.
| | 03:05 |
Now I'm going to try and push it.
I'm also trying something different.
| | 03:08 |
I've never brought macro lenses to Death
Valley before, so I might try some macro shooting.
| | 03:12 |
I've got a, a fisheye that I've never had
here before, so I can make gear changes.
| | 03:15 |
But mostly it's in your eyes.
It's trying to see things differently.
| | 03:19 |
It's trying to have the courage to shoot
things differently than you did before.
| | 03:22 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Shooting in the old mining town of Ballarat| 00:03 |
(SOUND).
I'm here in the town of Ballarat, which
| | 00:05 |
is in the southern part of Panamint
Valley.
| | 00:07 |
I use the term town very loosely, it
seems to mostly be inhabited be very
| | 00:11 |
annoying little flies.
Ballarat's an old mining town, there's a
| | 00:15 |
Lot of borax mining up in the mountains
here.
| | 00:18 |
And so this was a place for supplies and
apparently it was a pretty wild town
| | 00:21 |
according to a historical marker up the
road.
| | 00:24 |
There's another one right here that says
the town was founded in 1897.
| | 00:28 |
And the post office closed in 1917.
And that was kind of the end of things.
| | 00:31 |
So Ballarat didn't have a great, glorious
existence.
| | 00:35 |
Still, there's some cool old buildings
and some other stuff around here.
| | 00:38 |
That I'm just going to wander around and
see what I can find.
| | 00:44 |
I'm working this shot right here, just
it's very simple.
| | 00:47 |
I've got that circle that is a wheel, and
that door which is a nice strong rectangle.
| | 00:52 |
Just wonder again, about playing them
against each other.
| | 00:55 |
One thing you gotta be careful of out
here is a lot of this stuff is very old,
| | 01:00 |
it's incredibly fragile, it can collapse
very quickly.
| | 01:03 |
It's tempting to go inside here and poke
around, which I might do, but you really
| | 01:09 |
want to check out these spaces a little
bit before you get inside them.
| | 01:13 |
a lot of interesting, just straight
geometry here.
| | 01:18 |
This is cool though.
It's actually got a brick floor, that's
| | 01:22 |
still in tact, and, I guess these are
actual baked, bricks.
| | 01:27 |
There's a stone foundation here.
Again, I don't know if any of this is
| | 01:30 |
going to make any interesting pictures,
but The pictures had led me to wander in
| | 01:34 |
here and I've kind of found this cool
thing, and it's just interesting.
| | 01:37 |
(SOUND) Not finding anything that's
really knocking my socks off here.
| | 01:48 |
It's important to just keep shooting
through it though, it's I'm still looking
| | 01:52 |
for interesting light.
I'm looking for interesting shapes.
| | 01:54 |
I'm getting bitten by bugs, and that's.
Even if I never use any of these images,
| | 02:00 |
it's still important to take them.
Remember, you've got to, that the good
| | 02:05 |
photographs are found, or at least, the
subject matter is found, and then the
| | 02:08 |
photo is made out of that subject matter.
You've got to just keep looking through
| | 02:12 |
the lens.
And it can be kind of discouraging to be
| | 02:16 |
shooting like this and going I don't
know, I'm not really excited about any of these.
| | 02:19 |
But that's okay, they may, there may be
more to them than you think when you get home.
| | 02:24 |
But also, this is just part of the
process.
| | 02:28 |
I'm seeing, I'm looking, I'm trying to
get my eyes open.
| | 02:30 |
I'm trying to figure out what the
interesting shapes and textures are
| | 02:33 |
around here.
You just gotta keep shooting, even when
| | 02:35 |
it feels like maybe it's not going that
great.
| | 02:40 |
I am staying in aperture priority pretty
much all the time.
| | 02:43 |
There's nothing moving out here.
I don't need any shutter speed control.
| | 02:47 |
What I'm thinking about is depth of
field.
| | 02:50 |
So I'm just staying in aperture priority
so I can very easily move between
| | 02:53 |
different apertures to control my depth
of field.
| | 02:56 |
(SOUND) Going deeper or shallower.
I'm on a full frame camera, so I'm never
| | 03:02 |
taking my aperture smaller than F 11.
If I do that, I'm going to risk softening
| | 03:07 |
my image, because of diffraction
artifacts inside my lens.
| | 03:11 |
I'm not using a particularly fast lens,
so for shallow depth of field, I can't
| | 03:14 |
really open much wider, than F4.
All right, well, I think that's it for
| | 03:19 |
the suburbs of Ballarat.
Let's go on into town and see what we can find.
| | 03:27 |
(SOUND)
| | 03:27 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Working a shot with an old truck as a subject| 00:01 |
I've noticed before, really in any kind
of shooting, not just landscape shooting.
| | 00:04 |
But I can get so preoccupied with trying
to find the beautiful pictures that I
| | 00:09 |
don't actually always remember to just
document where I am.
| | 00:12 |
And this is a great example.
I can imagine myself getting home and
| | 00:16 |
telling a friend, wow there's this little
town called Bowelrat and there's like
| | 00:19 |
nothing there, and all I'll have to show
for it is see, here's a picture of a doorknob.
| | 00:24 |
Because I, that will have been the thing
that I was really focusing on.
| | 00:27 |
So I'm going to remember to actually just
take some boring vacation pictures while
| | 00:31 |
I'm here, also, so that I can bore my
friends with them when I get home.
| | 00:33 |
Just some basic what am I?
where am I?
| | 00:39 |
What kind of stuff am I seeing?
I just shot a panorama across the
| | 00:43 |
sprawling megalopolis of Balorat, here.
I, again I've, I've noticed this before,
| | 00:47 |
that I get home and all I've got are
these, you know, refined, fine art type
| | 00:52 |
photos and I, I forgot to just take
pictures of what I was seeing and what I
| | 00:55 |
was doing, and so I really have to work
hard to remember that.
| | 00:57 |
So, I'm going to try and do that here, as
well as through the rest of this trip.
| | 01:02 |
This is a cool, old truck here, again,
it's the middle of the day.
| | 01:07 |
The truck's actually looking pretty good.
But I know that later in the day, when
| | 01:11 |
the sun's more over there, a lot of
things are going to start to happen to it.
| | 01:14 |
The colors are going to go must deeper.
I'm going to see much more texture.
| | 01:17 |
I'm going to see a lot more color
saturation.
| | 01:21 |
Thing is, I'm here now, and so, I can
sometimes get trapped in my head and go,
| | 01:25 |
I shouldn't take this shot.
The light's not perfect.
| | 01:27 |
The light's what it is, and I'm here
right now.
| | 01:29 |
I'm not going to wait around 'til 4
o'clock.
| | 01:31 |
So, I should get what I can.
I've got a lot of pictures of rusty old
| | 01:35 |
trucks, I don't need to work too hard on
this.
| | 01:37 |
I think instead what I'm going to do is
think more about truck in relationship to
| | 01:41 |
the landscape.
rather than focusing on the truck,
| | 01:44 |
because how much rusty metal do I need to
shoot?
| | 01:46 |
I'm thinking more about the truck within
the scene.
| | 01:49 |
This gets back to the question, again, of
what is a landscape shot?
| | 01:52 |
So I, I'm right back to that problem.
But again, that's not a problem that I
| | 01:56 |
worry that much about.
I'm just going very simple, putting it in
| | 02:00 |
the middle of the frame, centering up the
shot.
| | 02:02 |
Here's something.
I think I could do better, though.
| | 02:06 |
Notice the relationship of this window to
the driver's side window.
| | 02:11 |
I think it would, might look a little
better with just a little adjustment like this.
| | 02:15 |
A window is a very, very powerful
compositional element.
| | 02:19 |
So you want to be careful about how you
use them.
| | 02:21 |
And I don't know if you noticed that was
really the difference between shooting
| | 02:24 |
here and shooting here.
And that's a pretty big compositional change.
| | 02:29 |
Oh, boy.
You know, as I get closer to the metal
| | 02:31 |
though, it's just so beautiful and rusty
and, and.
| | 02:33 |
I don't think I can resist.
I, I've gotta shoot.
| | 02:36 |
Some of this rusty metal.
(SOUND) I'm not one to really spend a lot
| | 02:47 |
of time actually any time, researching
the history of a place before I go into it.
| | 02:52 |
I feel like it's something I should do
more.
| | 02:54 |
I'm, I'm not proud of that fact, and one
of the reasons that it's worth doing
| | 02:57 |
that, is.
What may appear to just be a simple old
| | 03:00 |
truck, if you look into it, in this case
it turns out, is rumored to have been
| | 03:04 |
Charles Manson's truck.
Now.
| | 03:07 |
There's no conclusive evidence of that,
but there's a lot of stories about it.
| | 03:11 |
If you Google Charles Manson's truck.
You'll come up with this.
| | 03:14 |
I didn't know that, the first few times
that I was here.
| | 03:17 |
I stumbled into that later somehow.
again, there's no conclusive evidence.
| | 03:20 |
Even just the stories around it are
interesting.
| | 03:22 |
Why in the world would Charles Manson's
truck be out here?
| | 03:24 |
Why would people think this is it.
just a tiny little bit of even reading a
| | 03:29 |
Wikipedia entr entry can suddenly add a
new dimension to the things that you're
| | 03:33 |
finding, so.
Though I'm not that great about doing it.
| | 03:35 |
I really do recommend doing a little bit
of reading on an area before you get into
| | 03:39 |
it (SOUND)
| | 03:39 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Composing a shot to show texture in Devil's Golf Course| 00:01 |
This is the Devil's Golf Course, so named
because putting would just be miserable
| | 00:06 |
out here.
These are weird salt formations.
| | 00:10 |
I don't think that's actually like the
geological term for them.
| | 00:13 |
I'm calling them weird salt formations.
They are in fact salt, I broke off a
| | 00:17 |
piece earlier and ate it and it was very
salty.
| | 00:19 |
They this was an, an ancient sea, these
are some weird salt formations that were
| | 00:25 |
deposited here.
Curiously enough according, I don't
| | 00:27 |
actually know this stuff, I read the sign
back there.
| | 00:29 |
According to the sign back there, new
deposits continue to get made.
| | 00:32 |
And we can see that when we look at the
top, there are these really fine
| | 00:36 |
crystalline structures that we're
tromping all over with our hiking boots.
| | 00:39 |
Fortunately new ones will be deposited,
so I don't feel too guilty about it.
| | 00:43 |
It's a really, it is a unique landscape.
You're not going to find this anywhere
| | 00:47 |
else, or maybe there are one or two
places where something like this happens.
| | 00:51 |
So, telling you how to shoot the Devil's
Golf Course, is really only good for
| | 00:55 |
coming to the Devils Golf Course and
shooting.
| | 00:57 |
I'm going to shoot it anyway and talk you
through my process, though.
| | 01:00 |
Because I want you to see how It is that
I'm taking this particular landscape
| | 01:05 |
problem apart and trying to solve it.
So, what I've got are these weird blobby
| | 01:10 |
structures everywhere, going all the way
to the horizon.
| | 01:15 |
And so it's creating this really
interesting texture on the ground and,
| | 01:18 |
and the texture looks different depending
on which way I look, and that has to do
| | 01:23 |
with the direction of light.
So if I start looking this way with the
| | 01:26 |
sun behind me, I and this is just a, a
quick and dirty shot, this is not
| | 01:31 |
actually, obviously any kind of image
that I would really want as a keeper.
| | 01:35 |
I got a road in the way and those
mountains back there, but notice that the
| | 01:40 |
actual features themselves don't look
like much.
| | 01:42 |
It looks like a bunch of mud.
When I turn into the light, with the sun
| | 01:46 |
behind the features, and you may have
heard, well, you should never shoot into
| | 01:50 |
the sun.
That's what they used to tell you in the
| | 01:52 |
old little Kodak Guide to Photography,
little booklets that you'd get with cameras.
| | 01:57 |
course Kodak doesn't exist anymore, so I
guess those don't either.
| | 02:00 |
shooting into the sun, I get something
more like this.
| | 02:04 |
This is much more compelling.
Because the sun is behind the structures,
| | 02:08 |
I'm getting a shadowy front to them, and
that's giving me both, more contrast, and
| | 02:13 |
a better understanding of the depth of
the scene.
| | 02:15 |
When I look this way, everything looks
kind of flat, and evenly lit.
| | 02:19 |
When I look this way I'm getting a lot of
relief.
| | 02:22 |
Also because the salt structures are
white, having the sun behind them is
| | 02:25 |
giving them this nice kind of luminous
quality.
| | 02:27 |
So my first decision has to do with
direction of light.
| | 02:31 |
And I can say right away this is more
interesting.
| | 02:34 |
So that's a good starting point.
That cuts my field of view down to only
| | 02:36 |
180 degrees to try and figure out.
So now the next problem I've got is
| | 02:42 |
what's a subject?
What, what am I working with here?
| | 02:44 |
I've got this big, just massive stuff.
I can do what you might just be at, at
| | 02:50 |
first kind of tempted to do
instinctively.
| | 02:53 |
Which is well, it's a big wide vista, I
need a big wide shot.
| | 02:56 |
So I've got my 24 to 105 set on 24.
I take my shot, and I get this.
| | 03:03 |
So, it is a nice contrast.
It is an interesting look at this structure.
| | 03:08 |
Obviously, I've got a few exposure
problems.
| | 03:10 |
Also got a little bit of barrel
distortion, but I could correct that.
| | 03:14 |
That's what makes the horizon look
curved.
| | 03:16 |
I could correct that.
In a way I don't have a subject.
| | 03:19 |
This is a big field of texture, and you
could argue, well, that whole foreground
| | 03:22 |
thing is the subject.
And that's true, but I feel like I could
| | 03:26 |
use some compositional skills to get this
refined a little bit.
| | 03:30 |
Also, I got that big empty sky in the
top.
| | 03:33 |
There's not a cloud in the sky, which is
often the case in Death Valley, because
| | 03:36 |
it's so dry here.
So I need to figure out something to do
| | 03:39 |
with the top of the frame.
And I think what I'm going to do is the mountains.
| | 03:42 |
If I totally fill the mountains, or fill
the top of the frame with mountains,
| | 03:47 |
let's see what I get then.
So, I'm zooming in closer.
| | 03:51 |
I've switched to portrait orientation.
I'm focusing about, of the, I've set my
| | 03:56 |
focus point about a third of the way into
the frame, and I'm at F11, aperture
| | 04:02 |
priority mode, so that I get as much
depth of field as possible.
| | 04:08 |
So now I've got this.
This is good.
| | 04:10 |
I like, I think the portrait orientation,
the vertical orientation is helping
| | 04:15 |
constrain things a little bit.
and making me focus more on these weird
| | 04:19 |
structures rather than just having my,
my, my eye wander over this whole big thing.
| | 04:23 |
The problem is I've still got that sky at
the top.
| | 04:26 |
So look what happens if I crop the sky
and just fill the top of the frame with mountains.
| | 04:35 |
That's better.
But as soon as I see that, I see there's
| | 04:37 |
something interesting in there.
There is a little ridge of, of little
| | 04:42 |
mountainlets, or something, that are
darker than the, than the rest of the mountains.
| | 04:47 |
Those are a good graphic object to work
with.
| | 04:50 |
You can see them over there in the right
side of the frame.
| | 04:52 |
I wonder what would happen if I centered
that up, and had that be kind of a focal
| | 04:56 |
point at the top of the frame.
So I think I need to move this way, so
| | 05:02 |
that I'm shooting more up against the
background of that big mountain.
| | 05:06 |
I also would like to be shooting a little
more into the sun so I get stronger back
| | 05:10 |
lighting on these formations.
So I'm going to head this way.
| | 05:13 |
So, by repositioning, I've got more of
that tall mountain behind the little
| | 05:21 |
mountainlet thing, or whatever it was I
called it earlier.
| | 05:24 |
So I think that's going to let me frame
up a different relationship, a different
| | 05:29 |
ratio of mountains to weird salt
formations.
| | 05:33 |
Trying to use every geologic term I can
think of here.
| | 05:38 |
So that gives me this.
And that's pretty good.
| | 05:41 |
So that's one approach to this.
So what I did here was I first paid
| | 05:44 |
attention to the light.
It's always about the light.
| | 05:46 |
I tried to decide the direction of light
that was going to yield the best image.
| | 05:50 |
I was thinking about contrast.
I was thinking about contour.
| | 05:53 |
And I was thinking about backlighting.
I decided to shoot into the sun, which
| | 05:57 |
can be tricky.
Next, I really employed my basic
| | 06:01 |
compositional ideas of trying to guide
the viewer's eye, I narrowed my frame by
| | 06:04 |
switching to portrait orientation.
I tried to find a graphic element that
| | 06:08 |
could be a focal point.
So, I like that picture, I think that
| | 06:11 |
will work.
The sun is setting quickly, we're racing,
| | 06:16 |
we're trying to get as much out of it as
we can, we want to get to the next
| | 06:19 |
location, we were heading back to our
cars, and a park ranger told us about
| | 06:22 |
this cool salt hole that's not too far,
about 100 yards from the parking lot.
| | 06:27 |
So we rushed out here to see it and it
was really worth the trip.
| | 06:29 |
He was absolutely right.
Really cool salt formation.
| | 06:33 |
Very fresh salt deposits and there's
water in there.
| | 06:35 |
There's this huge cave underneath full of
water.
| | 06:38 |
You don't see a lot of water in Death
Valley, so this is great.
| | 06:41 |
This is the compositional anchor.
That I was looking for to try and work
| | 06:45 |
some of these surrounding terrain around.
So I shot a wealth of pictures in
| | 06:49 |
different directions, playing with light
and contrast in different ways.
| | 06:52 |
So don't forget those park rangers can be
very, very helpful.
| | 06:56 |
Don't hesitate to ask them about
interesting subject matter or.
| | 07:00 |
Things that they've seen that may be off
the beaten path, ask them the places that
| | 07:04 |
they like to go, they might lead you to
something like this and it's very cool.
| | 07:07 |
So, again we're racing the light, we're
going to try and get to the next location.
| | 07:10 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Racing the light to get the last shot of the day| 00:01 |
This is the part of the day where things
get really nerve-racking.
| | 00:05 |
The sun is maybe half an hour from the
mountain range.
| | 00:07 |
It's actually more than an hour until
sunset.
| | 00:09 |
But we're going to be in shadow as soon
as it goes behind those mountains.
| | 00:12 |
It gets really tense because, wow.
There's the scene out here that I want to exploit.
| | 00:17 |
But There's somethin even better, maybe,
down the road.
| | 00:20 |
I gotta see it all.
This is the part of the day where you
| | 00:22 |
start movin really quickly.
Trying to find your shots quickly,
| | 00:24 |
compose them quickly, figure out your
strategy and your exposure technique.
| | 00:29 |
Get the shot and move on.
And that's what we're trying to do here.
| | 00:31 |
We're going to head to bad water.
(NOISE) I hate to break it to you, but
| | 00:40 |
this is very often all there is to
landscape shooting.
| | 00:44 |
You've found the great light, you've
found a compelling background, but now
| | 00:48 |
you need a foreground.
This is such a great spot to shoot an
| | 00:53 |
album cover for some band or something.
It's, it's all about atmosphere and
| | 01:00 |
texture, but it's hard to build a sturdy
composition around it.
| | 01:05 |
If you've watched my composition course,
you know we found the same problem in an
| | 01:10 |
old hotel in a small town.
Really great texture and, and vibe, but
| | 01:17 |
when you actually take a picture of.
Now one thing that I'm finding as I look
| | 01:22 |
through the viewfinder is if I frame, as
I have been doing.
| | 01:26 |
Oh, here's a good strong line.
If I frame, as I have been doing, to fill
| | 01:30 |
the top of the frame just with the
mountains.
| | 01:34 |
I get a really nice change out there on
the horizon.
| | 01:38 |
There's a real luminousness to the
horizon out there that looks nice up
| | 01:42 |
against the black of the mountains.
You know, I haven't looked this way and
| | 01:47 |
that's a mistake I often make.
I get focused on the light in one
| | 01:50 |
direction and you turn around and it
turns out there have been elephants
| | 01:52 |
marching by or something and you missed
them.
| | 01:54 |
So it's a good idea to pay attention to
the light in every direction.
| | 01:59 |
And I see that we've walked a long way.
So, I have some things that I like okay.
| | 02:07 |
Ooh, it's really just changing.
I have some things that I like OK.
| | 02:11 |
I don't have a really killer shot.
One of the things that's killing me right
| | 02:17 |
now is this empty sky.
It's just not (SOUND) something I can
| | 02:22 |
compose with.
That's just a big empty field of blue.
| | 02:24 |
It's boring.
I get the same thing shooting in this direction.
| | 02:27 |
So trying to go wide and shoot big wide
vistas (SOUND) is not very compelling
| | 02:32 |
because of that empty sky.
So if I was to come back here, one thing
| | 02:35 |
I might try to do is get myself in a
position to keep an eye on the weather
| | 02:39 |
and when I see that the forecast is
calling for a week of clouds, get myself
| | 02:44 |
to death valley very quickly.
It's easy for me to do living in San Francisco.
| | 02:47 |
I can fly to Vegas and drive for a couple
of hours then I'm here, not everyone has
| | 02:51 |
that option.
Okay, do you see it?
| | 02:52 |
The light is changing, it's going away,
I'm falling into shadow.
| | 02:56 |
And all of this texture that was here
just moments ago is gone.
| | 03:00 |
It's still there, our eye sees it but
it's not there photographically, I don't
| | 03:06 |
have that beautiful contrast that I had
before.
| | 03:10 |
And so the moment has passed.
We are done shooting in Badwater.
| | 03:13 |
So if you look this way, you'll see that
there's still light up on the mountains
| | 03:19 |
behind us.
And actually that's kind of pretty just
| | 03:22 |
as a shot of documentation.
Oh and what I'm getting right now is a
| | 03:31 |
nice Jacobs ladder off of the peak there.
Maybe I can get, it's real subtle.
| | 03:37 |
And there's snow up there, which I didn't
realize.
| | 03:40 |
So that may appear like we're fishing or
like it's a crapshoot.
| | 03:49 |
Often, that's what it is.
You look for the good light, you find the
| | 03:52 |
compelling landscape and you hope that a
subject is going to present itself.
| | 03:56 |
You -- it's not all luck.
You have to apply photographic skill.
| | 03:59 |
You have to keep your eyes open.
You gotta keep your compositional skills working.
| | 04:02 |
But sometimes, the things don't just
conspire in the perfect way.
| | 04:06 |
That's why I keep coming back here,
that's why you return to a location.
| | 04:09 |
It's a really, really big version of
working your shot.
| | 04:12 |
I'm not just working the shot in the
moment that I'm here, I'm working it at a
| | 04:14 |
scale where I'm going all right, I'm
coming back next month.
| | 04:16 |
And you keep going.
Still, I think I got a few good things,
| | 04:19 |
and I just love this spot.
That's another thing to remember - a big
| | 04:22 |
part of photography is you get to be in
these beautiful landscapes.
| | 04:25 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
2. Desert Roadtrip: Day Two Exploring the plan for day two| 00:01 |
It's day two.
Boy, when I say it that way it really
| | 00:04 |
sounds like I'm, I'm writing in my
journal.
| | 00:06 |
You know, day two, had to eat the
cameraman or something like that.
| | 00:10 |
It's not going that poorly, it's actually
going great.
| | 00:12 |
It's day two, we've gotten kind of a late
start.
| | 00:14 |
And we got kind of a late start because,
well it was my fault actually, that we
| | 00:18 |
got a late start.
I, I went out on my own today onto the
| | 00:23 |
Panamint dry lake bed.
It's, it's really one of my favorite
| | 00:25 |
places in the entire world.
Not just here in Death Valley.
| | 00:28 |
I wanted to get out there.
Because we are doing this production, we
| | 00:32 |
have to have a ranger accompany us,
because this is a national park.
| | 00:35 |
That's not how it is if you're just
going to come here and shoot on your own,
| | 00:39 |
unless you're doing a, a, a commercial
production of some kind.
| | 00:42 |
So because we are, we gotta have a ranger
with us.
| | 00:44 |
So the crew needed to wait and talk to
the ranger that we have today.
| | 00:48 |
I, aaaah; my ears are popping.
I, didn't want to miss the morning light.
| | 00:54 |
Yesterday, we missed two or three hours
of really great light, so I thought I'd
| | 00:57 |
head out onto the lake on my own, which I
did.
| | 01:00 |
And I got a lotta stuff that I really
liked.
| | 01:02 |
I was really just working with the
textures on the lake bed, with the stones
| | 01:05 |
that were lying around.
I started to get a little uptight
| | 01:10 |
somewhere along the way, because I felt
like I just kept taking the same shot
| | 01:13 |
over and over, at least compositionally.
I was framing things exactly the same way.
| | 01:17 |
I got in the car and was driving back,
though, and was heading into the light
| | 01:20 |
and started seeing some really different
things.
| | 01:22 |
This is like we discovered yesterday at
the Devil's Golf Course.
| | 01:26 |
Working into the light can be a, a really
powerful form of, of lighting.
| | 01:31 |
Out here you get interesting reflections
and things on different planes.
| | 01:36 |
Somethings were just lighting up, I, I
really liked that.
| | 01:38 |
So I got some stuff there that was
different.
| | 01:40 |
So, our idea now is to head back into
Death Valley again over.
| | 01:44 |
Panamint mountains, into Death Valley, to
try and get to the dunes.
| | 01:47 |
We've got permission to shoot there, and
we want to get into the dunes, hopefully
| | 01:53 |
be there in time for the good light.
It's not a great distance, so along the
| | 01:57 |
way I'm going to do some shooting, just
see what I can find.
| | 01:59 |
It's the middle of the day, so there may
or may not be something.
| | 02:03 |
But hopefully we can come up with a few
things.
| | 02:06 |
As we make our way first to lunch, and
then onto the sand dunes.
| | 02:10 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Taking a shot with haze and working it in post| 00:01 |
As I've been saying, the middle of the
day out here in the desert can be tricky.
| | 00:05 |
If you've got a lot of ground to cover
then you might just be driving for a long time.
| | 00:09 |
Today we don't have a lot of ground to
cover.
| | 00:11 |
We just need to go over the pass and into
Death Valley to set up for something we
| | 00:14 |
want to do over there.
But I want to shoot along the way.
| | 00:17 |
The problem is the light's gone all flat.
It's so different than in the morning.
| | 00:20 |
In the morning, it sometimes just feels
like you can't be moving fast enough.
| | 00:25 |
Images are opening up before you so
quickly.
| | 00:28 |
That's definitely not happening now.
It's, I, I've gotta dig and work a little
| | 00:33 |
bit harder for my compositions out here
when the light is like this.
| | 00:37 |
There's a, a reason we come to the desert
to shoot, one of them, and that is that
| | 00:41 |
the light is so particular in its
quality.
| | 00:44 |
It's a very white bleaching, clean kind
of light and that's because it's so dry.
| | 00:50 |
There's just no moisture in the air.
So I get this crystal clear view when I'm
| | 00:55 |
looking at things nearby.
It gives me contrast that I can't get in
| | 00:58 |
a damper environment.
It gives me color saturation.
| | 01:01 |
It's just a really great light to work
in.
| | 01:04 |
But, here's whats weird about it, is that
when I stop here to take a look at this
| | 01:09 |
beautiful vista here, it's not all
crystal clear and clean and white, it's
| | 01:13 |
really hazy.
And so I've got this contradiction going
| | 01:17 |
on, when I'm shooting within a certain
distance I get this light that's got this
| | 01:20 |
clarity that I don't get anywhere else.
And now, when I'm looking into the
| | 01:24 |
distance, I've got all this haze to shoot
through.
| | 01:26 |
So, how can there be haze when the air is
so dry?
| | 01:28 |
Part of it is, bear in mind the scale
we're looking at here.
| | 01:31 |
I'm standing most of the way up the pass,
the Panamint Mountains heading into Death Valley.
| | 01:37 |
And I'm looking this way, I don't know if
you can tell, but there's some
| | 01:39 |
snow-capped mountains back there.
One of those is Mount Whitney.
| | 01:42 |
That's like 45 miles from here.
The reason there's haze is I'm looking
| | 01:46 |
through 45 miles of atmosphere.
It doesn't matter how dry it is, there's
| | 01:50 |
just a lot of air there, and that's
creating some optical issues.
| | 01:54 |
So, what do I do about that?
You know, I'm, I'm coming over this pass,
| | 02:00 |
I see this big vista, I want to take a
picture of it.
| | 02:03 |
You can't always say, well I've gotta
come back when the light is good.
| | 02:05 |
This is when I happen to be here, so I
need to shoot it.
| | 02:07 |
So what can I do?
What is the problem that I'm facing here?
| | 02:12 |
You can kind of take it apart if you just
apply some of what you know about image editing.
| | 02:16 |
Now I'm assuming here that you're
comfortable with some basic tonal
| | 02:19 |
adjustments in Photoshop.
That you understand, or whatever image
| | 02:22 |
editor you choose to use.
That you know how to use a Histogram, you
| | 02:24 |
know what I mean when I see black point
or white point.
| | 02:27 |
Ideally, you know what I mean when I say
levels or curves adjustment.
| | 02:30 |
So as I look there in the distance, I see
first of all in the foreground I've got
| | 02:35 |
good contrast, I've got really dark
shadows and really nice bright highlights.
| | 02:41 |
I can even go to that first row of hills
over there and they still look pretty good.
| | 02:45 |
But, about the time I start looking down
at the lake bed, the dark shadows aren't
| | 02:49 |
so dark anymore, and when I look at the
mountains on the other side, not the snow
| | 02:53 |
capped ones, but just the other side of
the valley, the darkest shadows are
| | 02:57 |
really not black at all.
And maybe they don't need to be
| | 02:59 |
completely black but they're, they're a
really, really light gray.
| | 03:02 |
In other words, that background part is
low contrast.
| | 03:06 |
An image with good contrast has black
blacks and white whites.
| | 03:09 |
I have lost my blacks.
That's what that haze is cutting out.
| | 03:13 |
So when I take a picture of this.
And I'm going to just frame up a shot here.
| | 03:17 |
It's the middle of the day, and this is
nothing, this is not a spectacular shot,
| | 03:21 |
but it's something I want to document.
And the reason I want to document it is
| | 03:25 |
I'm, I'm looking at Mount Whitney right
now, the highest part in the continental US.
| | 03:30 |
Yesterday I was at the lowest point.
In fact, apparently there's some places
| | 03:33 |
in the park where you can just turn left
and right and see both at the same time,
| | 03:36 |
which I think it very cool.
So this is a thing worth documenting.
| | 03:38 |
That I want to go home and show my
friends.
| | 03:40 |
Here's the image that I got, though, and
sure enough those background parts are
| | 03:45 |
really, really low contrast.
That's great.
| | 03:47 |
Having broken the problem down to simply
one of contrast, and one of bad contrast
| | 03:52 |
in one part of my image, I know how I can
take care of this, and I'm going to do
| | 03:56 |
that when I get back to my room.
We're cheating a little bit here.
| | 04:02 |
Using the special gearing in our minivan,
we've traveled forward in time so that I
| | 04:06 |
can show you what I'm want to do to fix
the haze in this image.
| | 04:10 |
So, back in my room, I've got the image
loaded up in Photoshop here, and you can
| | 04:14 |
see it really does look exactly like it
was looking then.
| | 04:18 |
I've got very low contrast back here.
Let's take a look at the histogram, and
| | 04:23 |
you can see that actually I've got pretty
low contrast overall.
| | 04:26 |
In general the darkest stuff is right in
here, the lightest stuff is right in here.
| | 04:32 |
All of the tones in my image are squished
together, clustered into the middle of
| | 04:36 |
the histogram.
So, overall this can use a contrast
| | 04:39 |
adjustment, but I'm going to need to do a
little localized adjustment, to, try to
| | 04:43 |
clear the haze out of the way.
So I'm going to start out by making a
| | 04:45 |
levels adjustment layer.
And, I'm just going to bring my black
| | 04:49 |
point up to here, which is improving the
black throughout the image.
| | 04:54 |
And what's that's done is, immediately
popped up the contrast here.
| | 04:57 |
It hasn't taken care of my haze though.
Let me turn that off for you.
| | 05:00 |
So that's before.
That's after.
| | 05:02 |
I'm going to stop right there with this.
Because if I pull the black point any
| | 05:07 |
farther, 2 things happen.
I do get rid of the haze and I get better
| | 05:11 |
blacks here.
But I crush all the blacks down here.
| | 05:14 |
So I'm going to leave this here, and now
I'm going to make a second levels
| | 05:18 |
adjustment layer.
And my idea with this is I'm going to
| | 05:22 |
build a mask to constrain it to only
affect this area up here.
| | 05:27 |
So I'm going to come in here like that.
What I'm doing now is just paying
| | 05:34 |
attention to this to the far cliffs.
I'm not worried about the foreground.
| | 05:38 |
So if this is going bad, that doesn't
really matter.
| | 05:40 |
I'm also ignoring what's happening to the
sky.
| | 05:43 |
So I'm going to set that about right
there, and now I'm going to grab my
| | 05:48 |
gradient tool and quickly create a
gradient layer mask.
| | 05:53 |
And I think I'll do it more like that, to
ramp up and edit.
| | 05:57 |
So now I've constrained this layer
adjustment to only this little layer.
| | 06:01 |
My sky needs a little bit of work so I'm
going to quickly do that.
| | 06:06 |
And then we're going to go back and look
at that middle layer because it's still
| | 06:09 |
not quite right.
And sometimes you can't tell what the
| | 06:12 |
proper settings should be until you get
your layer mask in place.
| | 06:15 |
So I'm just going to adjust the contrast
of the sky a little bit, try and bring
| | 06:20 |
out a little bit of extra contour in
these clouds, and then I will ramp that
| | 06:28 |
off with a layer mask.
So, here's before, that's my original image.
| | 06:34 |
Very hazy, lousy contrast in here, those
distant cliffs look really distant.
| | 06:41 |
With my layer masks on I get this, so
I've cleared the haze out of the way but
| | 06:46 |
I've kind of messed up the image in
another way.
| | 06:48 |
Couple of things have happened.
First of all, these cliffs are now far
| | 06:52 |
more contrasty than is believable.
The fact is, we expect a certain amount
| | 06:57 |
of atmospheric haze.
It's one of the ways we measure distance.
| | 07:00 |
Having it brought, in a sense, completely
to the foreground in front of us is
| | 07:03 |
making the image a little bit confusing.
It's making the image look flat.
| | 07:08 |
So I need to back off on contrast
adjustment.
| | 07:10 |
Before I do, I want you to notice
something else.
| | 07:13 |
The, cliffs over here are looking very
blue.
| | 07:15 |
They actually have a blue cast to them,
and when I've adjusted my black point, I
| | 07:20 |
have exaggerated that.
So that's another reason that I need to
| | 07:22 |
back off.
I may need to actually even desaturate
| | 07:25 |
the blues, from this adjustment.
So, I'm going to click on my, middle
| | 07:29 |
adjustment layer here, and just pull some
of this back.
| | 07:33 |
Maybe to about there.
That's looking a little more believable
| | 07:37 |
to me.
I'm going to turn these off again so
| | 07:40 |
that's my original image.
That's my edited image.
| | 07:43 |
So I still managed to clear away the haze
but basically, I've not taken all the
| | 07:47 |
haze out.
I've left some there for two reasons.
| | 07:49 |
One, because an image like this should
have some haze in that part.
| | 07:53 |
And two, I, I don't want the blue to be
punched up so much.
| | 07:56 |
It still looks maybe a little blue to me.
I could pull that down.
| | 08:00 |
I don't really, I'm not going to get too
finicky about it on this monitor, because
| | 08:04 |
I don't normally edit on this laptop.
I don't know how accurate the monitor is,
| | 08:07 |
I'm going to do some test prints, I'm
going to go at this for real.
| | 08:10 |
But I wanted to show you how it is
possible to pull that haze out using
| | 08:14 |
nothing more than a levels or curves
adjustment to set the black point.
| | 08:17 |
Don't get carried away with it, you don't
want to take the haze out all the way.
| | 08:20 |
A little bit needs to be there to give
the viewer a queue for how much depth
| | 08:24 |
there is.
But it is a nice way of, getting usable
| | 08:26 |
landscapes, out of that, that dead flat
lighting part of day, where you gotta lot
| | 08:32 |
of haze in your way.
| | 08:33 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Shooting the sand dunes in changing light| 00:01 |
A lot of times when you say "desert" to
someone, what they picture are the
| | 00:04 |
Lawrence of Arabia kind of big sand dunes
off to the horizon kind of thing.
| | 00:09 |
The fact is that actually doesn't happen
that often.
| | 00:11 |
It's difficult to find areas where you
get sand dunes.
| | 00:14 |
As I mentioned before, Death Valley has 4
different dune fields.
| | 00:17 |
I'm sorry if I feel, if I look
distracted.
| | 00:19 |
It's just incredibly beautiful over
there, right now.
| | 00:21 |
Not like over here where it's incredibly
beautiful.
| | 00:24 |
Anyway, Death Valley has 4.
Four different dune field, this is the
| | 00:27 |
one near Stovepipe Wells.
The reason this happens is you've got a
| | 00:31 |
whole bunch of wind blowing sand off of
the mountains and off of some of the dry
| | 00:35 |
lake beds and things from that way, and
you've got a whole bunch of wind coming
| | 00:38 |
from that way.
The wind in Death Valley because it's this.
| | 00:40 |
Big valley is very predictable.
And, and so the sand can pretty much only
| | 00:45 |
get this far and then it just falls to
the ground.
| | 00:47 |
And it's been doing that for, ever, and
so there are these huge dunes.
| | 00:51 |
Now, we're not in the main dune field
here near Stovepipe Wells and that's
| | 00:57 |
because we're a commercial shoot.
If you're a commercial shoot you actually
| | 01:00 |
can not go into them.
They're over there.
| | 01:03 |
They're spectacular.
They're very tall.
| | 01:04 |
Honestly, it's -- I could stay there all
day long, particularly when the weather's
| | 01:09 |
nice, like this.
If it was 128 degrees, I might change my mind.
| | 01:11 |
It's, it's difficult to explain what it
is about this environment.
| | 01:15 |
It's incredibly quiet.
It's these beautiful curves, this
| | 01:18 |
incredible contrast these wonderful
highlights and reflections that are
| | 01:23 |
coming off of things.
It's, it's just a really peaceful,
| | 01:26 |
wonderful place to be.
So we're in this kind of smaller offset
| | 01:29 |
of it.
We're not going to see some of the things
| | 01:31 |
that I would do in a bigger dune field,
but you're going to kind of see what the
| | 01:37 |
issues are that I'm thinking about and
how I'm choosing to approach this.
| | 01:40 |
Now we've gotten lucky, the sun has come
out.
| | 01:43 |
What's great about the situation we're in
right now is, we're getting the best of
| | 01:46 |
both worlds.
We're getting good, high contrasting light.
| | 01:48 |
Look at all of the texture on the dunes.
We're getting a difference between the
| | 01:53 |
bright side of the dune and the dark side
of the dune.
| | 01:55 |
But we still have something interesting
in the sky.
| | 01:58 |
One of the things that's frustrating
about coming out here when it's not
| | 02:01 |
cloudy is, like we were facing in some
other locations, there's just that big
| | 02:05 |
empty blue Thing at the top of the frame
that you never quite know what to do with.
| | 02:09 |
So this is a really great situation to be
in, we've got contrasting light and
| | 02:13 |
something in the sky.
Now, very often when you are in sand
| | 02:17 |
dunes, what you're going for, and you can
only get this in the morning or the
| | 02:20 |
afternoon, is that harsh differential
between the shaded side and the bright
| | 02:24 |
side when you get that really strong seam
running between them.
| | 02:27 |
We're not going to have that in these
dunes because they're.
| | 02:30 |
Smaller but still I'm getting these cool
changes in texture and I'm also getting
| | 02:34 |
just going off into the distance just
this wonderful rolling, undulating thing.
| | 02:39 |
We climbed up on one.
One of the great things about this field
| | 02:41 |
we're in here is no one else has been
here.
| | 02:43 |
So there are not footprints around.
I'm going to choose my path very
| | 02:46 |
carefully because I don't want to spoil
any dunes with my own footprints.
| | 02:49 |
So I'm starting out by working this shot
here.
| | 02:51 |
I like this, it's like the spine of some
animal going off to the hills out there.
| | 02:56 |
And I've got a very clearly defined line
along the top of the dune.
| | 03:00 |
It's not a sharp cornis like, like some
dunes would have.
| | 03:05 |
It's kind of rolled, but still it's
smooth on one side and very rippled on
| | 03:09 |
the other.
So, I'm trying a couple of different
| | 03:12 |
things here.
I am starting out by just taking that
| | 03:17 |
strong line along the surface of the dune
and playing with that going to the horizon.
| | 03:22 |
(SOUND) I'm taking a fair amount of sky
here.
| | 03:25 |
Because the sky is actually interesting.
And I'm trying to figure out do I want
| | 03:31 |
that line just straight in the middle of
the frame, (SOUND) going up to the horizon?
| | 03:36 |
Do I want to play with making it more of
a diagonal line which I can do by moving up.
| | 03:41 |
Here so that it cuts across the frame.
And I can play with how much it cuts
| | 03:47 |
across the frame by moving back and
forth.
| | 03:50 |
I think I've done about as much as I can
do from here so I'm going to move forward now.
| | 03:54 |
The sand is nicely hard packed so it's
easy to walk in.
| | 04:05 |
Yeah and I, I think I'm liking this
better.
| | 04:07 |
I'm cutting out some of that big, just
empty expanse of sand that I had.
| | 04:11 |
Oh and this is completely different.
Ooh, and I've dropped down a little bit
| | 04:16 |
which is changing my perspective on the
sky.
| | 04:20 |
What I'm doing right now is being careful
that there's no flare interfering with my shot.
| | 04:25 |
Now there's something else to consider
here.
| | 04:27 |
Anytime that I have a nice sky, I want to
possible consider switching over to high
| | 04:34 |
dynamic range mode, shooting in HDR.
Bracketed set of this scene.
| | 04:38 |
It's going to allow me to pull a lot of
detail out of the sky.
| | 04:40 |
Sometimes it's a garish distracting
amount of detail, but I'm going to risk
| | 04:46 |
it anyway.
This camera has an auto bracketing mode.
| | 04:51 |
That works very well for HDR, I just
press the button once and it
| | 04:56 |
automatically shoots three shots
bracketed one step apart.
| | 05:01 |
Again, it's just great having these
clouds.
| | 05:02 |
I'm distracted by this little bush over
here.
| | 05:04 |
So, the things that I'm looking for,
objects on the ground that I can build a
| | 05:09 |
composition out of.
I've got a lot of other stuff going on here.
| | 05:12 |
I have actual mountains in the background
giving down on the valley and putting the
| | 05:16 |
soft shapes of the dunes against the
mountains might be something.
| | 05:19 |
And then I have all these just wonderful
repeating patterns.
| | 05:22 |
So got a fair amount of light and it's
keep changing.
| | 05:25 |
As the sun goes down lower a few things
are going to happen.
| | 05:28 |
These undulating patterns are going to
get more distinct.
| | 05:31 |
And the sand itself is going to pick up a
whole lot of texture.
| | 05:34 |
The grains of sand are actually going to
start to look bigger.
| | 05:37 |
So.
I want to keep an eye out for all of that.
| | 05:39 |
One thing I've learned, or been reminded
of over the last few days we've already
| | 05:43 |
talked about, is the difference of
shooting in to the light and shooting
| | 05:45 |
away from it.
I don't want to get so fixated on one
| | 05:48 |
direction that I ignore what the light
might be doing behind me.
| | 05:52 |
So, I'm going to try to move kind of
quickly here.
| | 05:54 |
Earlier, I shot this.
I was playing with this cool triangular
| | 06:01 |
shape, that dune and this bush.
And as you can see here, I tried a few
| | 06:06 |
different things.
Now that the sun has come out, I've got
| | 06:09 |
this harsh shadow, so I'm going to give
up on that triangular thing.
| | 06:12 |
I'm sure there's some name for it.
And just work on the bush here, which is
| | 06:16 |
getting a lot of really nice contrast on
it.
| | 06:19 |
And I think I can probably.
Put that dune directly behind it.
| | 06:26 |
(SOUND) Don't forget to move up and down
because as you do, you dramatically
| | 06:30 |
change relationship with the foreground
to the background here.
| | 06:34 |
Something else to just be ready for.
If you're coming into sand dunes, you're
| | 06:38 |
going to get sandy.
It's going to get all over your clothes,
| | 06:40 |
it's going to get in your shoes, it's
going to get all over your gear.
| | 06:43 |
none of that matters.
What matter is that you get masterful photographs.
| | 06:49 |
Anything else is just a waste of time.
No pressure.
| | 06:52 |
Yeah, it might screw up your camera, but
that can be repaired.
| | 06:57 |
You have to keep moving.
You have to keep moving when you're
| | 07:00 |
shooting anything.
In an environment like this, you really
| | 07:02 |
have to keep moving, because every time I
turn change directions or move forward
| | 07:06 |
and back.
A new vista pops up, they're not always
| | 07:09 |
perfectly composed.
Why can't the world be more perfectly composed?
| | 07:15 |
So I like that I'm getting just
repetition of rolling dunes going out
| | 07:20 |
there and this rugged landscape behind
it.
| | 07:22 |
I'm going to start with just a simple
wide shot of that and see what I can Get.
| | 07:32 |
I'm, as much as I'm having a strong
emotional reaction to this space, I'm not
| | 07:37 |
really sitting around going what does it
mean to be a sand dune or what does it
| | 07:41 |
make me feel or anything like that.
I am simply working Basic, formal,
| | 07:48 |
compositional ideas of geometry,
simplicity, teying to make sure ther's a
| | 07:54 |
subject and a background in my frame.
There's not a, this is not a real
| | 07:58 |
emotional kind of photography, other than
the emotion that I'm really glad that I'm
| | 08:03 |
here because it's pretty spectacular.
(SOUND) One thing to be aware of is that
| | 08:10 |
a lot of times, you might think, well I
just always want that ability to grab
| | 08:13 |
lots of details, so I'll just shoot HDR
all the time.
| | 08:16 |
Doesn't always work that way, you've got
to shoot HDR when you are in a situation
| | 08:20 |
with a lot of dynamic range.
Earlier, when the sun was behind the
| | 08:23 |
clouds, there was no reason to shoot HDR.
Nothing was that.
| | 08:27 |
totally or, or, there's not a tremendous
brightness differential between one thing
| | 08:32 |
or another.
So HDR is not always a guarantee of being
| | 08:35 |
able to pull a lot of detail.
So this is what I'm just going to
| | 08:38 |
continue to do for a while.
Wander around here, trying to work as
| | 08:42 |
quickly as possible, finding interesting
texture, interesting line.
| | 08:47 |
Again I'm, I'm just composing in a very
formal way.
| | 08:50 |
Trying to move quickly, trying to do all
my basic exposure stuff.
| | 08:55 |
I'm thinking about depth of field, I'm
watching my aperture, I'm in aperture
| | 08:57 |
priority mode, and I'm just going to see
what I can find.
| | 09:00 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Wrapping up the sand dune shots| 00:01 |
I'm actually, supposed to be, talking to
you guys right now.
| | 00:04 |
We, we were allegedly shooting a movie,
except that at the last minute I, I
| | 00:07 |
spotted this thing.
I just can't stop out here.
| | 00:09 |
There's this cool, crusty sand that's
sticking up out of the soft sand.
| | 00:12 |
Anyway, that's none of your concern.
I, the sun is going down very quickly.
| | 00:16 |
I'm losing light.
There's still just more and more all the time.
| | 00:19 |
It's a really.
Really spectacular place to shoot, and
| | 00:22 |
just a wonderful place to be.
As you've probably already noticed, I'm
| | 00:26 |
not using my SLR.
I'm using my mirrorless camera.
| | 00:29 |
This is a Fuji XE1.
Which I really like, but because it
| | 00:33 |
delivers exceptional image quality.
And I don't have to give up my
| | 00:36 |
interchangeable lenses.
It's got a great interface, but the
| | 00:39 |
reason I'm carrying it with me now is
pretty simple.
| | 00:41 |
If you have ever walked along a beach,
you know that walking through sand can be
| | 00:45 |
really tiring, and here it's climbing up,
and down sand, and it's a bit of a hike
| | 00:50 |
to get out here in the first place.
I wanted to go lightweight.
| | 00:53 |
So instead of bringing my SLR, I brought
the Fuji and four different lenses.
| | 00:57 |
This whole arrangement weighs less than
my SLR and two lenses.
| | 01:01 |
So I don't feel like I'm giving up
anything image quality wise or functionally.
| | 01:06 |
But it's a lot easier on my shoulder.
It's a little bit hard to work with
| | 01:10 |
viewfinder wise because it's got an
electronic viewfinder Instead of a nice,
| | 01:13 |
bright optical viewfinder.
But still, I'm glad that I won't be so
| | 01:16 |
sore at the end of the day.
There's some little mouse footprints or
| | 01:19 |
something across here.
They're really adorable.
| | 01:20 |
Anyway like I said, it just, there's just
more all the time.
| | 01:24 |
If you find yourself in some sand dunes,
and you want to shoot them, if I was to
| | 01:29 |
sum up, I would offer the following
advice.
| | 01:32 |
First of all, as you saw I'm kind of
overwhelmed here.
| | 01:35 |
There's so much to shoot and some of it's
macro details.
| | 01:38 |
Some of it is, wow, look at that.
There's this really cool big black cloud
| | 01:42 |
up there.
So some of it's this big huge landscape
| | 01:45 |
view like this, that you just can't help
but keep shooting, and shooting, and shooting.
| | 01:50 |
Don't give over to that so much that you
miss the fact that there are really
| | 01:54 |
adorable little mouse footprints going
along here.
| | 01:56 |
You want to shoot the big and the small,
and you don't want to get too locked up
| | 01:59 |
in either.
As we saw yesterday I want to really pay
| | 02:03 |
attention to direction of light.
I don't want to get so focused shooting
| | 02:06 |
mouse footprints, or whatever it is over
here, that I ignore the fact that
| | 02:09 |
shooting into the light gives me
something very different.
| | 02:12 |
Something else that you don't encounter
in a lot of regular shooting, that you do
| | 02:16 |
frequently encounter in landscape
shooting, and particularly in an
| | 02:18 |
environment like this, is the layering
issue that we looked at earlier.
| | 02:23 |
I've got multiple lines of sand dunes.
I've got those kind of badlandsy little
| | 02:28 |
foot hills over there.
I've got mountains.
| | 02:29 |
I've got sky.
The sky has layers of clouds.
| | 02:32 |
I need to pay very, very close attention
to the relationship between all those
| | 02:37 |
different layers.
And I need to manipulate that relationship.
| | 02:40 |
And in almost every case the the way that
I change that relationship is to move up
| | 02:43 |
and down.
If I move down I'm going to hide some
| | 02:46 |
layers, if I stand up I'm going to
typically reveal more.
| | 02:49 |
It's really easy to overlook that part,
particularly if you're worried about the
| | 02:53 |
subject that's maybe in the foreground of
your image.
| | 02:55 |
So don't ignore your background and all
the different layers of different types
| | 02:58 |
of terrain that are in there.
You need to pay attention to those and
| | 03:01 |
manipulate them the way that you want to.
There are not a lot of places like this.
| | 03:05 |
There are not a lot of dune fields in the
world to begin with, let alone any that
| | 03:09 |
you can get access to.
A lot of them are covered with tire
| | 03:12 |
tracks, and footprints, and so on and so
forth.
| | 03:14 |
So it's a really great thing when you
find an occasion like this.
| | 03:17 |
This is not typical, everyday desert
landscape shooting.
| | 03:21 |
But if you can get yourself to Death
Valley or another place with great sand
| | 03:24 |
dunes, it's really, really worth the
trip.
| | 03:27 |
Wow!
The sunset just kept going.
| | 03:32 |
It kept going and going and going.
it's finally gone.
| | 03:35 |
We're here into full on dusk, the
temperatures dropping amazingly quickly.
| | 03:39 |
You know that it does that in the desert
but still it's always surprising.
| | 03:42 |
I finally got my camera put away.
I just couldn't stop.
| | 03:45 |
There just kept being more and more.
And even after the sun was gone and the
| | 03:49 |
foreground was dead, the sky was still
amazing.
| | 03:51 |
So, don't, don't short trip the light.
Wait it all out, look for all of it.
| | 03:58 |
It's, I was surprised at what all
happened even after it was behind the mountains.
| | 04:03 |
It's been an interesting day for me
because I got up early and went out on
| | 04:06 |
the lake bed and then finished out here
in the dunes, and.
| | 04:10 |
You know, I know this, and I know this.
It's like, it's like working out.
| | 04:12 |
It's like, you know, that well I should
go to the gym.
| | 04:14 |
I'll feel better afterwards.
But you never do it.
| | 04:17 |
I feel the same way sometimes about the
getting up early thing and shooting in
| | 04:19 |
the light.
I don't like getting up early and, but
| | 04:22 |
boy it really is.
There's nothing like that early morning
| | 04:25 |
light, and that late afternoon light.
It's not just that it's pretty.
| | 04:28 |
It's not just that it makes nice
contrast.
| | 04:30 |
It's that you see things that you just
don't see at any other time of day.
| | 04:35 |
Not just the play of light and shadow,
but the shape of certain objects will
| | 04:39 |
change depending on, or the appearance of
it will change, depending on the light.
| | 04:43 |
So it's been a good reminder for me that
I can't cheat that, at least in terms of landscape.
| | 04:48 |
You gotta get up early and use the light.
You gotta stay out late and use the light.
| | 04:52 |
It's really makes all the difference.
| | 04:53 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
3. Desert Roadtrip: Day ThreePlanning out the third day| 00:07 |
(SOUND).
This is the bad news about landscape photography.
| | 00:12 |
If you really are serious about it, you
have to get up very, very early.
| | 00:17 |
Some people may not think of this as
very, very early, but, they're weird.
| | 00:20 |
You gotta get up before sunrise, whoa,
and we're about to miss our turn here.
| | 00:24 |
You gotta get up very early to get the
good light, so, it's about 6:30 right now.
| | 00:32 |
Now, I know I'm a wimp and we are heading
off to Panamint dry lake bed.
| | 00:40 |
You can see that the sun is already
rising, it's hit the other side of the valley.
| | 00:43 |
And so we're going to watch that line
come forward and eventually swallow us up
| | 00:48 |
in what should be very, very pretty
light.
| | 00:51 |
there's not much preparation other than I
grabbed my camera, and now, we've gotta
| | 00:56 |
drive this pretty rutted-out road for
about 20 minutes to get to the spot that
| | 01:01 |
I want to go to.
This is a case where I've been to this
| | 01:04 |
spot before, so I know where we're going.
If I hadn't been here before, what I
| | 01:07 |
would want to do is try to, I probably
would have noticed the lake bed and gone,
| | 01:11 |
wow, I really want to get out there and
do some shooting early.
| | 01:13 |
And then, it's just about trying to
figure out where the sun is going to be.
| | 01:16 |
The sun rises in the east, sets in the
west, this is the east side of the
| | 01:19 |
valley, so I know I've got time to get
over here.
| | 01:21 |
I watched the sunset yesterday morning.
I've also been watching the moon rise.
| | 01:27 |
And so, from the moon rise, I can tell
that, from the time that the moon
| | 01:30 |
allegedly rose till the time I saw it
come over the mountains was about 20 minutes.
| | 01:35 |
So I checked that sunrise and basically
added 20 minutes to it and kind of gauged
| | 01:41 |
my departure time that way so I could
leave as early as possible.
| | 01:44 |
Nevertheless, it's still earlier than I'd
like it to be.
| | 01:47 |
But once the sun comes up, it's going to
be very exciting and that really
| | 01:50 |
energizes everything.
| | 01:54 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Exploring the light in the dry lake bed| 00:01 |
We're on the lake bed.
We got here just in time.
| | 00:03 |
The light is just coming up over there.
It's fun because you can actually see the
| | 00:08 |
line of the shadow just crossing across
me.
| | 00:11 |
So I had kind of hoped to shoot some
before the light examples for you but
| | 00:16 |
it's, the sun's coming up earlier today.
Still, this is great.
| | 00:20 |
We're just starting to see the contrast
come out.
| | 00:23 |
Shadows are starting to appear and get
really long, textures starting to appear
| | 00:28 |
on the ground.
We're getting this beautiful warmth, I
| | 00:31 |
mean warmth of light, so I think we're in
for a good morning of shooting here.
| | 00:39 |
So, out here and the lights great.
But, boy, I've got a lot of landscape,
| | 00:45 |
where do I start?
So, this is a dry lake bed.
| | 00:49 |
It's the flattest naturally occurring
phenomenon in the world.
| | 00:56 |
It's interesting, there's this hard
packed mud stuff underneath, that can
| | 01:00 |
have cool textures on it.
The area we're in right now is covered
| | 01:04 |
with sand.
I've got these bushes and sticks and
| | 01:07 |
rocks around.
So, plus I got this big broad vista.
| | 01:13 |
The moon is still up, which is really
nice.
| | 01:15 |
It's fun out here, we're getting to see
the moon rise at night, and getting to
| | 01:18 |
watch it set first thing in the morning.
Tire tracks.
| | 01:22 |
That wasn't really what I was hoping to
find.
| | 01:23 |
So, at the moment I'm thinking small.
I'm, I'm not going for the big view so much.
| | 01:32 |
It's hazy.
I'll work on that a little bit later.
| | 01:36 |
What's feeling unique to me out here are
these textures that I'm seeing on the ground.
| | 01:41 |
So it's really about just a lot of really
formal composition kind of things, just
| | 01:45 |
finding elements to compose with to build
up a good foreground background relationship.
| | 01:51 |
So I'm looking for a combination of
interesting things on the ground but I'm
| | 01:56 |
finding that I need to have them in an
environment that's Kind of simple.
| | 02:01 |
I don't want too much clutter in the
background.
| | 02:03 |
So I'm finding, I'm trying to find the
right combination of things.
| | 02:06 |
And it's a bit of a just a needle in a
haystack thing.
| | 02:08 |
The first tip I would give is you can
walk around like this and look and think
| | 02:14 |
you're seeing stuff, but as soon as you
bring the camera up to your eye and get
| | 02:17 |
that frame in to consideration,
everything changes.
| | 02:21 |
That's when you really start seeing, oh
there's a relationship between this thing
| | 02:24 |
and that thing that I didn't recognize
before.
| | 02:26 |
So don't just walk around, you have got
to walk around and look through the camera.
| | 02:32 |
Now, there might be something that
catches your eye.
| | 02:34 |
There's this one bush with no leaves on
it amidst all these others.
| | 02:38 |
Maybe that's an interesting relationship
of some kind.
| | 02:43 |
Or maybe not.
So, I'll keep going.
| | 02:45 |
There's a stick out there that's brightly
lit up.
| | 02:47 |
That could be interesting.
I'm looking for, interesting light.
| | 02:51 |
And by interesting light, I mean, plays
of lights and shadow.
| | 02:54 |
Plays of texture and detail.
I'm looking for interesting interplay of
| | 02:59 |
geometric things.
And to try and help me see them, I'm kind
| | 03:03 |
of just constantly picking up my camera
and looking through it to see what the
| | 03:07 |
frame reveals to me about relationships.
Okay.
| | 03:14 |
So this catches my eye.
I've got the bush right in the middle of
| | 03:17 |
this wash here.
And so I've got potentially some
| | 03:22 |
interesting geometrical stuff that's
right in the center and the edges of the
| | 03:25 |
wash make for nice receding parallel
lines that kind of curve away, in the
| | 03:30 |
distance I've got a mountain and cloud.
That's just what I notice as I'm walking around.
| | 03:34 |
That's a place where I might stop and go,
oh, maybe there's potential here.
| | 03:37 |
The thing is when you've got just all of
this stuff around you, you're looking for
| | 03:42 |
Anything that you can try to hang a shot
on.
| | 03:45 |
otherwise you have to walk around doing
this all the time.
| | 03:47 |
So, I'm, I'm looking for these moments
but then I stop and frame up a shot.
| | 03:53 |
And okay, as far as a wide vista shot,
that's at least got some geometric
| | 03:57 |
elements in it.
That help control the viewers eye.
| | 04:00 |
Don't forget to try different things so
there was a landscape shot here's a
| | 04:05 |
portrait shot maybe not so interesting
I'm shooting the deep depth of field here
| | 04:09 |
I'm just staying on F11.
Because I'm figuring that on these shots,
| | 04:14 |
I'm going to want everything to be in
focus.
| | 04:16 |
This bush is a lot of little fine detail,
up against a really rocky background,
| | 04:22 |
that right now has tremendous texture,
because of this great light that we've got.
| | 04:26 |
So the bush is getting lost a little bit.
I'm not sure that it is a really strong.
| | 04:29 |
Anchoring compositional element.
Still, as far as trying to shoot some
| | 04:35 |
wide stuff, I do like just having this
stuff in the foreground to hold the
| | 04:40 |
viewer's eye and lead them out there to
the mountains.
| | 04:44 |
So this is a chance where, instead.
Oh look, there's the moon up there.
| | 04:47 |
this is a chance where, instead of.
Building a nice little still-life out of
| | 04:51 |
stuff nearby.
I'm building a big shot, which I said I
| | 04:55 |
was going to do later, now I've just
stumbled in to one.
| | 04:57 |
I'm building a wider vista, but by using
the elements on the ground to help keep
| | 05:01 |
the composition under control.
I'm going to go check out this branch
| | 05:09 |
over here.
So I've got this piece of burned wood here.
| | 05:14 |
It's, it's small but it's really picking
up the light nice.
| | 05:17 |
It's got some nice texture on it.
I have no idea if there's anything to be
| | 05:21 |
done with it.
The other thing that I've got working for
| | 05:23 |
me here is now I've got the island in the
background.
| | 05:27 |
Which, really works for me as a shape
because it is so symmetrical and it has
| | 05:31 |
this beautiful cone right in the middle
of it.
| | 05:37 |
so, just a very simple composition of
sticking that branch in the foreground
| | 05:43 |
(SOUND) and the island thing in the
background gives me this.
| | 05:47 |
Which is kind of nice.
I am focusing actually on the ground
| | 05:51 |
cause its critical that the branch be in
focus.
| | 05:54 |
There's a good chance that the island is
not going to be in focus.
| | 05:59 |
But it's so far in the background,
there's not a lot of fine detail on it to
| | 06:03 |
be seen away at the size that it's
going to be in the final image.
| | 06:06 |
So I don't think that I have to worry
about it too much.
| | 06:09 |
I'm also thinking that I don't need my
entire frame here.
| | 06:13 |
Take a look at this.
(SOUND) Now I framed it like this
| | 06:17 |
because, I like the top of the frame
composed that way.
| | 06:20 |
I like where is the branch is.
I don't need all of that stuff at the
| | 06:23 |
bottom of the frame, so I'm just
expecting that I'll crop that out.
| | 06:27 |
I could also do something more like this
(SOUND), and crop the top and the bottom,
| | 06:33 |
which might be a better idea, because the
center of the lens probably has better
| | 06:37 |
sharpness than the edges of the lens so
trying to compose within the center might
| | 06:40 |
be a better idea.
So I'm just going to sit here and for a
| | 06:45 |
moment and see what else I can do with
this branch.
| | 06:47 |
Set this other lens down so that I can
move a little better.
| | 06:53 |
So I can think about the branch in
relationship to other things in the landscape.
| | 06:58 |
Oh, wow, when I get down here I get the
branch as kind of big landscape feature
| | 07:04 |
and the island as big landscape feature.
Now I know there is no way that I've got
| | 07:09 |
enough depth of field for that.
But it's a completely still day today.
| | 07:14 |
Nothing is blowing around.
So I'm going to try bracketing my focus a
| | 07:19 |
little bit with the idea that I can merge
these images later.
| | 07:22 |
To get deeper depth of field.
So the way that works is, I'm going to
| | 07:25 |
frame my shot a little bit wider than I
need.
| | 07:29 |
I'm going to focus on the branch.
All right.
| | 07:34 |
There we go.
Focus on the branch and take a shot.
| | 07:37 |
Now holding my camera in the same place,
I'm going to manually, refocus, out to
| | 07:43 |
the middle of the image and take a shot.
And then I'm going to manually focus on
| | 07:48 |
the island, and take another shot.
In my Image Editor, I can combine these
| | 07:52 |
into a single image with really deep
focus.
| | 07:55 |
This is something called focus stacking.
It's normally what you do to get deeper
| | 07:59 |
depth of field in a macro shot.
It's a difficult technique to employ in
| | 08:03 |
landscape shooting because the landscape
can change between those shots
| | 08:06 |
particularly if it's a windy day.
We don't have that much out here to blow
| | 08:11 |
around, and we don't have any wind so I
can actually do some very simple focus
| | 08:16 |
stacking out here to get myself deeper
depth of field.
| | 08:18 |
That's looking pretty good, I think I've
done everything I can with the burned out
| | 08:27 |
branch here.
It is some nice texture, if I had a macro
| | 08:30 |
lens with me.
I might want to do some macro shots.
| | 08:34 |
but I'd rather use this kind of light for
landscape shooting.
| | 08:39 |
Because that kind of macro work is
something you can do anywhere.
| | 08:42 |
I could always get some burned wood at
home, and set it out, and do macro shots
| | 08:46 |
at home.
So I'm going to keep moving.
| | 08:48 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Working the light in the dry lake bed| 00:01 |
It's a, it's a strange combination here,
in Panamint Valley, and in Death Valley.
| | 00:05 |
There's expanse.
There is scale.
| | 00:07 |
I've got just this big, empty, flat thing
around me, and it feels really good for
| | 00:13 |
some reason.
And it's strange, because I grew up in Oklahoma.
| | 00:16 |
I'm used to flat ground, and sky that
goes on forever.
| | 00:20 |
And yet something about this, I just feel
really comfortable.
| | 00:23 |
I think it's partly that I've got all
this space, but it's bounded.
| | 00:27 |
I have these wonderful mountains around
me, I'm in this kind of cozy little,
| | 00:31 |
gigantic howling wilderness.
There's a great scene in Lawrence of
| | 00:35 |
Arabia where Lawrence comes out of the
desert and some reporter asks him, why do
| | 00:40 |
you like the desert so much Lawrence.
And you know it's Peter O'Toole, and he's
| | 00:43 |
got those piercing blue eyes and, and he
looks right at the guy and he says, it's clean.
| | 00:48 |
And I know what he means, it's,
everything's bleached out out here, and
| | 00:52 |
the dryness, it's really hot but you
never actually feel like you're sweating,
| | 00:56 |
because your sweat just evaporates before
you even know you have it.
| | 00:58 |
There's just this clean, stark, simple
thing out here.
| | 01:02 |
All right.
So if that's what I'm really feeling out
| | 01:05 |
here, how can I get that?
How do you take a picture of that?
| | 01:08 |
And I, I need to stick with some of my
formal compositional stuff here.
| | 01:15 |
I need a foreground and a background, the
viewer's eye has to know what to do.
| | 01:18 |
So I've been doing a lot of, as you've
seen I've been doing a lot of this kind
| | 01:22 |
of thing, which is a nice enough formal
composition.
| | 01:24 |
But what I'm getting at here is the scale
and this vastness I, a wide-angle lens
| | 01:30 |
is, is your impulse in an environment
like this.
| | 01:34 |
You might go wow look at all that stuff,
here I better go as wide as possible and
| | 01:39 |
take a picture of it.
And I get this and, my eye doesn't really
| | 01:42 |
know what to do there.
So I want to combine these things.
| | 01:45 |
There's a sense of scale here that I
want, which is leading me to think.
| | 01:48 |
I need to capture wider, but, I've still
gotta keep my formal compositional stuff going.
| | 01:54 |
I've still got to make sure that the
viewer's eye knows what to do.
| | 01:58 |
And one of the nice things about some of
the, these big plains and shapes and
| | 02:04 |
textures out here is they do give kind of
compositional containers to work with.
| | 02:11 |
I'm going to go really exaggerated here.
I've got my 16 to 35 on, and I'm going to
| | 02:20 |
get down here and go really, really ultra
wide, but still maintaining some sense of
| | 02:27 |
foreground background relationship.
So something like this.
| | 02:30 |
Now, this is not actually what the scene
looks like to my eye.
| | 02:36 |
This photo is creating a kind of gross
exaggeration of what I am actually seeing.
| | 02:42 |
What I'm actually seeing is not that much
distance from me to the island.
| | 02:46 |
This image though is showing a tremendous
stretching It's showing a tremendous
| | 02:51 |
expansion of space and a much bigger sky
than my eye sees.
| | 02:55 |
But I think this is a case where maybe
that approach can kind of work, and I'm
| | 02:59 |
going to shoot this some more and see
what I come up with.
| | 03:02 |
There's an idea that you know when you're
writing a play or a book or something,
| | 03:06 |
you have to take every day life and blow
it up larger.
| | 03:08 |
You have to blow it up into drama.
Painters get to do that inherently
| | 03:12 |
because they get add only the lines they
want, they can decide where those lines go.
| | 03:17 |
As photographers it's very difficult
because we're, we're dealing with a very
| | 03:22 |
Xerox copy of the world.
So when I can exaggerate, when I can try
| | 03:27 |
to get the reality blown up a little bit
into a more dramatic space.
| | 03:31 |
Maybe that's a way of approaching the
possibility of representing the emotional
| | 03:35 |
state that I'm having here.
So, I feel like good photos come from two places.
| | 03:40 |
They come from that formal composition
work, and they come from trying to
| | 03:44 |
identify what it is for you that strikes
you about a scene.
| | 03:49 |
And then taking that formal compositional
stuff and your technical understanding,
| | 03:53 |
and trying to understand how to use that
vocabulary to express that thing that
| | 03:56 |
you've identified that you're feeling.
This is a, a good way to try to explore
| | 04:01 |
it by thinking about taking the literal
thing that's there and trying to make it
| | 04:05 |
more dramatic.
As I do that I will hopefully come up
| | 04:10 |
with some good pictures and hopefully
I'll also come up with a better
| | 04:12 |
understanding of what it is that I'm
feeling while I'm out here.
| | 04:16 |
Right now, I'm about to forget a lens, so
I'm going to go back and get it.
| | 04:21 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| What to do when the good light is gone| 00:03 |
(SOUND).
Alright.
| | 00:04 |
I shot, I shot some more, out on the
lake.
| | 00:07 |
We're, we're getting into the last of the
light.
| | 00:09 |
So this is a lot like shooting in the
late afternoon.
| | 00:13 |
It's now changing very quickly.
But it's a little bit harder to tell that
| | 00:16 |
it's changing very quickly because it's
not changing into dark, it's just
| | 00:19 |
changing into, flat Low contrast.
So I went to get back on the road heading
| | 00:26 |
back out because as I drive this way, I'm
driving into the sun.
| | 00:31 |
And I think I'm going to start to see
some very different things.
| | 00:34 |
I'm going to get a very different
perspective on the whole area, very
| | 00:38 |
different from what I saw coming in.
So, this is really just like what I've
| | 00:42 |
been saying about when your out walking
around, you got to be sure your keeping
| | 00:44 |
track of light in all directions.
I'm hoping that as we drive into the sun,
| | 00:48 |
I'm going to see some things light up in
interesting ways.
| | 00:54 |
So, I'm just going to drive along here,
I'm keeping my eyes peeled.
| | 00:57 |
I'm trying not to roll the car, but more
importantly, I'm trying to find some good shots.
| | 01:03 |
(NOISE) I don't know what this is.
I'm not convinced it's a naturally
| | 01:11 |
occurring phenomenon.
But it's really different and interesting
| | 01:13 |
and starting to get this cool, these
striations on the mountain.
| | 01:18 |
So I'm going to see what, what I can do
here.
| | 01:21 |
(NOISE) The appeal of something like this
is it's converging lines, so that's just
| | 01:32 |
immediately something that can focus the
viewer's attention.
| | 01:35 |
I like that it's pointing (SOUND) right
to that white stripe on the mountains.
| | 01:40 |
I'm just not sure how much I need here.
I like these two little rocks in the
| | 01:44 |
foreground, so (SOUND) I'll shoot it with
that.
| | 01:46 |
But it might be that (SOUND) that's a
better shot.
| | 01:49 |
It's hazy.
I'm going to be able to, of course, take
| | 01:54 |
that out with a black point adjustment.
I don't think there's much else here, so
| | 01:57 |
I'm going to keep going while the light's
still good.
| | 02:04 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Exploring the vistas for a more dramatic shot| 00:01 |
One of the things you can do with the
middle part of the day, when there's no
| | 00:04 |
light is nap and that's what I've been
doing and it was a really good idea.
| | 00:08 |
It makes the getting up for sunrise
easier to tolerate.
| | 00:12 |
Also, it got really really windy, that
wind that you saw out on the lake got worse.
| | 00:18 |
so much worse that it's actually
difficult to be outside shooting.
| | 00:22 |
That's something you need to think about
if you're going to come to Death Valley.
| | 00:26 |
It can be prohibitively windy here.
Between the sand blowing around that you
| | 00:31 |
don't want to get in your camera and just
the fact that it's hard to stand upright.
| | 00:35 |
and just the general discomfort in being
in that kind of wind.
| | 00:38 |
It's loud and it just kind of pounds on
you.
| | 00:40 |
That can go on for days here.
So, if you're only going to come here for
| | 00:44 |
3 or 4 days, especially in the spring,
you need to be prepared for the fact that
| | 00:48 |
you might get blown out.
It might be too windy to really shoot here.
| | 00:52 |
So you might have to think about a backup
plan.
| | 00:55 |
Now that's not just Death Valley Death
Valley opens up into the southern part of
| | 00:59 |
the Mojave.
So if you were thinking, well, if Death
| | 01:01 |
Valley is too windy I'll just go down to,
say, the Mojave preserve that's down there.
| | 01:06 |
Nah, it's all going to be windy.
So you might want to think about going
| | 01:10 |
into the Sierras, or going to Mount
Whitney, or something like that.
| | 01:15 |
Just know that it can be a very difficult
thing to deal with here.
| | 01:18 |
And if you're only coming for a short
time, it is possible that it could be
| | 01:20 |
windy the whole time.
Or, it can be like what we've mostly had,
| | 01:23 |
which is beautiful weather.
It has calmed down, now.
| | 01:26 |
We got real lucky.
So, I'm trying to figure out what to do
| | 01:30 |
with the afternoon light.
And I've been thinking that, while I have
| | 01:37 |
taken a few, kind of broader, vista
shots, mostly I've been focusing on
| | 01:41 |
small, nearby things.
I have used the background some, but I
| | 01:45 |
haven't done the big, grand view, that
you sometimes really think of as
| | 01:49 |
landscape photography.
So I think I'd like to go do some of
| | 01:51 |
that, and talk through some of what I'm
thinking about when I'm shooting that
| | 01:54 |
kind of thing.
Not far from here, just back up the road,
| | 01:57 |
there are a couple of really big vista
points that let us see the entire valley.
| | 02:00 |
So I'm thinking we're going to go up
there and do some shooting.
| | 02:04 |
Now, just because it has calmed down down
here, I don't know what it's going to be
| | 02:08 |
like up at 4,000, 5,000 feet where we're
going to be going.
| | 02:10 |
So I've put on another layer.
It's a very wrinkly layer.
| | 02:14 |
But that's another great thing about
being in the desert.
| | 02:16 |
No one's going to see me, so I don't
care.
| | 02:19 |
So I'm preparing for a little bit colder
weather, thinking that probably we'll
| | 02:23 |
just stay there until the sun goes down
and see what we can shoot.
| | 02:26 |
It's not far, I'm going to take my, I'm
not going to take my Fuji this time, I'm
| | 02:30 |
going to take my SLR rig and see what I
can find.
| | 02:33 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Composing the vista shot| 00:01 |
I said we were coming up here to shoot
big vistas.
| | 00:03 |
And I'm going to do that.
But we got up here.
| | 00:06 |
It, it was closer than I remembered.
So we got up here with good light and a
| | 00:10 |
lot of time to spare.
So I decided there was no reason not to
| | 00:14 |
walk around and shoot some other stuff.
And when I got up on top of the ridge
| | 00:17 |
here, there's all this lava flow and, in
the low light it looked beautiful when
| | 00:23 |
you looked into the sun.
The flat planes of the rocks really light
| | 00:27 |
up in this really nice way.
So that's what I'm doing here, walking
| | 00:30 |
around shooting.
And, mostly what I was playing with was
| | 00:35 |
just trying to find something to do with
those beautiful black rocks.
| | 00:38 |
Sometimes it was composing them against
the landscape in the background.
| | 00:43 |
Sometimes it was trying to compose them
against these little white bushes.
| | 00:47 |
There was there were these perfectly
white branchy things that looked really
| | 00:51 |
nice against the black, or at least I
thought they should.
| | 00:53 |
I, I couldn't really figure that one out.
Some people ask me about the fact that I
| | 00:58 |
shoot with my sunglasses on, and.
Yes, I do take a hit to contrast that way.
| | 01:05 |
Actually I get more contrast with my
sunglasses on because they're polarized.
| | 01:08 |
The thing is, I'm prone to migraines, and
light is a trigger for me so.
| | 01:12 |
It's better for me to have some
inaccurate contrast perception (LAUGH),
| | 01:16 |
rather than no perception at all, which
is what I'll get if a migraine comes on.
| | 01:19 |
So, yeah I shoot with my sunglasses on
for that reason.
| | 01:23 |
I actually like it now, I've learned to
understand how to translate what I seen
| | 01:27 |
through the sunglasses into a final
image.
| | 01:30 |
And they're kind of an interesting
pre-visualization tool, because they do
| | 01:33 |
give me a dramatic increase in contrast.
And so a lot of times I'll look at the
| | 01:38 |
images straight out of the camera and go,
"Well, that's kind of boring." But when I
| | 01:41 |
go in and start playing with the contrast
and get it back more to like what I was
| | 01:44 |
seeing through my sunglasses, then
something really happens.
| | 01:48 |
So It's nice in this instance to have the
luxury of enough light to really play around.
| | 01:53 |
I feel like I've got a little more
afternoon light than normal, because I'm
| | 01:55 |
up higher.
It's not setting behind a mountain range.
| | 01:58 |
So I'm a little more relaxed today than I
was yesterday.
| | 02:01 |
So, I'm probably going to keep shooting
around here a little more, and then go to
| | 02:04 |
a couple of the big vistas.
I did quickly shoot two, though.
| | 02:08 |
and before I get to my methodology here,
I just want to show you the difference
| | 02:13 |
between, I keep talking about how having
empty skies Is a little bit disappointing.
| | 02:18 |
And here's why.
Here's a shot today that I took today.
| | 02:21 |
Looking here from this look out.
It's nice enough.
| | 02:24 |
Here's the same shot, I shot a couple of
years ago when the sky was really dramatic.
| | 02:27 |
And you can really see the difference
when there's something in the sky.
| | 02:31 |
It not only, fills that upper half of the
frame, but it gives you elements to
| | 02:33 |
compose with.
This, cloud over here on the right side,
| | 02:36 |
I was just treating that as another
geographic element that I could use to
| | 02:39 |
border my image.
Here's another shot.
| | 02:41 |
here's this lookout point as I shot it
today.
| | 02:43 |
It's certainly very dramatic.
I like having the big view.
| | 02:46 |
But look at what happens, if you're lucky
enough to get here on a day when there's
| | 02:50 |
a big dramatic sky.
Much more compelling image to me, much
| | 02:56 |
more atmospheric.
So ideally you want to, if, if everything
| | 03:00 |
works out you come to Death Valley and
you get some of both.
| | 03:02 |
Or you come to the desert, you come to
any landscape and you get some of both.
| | 03:06 |
You get some nice clear days where you
get good sharp contrast and nice deep shadows.
| | 03:10 |
And then you get other days with some
stuff in the sky.
| | 03:13 |
It has turned out to be insanely windy
here up.
| | 03:17 |
It's, it's almost uncomfortably windy and
it's a lot colder.
| | 03:19 |
We've had a big elevation gain, so I'm
glad I brought an extra layer
| | 03:23 |
particularly since I'm laying around in
the dirt.
| | 03:25 |
However, there's still a lot of time left
and so I'm going to get back to shooting.
| | 03:30 |
One thing that I'm liking that's
happening Is, I'm, we are having some
| | 03:34 |
good luck here with the clouds today, we
do have some clouds in the sky.
| | 03:36 |
And, as the sun is getting lower the
bottom side of them is darkening, so I'm
| | 03:40 |
glad I waited because they weren't dark
like that before and it makes them a lot
| | 03:45 |
more interesting.
In post production, I want to be careful
| | 03:47 |
about my contrast adjustments.
I never want any bottom part of the sky
| | 03:51 |
to go to pure black.
In fact when you get out here and get the
| | 03:54 |
chance to see skies like this, take note
of how dark the darkness part goes.
| | 03:58 |
Because you never want to edit a cloud.
Past that, because it really doesn't look real.
| | 04:02 |
So I'm going to get back out there.
The wind's kind of exhausting, it just
| | 04:06 |
pounds at you all the time, and it's
really noisy.
| | 04:09 |
So it's nice to take a little break here
in this little shelter.
| | 04:11 |
I'm going to get out there.
I don't know how much light is left, so I
| | 04:14 |
feel like I need to keep moving.
| | 04:19 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Evaluating the vista shot| 00:01 |
On the one hand it seems like coming to a
beautiful spot like this and getting a
| | 00:05 |
good picture should be very easy.
Because when I step out of the car here,
| | 00:08 |
it's fantastic, it's, it's spectacular
and it's really pretty.
| | 00:12 |
But it's actually a difficult thing to
shoot because when you got all of this,
| | 00:16 |
where do you start?
You can't fit it all into your frame.
| | 00:19 |
So you've got to pick and choose, and
when you do fit it into your frame,
| | 00:23 |
you've got to ascribe some order to it so
that the viewer knows what to do.
| | 00:28 |
Now, I've been saying throughout this
course, and you here me talk about it ad
| | 00:33 |
nauseum in the composition course and
some other places.
| | 00:35 |
About how you need a subject and you need
a background.
| | 00:38 |
That's not so much the case when you're
shooting a vista because your background
| | 00:43 |
is your subject.
Your background is your foreground,.your
| | 00:45 |
foreground is your background.
It gets very philosophical.
| | 00:46 |
So, the, I don't have necessarily the
option of having a good, strong,
| | 00:53 |
foreground element to serve as an anchor
for the viewers eye.
| | 00:56 |
Instead, what I need to do, is try to
find things within the scene that I can
| | 01:01 |
use compositionally in a different way.
And what I tend to think of it as, as.
| | 01:05 |
I tend to think of it as bordering the
scene somehow.
| | 01:08 |
I still need to work on trying to control
the viewers eye and lead it in to the
| | 01:13 |
land scape.
So, I set out to shoot a couple of
| | 01:16 |
different things from here, just as I was
wondering around.
| | 01:19 |
And I took two different approaches,
sometimes I shot panoramas that I will
| | 01:22 |
stitch together, because I couldn't get
the full range that I wanted.
| | 01:26 |
And at other times I was able to get
things in single shots.
| | 01:29 |
So here's a single shot of this scene,
what's nice about this is I've got that
| | 01:33 |
big circular drive thing out there to
form a boundary on the right side of the image.
| | 01:38 |
I was looking for something on the left
side, and thought, well, those shadows on
| | 01:41 |
the hills.
When I zoomed out enough to frame the
| | 01:44 |
shot that way, I was very, very wide.
So, now the landscape itself, the
| | 01:49 |
background details have gone very, very
small.
| | 01:51 |
So, I didn't think that was the best
idea.
| | 01:53 |
Instead, I zoomed in and shot a panorama.
So that's one approach.
| | 01:58 |
I'm bounding the scene on either side.
The thing is this image actually turns
| | 02:03 |
into when it's all stitched together,
more of what I've been kind of doing all
| | 02:07 |
day, which is having a good, strong
element in the foreground.
| | 02:09 |
In this case, it is that driveway.
So I walked out to the end of the drive,
| | 02:12 |
to try and just work the landscape by
itself.
| | 02:14 |
And I did the same thing.
I started by shooting a single shot, to
| | 02:19 |
try to define what I was going to use
compositionally for my frame.
| | 02:22 |
And I'm sticking with those clouds on the
left, or rather the shadow of the clouds
| | 02:26 |
on the left, and the actual clouds in the
sky on the right.
| | 02:30 |
Those are right over Telescope Peak
there.
| | 02:34 |
So your eye's probably a little bit lost
in this image, because I've got all this
| | 02:37 |
exra stuff in the foreground.
While I was shooting it, I was imagining
| | 02:40 |
that I would crop it to a very wide and
short frame.
| | 02:45 |
And, again, I'm back to that problem of
because I had to go so wide, the details
| | 02:49 |
in the distance are very small.
So, I then went top trying a panorama,
| | 02:54 |
using those same elements to bound my
scene.
| | 02:56 |
So here's the leftmost shot with the
clouds, and I pan to the right to get
| | 03:01 |
Telescope Peak with it's kind of little
Mount Doom-like halo of clouds around it.
| | 03:05 |
And, because I'm zoomed in, those are a
little big bigger.
| | 03:09 |
There are other things in the landscape,
you know, sometimes, more isn't more.
| | 03:13 |
There are, there are segments on it that
I could take.
| | 03:16 |
There are little vignettes on it that I
can take.
| | 03:18 |
Looking across the valley, and I can
still see it right now, there's this
| | 03:23 |
little area of really rough looking,
like, South Dakota Badlands, like, little
| | 03:28 |
foothills next to the.
Panament mountains themselves, with
| | 03:32 |
telescope peak.
And, at the time I was shooting, there
| | 03:34 |
was a very lovely cloud right on top of
them.
| | 03:36 |
So I took some single shots of that,
trying to find a balance between just the
| | 03:41 |
lower half of the frame and the upper
half of the frame.
| | 03:43 |
So I've got the clouds holding up the top
half, and I've got a lot of interesting
| | 03:46 |
things in the bottom.
I've got that texture on the left, I've
| | 03:49 |
got Telescope Peak with its clouds on the
right.
| | 03:51 |
I feel like those three elements together
worked to kind of hold the frame together
| | 03:56 |
and create a balanced image.
I turned around, and looked into the
| | 04:00 |
distance and saw this.
Now you may go ooh, what.
| | 04:05 |
yeah, it's not much of an image right
now.
| | 04:07 |
What caught my eye was in the distance,
those mountains way in the distance with
| | 04:13 |
the little clouds above them.
What's killing this image is that bright
| | 04:17 |
bit in the foreground, a really bright
light like that is a total eye magnet, it
| | 04:21 |
serves no purpose, I don't need it.
So I cut in tighter and cropped this.
| | 04:27 |
Look at the difference again, your eye is
much more contained in the scene.
| | 04:30 |
I played a little bit with experimenting
with those mountains on the side of the
| | 04:35 |
frame thinking that I've got these two
wonderful slanted lines right there on
| | 04:40 |
the horizon created by these two
different slopes on either side.
| | 04:44 |
That might be a really good way of
containing the eye.
| | 04:47 |
I tried a few different things.
I worked my shot, basically.
| | 04:50 |
Now, in a big vista thing like this,
working your shot obviously doesn't mean
| | 04:54 |
moving around the subject, that would
mean covering hundreds of miles.
| | 04:56 |
Working the shot typically means more
cropping in different ways, either
| | 05:01 |
through changes in camera position or
changes in focal length.
| | 05:05 |
Sometimes, it does make a difference to
take some steps left or right to
| | 05:10 |
rearrange the relationships of shapes
within the scene.
| | 05:13 |
But that's, that's working the shot.
I am here not just to take pictures.
| | 05:17 |
I just like being in Death Valley.
And I saw something that I just simply
| | 05:21 |
wanted to document which was this.
This is a simple panorama.
| | 05:25 |
Those are the sand dunes that we saw
earlier this morning.
| | 05:27 |
And as I pan across, you can also see the
dry lake bed we were standing on.
| | 05:31 |
When we were standing out there I pointed
out that they didn't look that far away.
| | 05:34 |
Here in profile they look tremendously
far away.
| | 05:37 |
I'm not thinking at all about composition
in this shot, I'm thinking simply about
| | 05:40 |
getting the elements in the frame that I
want.
| | 05:42 |
There's nothing wrong with that, I'm not
going to frame this picture and hang it
| | 05:45 |
on my wall but I'm glad to have a
documentation of that thing that I saw
| | 05:49 |
with this incredible wind, the sky is
changing very quickly.
| | 05:53 |
The, we don't have a tremendous amount of
cloud cover but what we do have is moving
| | 05:57 |
through quickly.
It's breaking up.
| | 05:59 |
It's shattering apart.
So I then looked back around and
| | 06:01 |
Telescope Peak had changed again.
I tried another take on that composition
| | 06:06 |
that I had earlier, because now the
clouds looked different.
| | 06:09 |
Looking at this now, I'm kind of
surprised I took this shot.
| | 06:11 |
It really doesn't do anything for me.
I liked the earlier cloud better, and I
| | 06:15 |
think that's interesting, it shows how
much the actual shape of the cloud makes
| | 06:19 |
a difference in the composition.
I don't feel like this one works that
| | 06:21 |
well, the other one which had a more
solid oval cloud worked much better.
| | 06:26 |
Then I simply looked up in the sky and
saw some nice clouds.
| | 06:31 |
Sometimes the sky itself is a vista.
So, I grabbed some of those.
| | 06:35 |
That's a very simple composition, nothing
really to talk about there.
| | 06:38 |
I did shoot it HDR though, because I
thought, well these clouds might be
| | 06:41 |
something that I want to put a little
more fine texture into, and HDR is
| | 06:45 |
going to let me do that.
For the most part I have not been
| | 06:47 |
shooting HDR here, because of the haze.
It is an inherently low dynamic range
| | 06:53 |
situation because the haze is cutting out
so much contrast so there's been no
| | 06:56 |
reason to do it.
And the clouds that have been here I feel
| | 06:59 |
like any change I want I can mostly get
just through a contrast adjustment.
| | 07:03 |
I should mention that earlier when I was
shooting up there on the black rocks, the
| | 07:06 |
really high contrast situation, I was not
shooting HDR there, either.
| | 07:10 |
Even though there was a tremendous
dynamic range in that scene, what was
| | 07:13 |
attracting me to it was the darkness of
the rocks versus the bright faces that
| | 07:18 |
were being highlighted.
I didn't want any more detail in those
| | 07:20 |
shadows, so I didn't do HDR in there.
So I feel like I've got some good stuff.
| | 07:25 |
It's going to need a little work.
The panoramas have to be stitched, the
| | 07:27 |
haze has to be removed, and some other
things that need to be done.
| | 07:30 |
And even as I'm sitting here the clouds
are changing again.
| | 07:33 |
I want to go back and reshoot some of
these things.
| | 07:34 |
So, when you're out shooting these big
vista things, keep in mind that though
| | 07:40 |
you don't necessarily have to find a
strong subject because the vista itself
| | 07:45 |
is your subject, you do still have to
think about controlling the viewer's eye.
| | 07:48 |
And you will do that by finding elements
within the scene.
| | 07:52 |
Maybe plays of light and shadow, maybe
simple geometric shapes, something like that.
| | 07:56 |
Here, I was using the slopes of the
mountains or I was using the shadow of a
| | 07:59 |
cloud, or a cloud itself.
You still need to work to contain their
| | 08:02 |
eye so it doesn't fall off the edge of
the frame.
| | 08:05 |
You'll also need to think about the size
of the objects in your frame.
| | 08:08 |
Either you're going to be shooting very
wide and making those objects very small,
| | 08:10 |
or your going to be trying to shoot more
telescopically and stitch things together panoramically.
| | 08:16 |
So it's a weird thing to think about, I
never knew you could maybe freeze to
| | 08:20 |
death in Death Valley, but this wind is
making it very cold.
| | 08:23 |
The light is leaving.
I think I'm ready to get out of here,
| | 08:26 |
it's been a good day shooting.
| | 08:27 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
4. Wrapping Up the TripUnderstanding the pace of a place| 00:01 |
It's morning of the last day and I've
just been packing up to leave.
| | 00:05 |
In packing up I'm really feeling how much
dust and grit there is on all my gear.
| | 00:12 |
There's no way around that out here.
Even if you are not camping, particularly
| | 00:16 |
when it's windy like this, there's just
so much stuff flying around shooting in
| | 00:20 |
sand dunes, everything is going to get
sandy.
| | 00:21 |
It's very easy to get uptight about that
and to a degree there's a good reason to
| | 00:26 |
get uptight about it.
I'm noticing that the zoom ring on one of
| | 00:28 |
my lenses is grinding.
I actually just had another lens that I
| | 00:32 |
didn't bring with me because it was
broken and I had to send it in to Canada
| | 00:36 |
and they sent back saying well your zoom
ring is grinding and we're going to have
| | 00:39 |
to clean that and the whole thing is
going to cost $400.
| | 00:41 |
So sand and, and grit can be a problem.
you can try to minimize it by making sure
| | 00:48 |
that you keep your gear in a nice tight
bag anytime you're not using it.
| | 00:52 |
You can think about trying to not do la-,
lens changes in the middle of a dune field.
| | 00:59 |
That kind of thing.
Honestly, for the most part I always feel
| | 01:02 |
like I want the shots I want.
I'm, I'm not going to worry about the gear.
| | 01:05 |
I can always try to clean it and get it
fixed later.
| | 01:08 |
And you don't have to have your gear
cleaned by your camera manufacturer,
| | 01:11 |
there are other places that can do it for
less money.
| | 01:13 |
But just be aware of that, this is a
pretty brutal environment on gear because
| | 01:17 |
of the dust and sand that's flying
around.
| | 01:20 |
I might do a little more shooting on the
way out.
| | 01:22 |
As it is, as I, as I sit here looking
across the dry lake bed where we were
| | 01:29 |
shooting, I'm a little frustrated to be
leaving right now, partly because it's
| | 01:34 |
such a nice place to be but also because
I can feel a change has happened over the
| | 01:38 |
last coupla days.
When you come into a wilderness area It
| | 01:42 |
takes awhile to slow down into the pace
of the place that you're in.
| | 01:47 |
And after a few days of getting settled
and just slowing down to the speed of the
| | 01:54 |
desert, you start seeing things that you
don't see when you first get to the location.
| | 01:58 |
Now some of this, of course, as with any
type of shooting, you get into a rhythm.
| | 02:02 |
And once you're in that groove, it's nice
to stay in it.
| | 02:04 |
But this is something extra.
This is something about getting used to
| | 02:07 |
the rhythms of the day here.
Getting used to the wind at sunset.
| | 02:11 |
Getting used to the way the light moves.
And getting that modern world pace and
| | 02:16 |
sensibility and expectation out of my
head.
| | 02:19 |
And going, yeah, this is where I am.
Oh, hey, look the birds are coming in
| | 02:23 |
again or the wind is moving this way or
so on and so forth.
| | 02:26 |
Your eyes open up in a very different
way.
| | 02:28 |
Don't think that you can come to a place
as spectacular as this and shoot it in an afternoon.
| | 02:34 |
That may seem obvious but, even in three
or four days you're kind of just getting started.
| | 02:39 |
And you can say well I can just come
back.
| | 02:42 |
Well but when you just come back, which
is a good idea you'll still going to need
| | 02:45 |
that slow down time again.
If you can manage it.
| | 02:48 |
You want to get into a landscape and you
want to sit with it for quite a while.
| | 02:52 |
You want to give yourself time to slow
down and tune in to the pace of your
| | 02:57 |
surroundings so that your eyes can open
up to this new level.
| | 03:00 |
I feel like mine are just starting to do
that and we have to leave.
| | 03:03 |
That's okay.
You work with what you can.
| | 03:05 |
I feel like we got some good stuff.
I'm interested to take a look at it.
| | 03:10 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Wrapping up the trip| 00:01 |
We have slowly, started our return to
civilization.
| | 00:03 |
We drove out of Death Valley, yesterday.
Rather than, going all the way home, we
| | 00:08 |
decided, we got a little extra time.
Let's, go explore some of the surrounding region.
| | 00:13 |
Maybe we'll find some stuff to shoot
along the way.
| | 00:14 |
We came into the southern part of the
Sierras, to Lake Isabella.
| | 00:18 |
Found a place to stay, it was nice.
I got the chance to go through some
| | 00:21 |
images and just quickly pull a few
selects and do some edits on them so that
| | 00:26 |
you can see, you've seen in a lot of
cases the image that I shot as I shot it.
| | 00:31 |
I want you to see where I ended up and
maybe get a little idea of why I've
| | 00:35 |
chosen these.
Also it's just a good idea to figure out
| | 00:38 |
what I might want to do differently Next
time, what went well this time.
| | 00:41 |
We of course started out the first place
I shot was at a railroad station in Mojave.
| | 00:47 |
You know, railroad tracks are such a
kind of cheap and easy photographic subject.
| | 00:51 |
You just, they're such strong lines,
you've, kind of have built in nice composition.
| | 00:55 |
It's hard to go wrong with them.
just simple, straight diagonal line stuff.
| | 00:58 |
I also tried just some still-lifey kind
of stuff around the tracks, seeing what I
| | 01:02 |
could find.
We stopped at Owen's Lake as the sun was setting.
| | 01:05 |
Got some really beautiful color in the
sky.
| | 01:06 |
I don't know much about, this is not my
computer.
| | 01:09 |
I don't know much about how to read this
screen.
| | 01:11 |
I don't really know how it's adjusted.
Laptop screens are always a little
| | 01:14 |
difficult to work with.
I think there's probably some more color
| | 01:16 |
saturation to bring out in here.
Not so much that it becomes garish
| | 01:20 |
looking, but there's probably some more
pink to add in there.
| | 01:23 |
And there's some sharpening issues and
some things that I need to deal with but
| | 01:26 |
I, I like this shot.
Our first actual day of shooting in Death
| | 01:30 |
Valley, was driving south in Panamint
Valley.
| | 01:33 |
This is where we pulled over by the side
of the road because I wanted to take that
| | 01:36 |
shot of the road.
But before then I actually just worked
| | 01:38 |
with some of the bushes in the area.
This is one of the first shots I took.
| | 01:42 |
I'm not actually crazy about it.
I don't think it actually worked.
| | 01:44 |
What had caught my eye was the symmetry
between the plant and the shadow, but the
| | 01:50 |
ground is just too busy.
I, I'm losing a lot of that, so, I doubt
| | 01:54 |
I'll really do anything with that.
Playing just with the shadow is interesting.
| | 01:58 |
I think that worked kind of well.
I might be able to work some of these up
| | 02:00 |
some more.
The tricky part's going to be improving
| | 02:02 |
contrast in here to get some detail.
Without lowering the overall contrast
| | 02:06 |
between the shadow and the ground.
And then of course there was the actual
| | 02:10 |
road shot.
I took a lot of these.
| | 02:12 |
Curiously into that being I think the
last one that I shot.
| | 02:15 |
And it's funny.
Sometimes I work a shot and sometimes
| | 02:18 |
it's one of the ones that I've kind of
refine in the middle.
| | 02:20 |
Most of the time, it's either the first
shot that I took or the last shot.
| | 02:22 |
Either I nailed it right away and then
worked Or, I worked up to the shot.
| | 02:26 |
That's why it's important to really shoot
a lot of coverage of your stuff and
| | 02:30 |
experiment and play.
So, I got the things that I wanted.
| | 02:33 |
The bright highlighted road going into
the distance and this weird dust layer
| | 02:37 |
that was laying there.
So, I'm pleased with that.
| | 02:40 |
Again, all of these are going to need
adjustments for print.
| | 02:43 |
And this is also a great example of why I
was shooting raw the whole time.
| | 02:47 |
We didn't really talk about that in the
course at all.
| | 02:50 |
I was shooting raw which you need to do
when you're shooting landscapes, because
| | 02:53 |
you are almost always shooting a high
dynamic range scene, and I was really
| | 02:57 |
glad in this case to have a raw file, so
that I could recover highlights from this area.
| | 03:01 |
That's going to be true in almost all of
these images.
| | 03:03 |
I've had to do a lot of highlight
recovery.
| | 03:05 |
Not because I was garishly wrong with my
exposures but just that's the nature of
| | 03:08 |
shooting in a high dynamic range
situation.
| | 03:12 |
This road was heading to Ballarat we went
on down the road and hung a left and went
| | 03:16 |
up into this area.
And that was the old mining town, the
| | 03:18 |
ghost town we went to.
I started shooting that old house, this
| | 03:22 |
is about the only thing that came out of
it from the inside, just a still-life of
| | 03:25 |
something that was in there.
What attracted me to this was just the
| | 03:27 |
light and the texture on the chain.
I'll be able to pull more detail out of
| | 03:31 |
this, work those highlights just a little
bit.
| | 03:33 |
This is a nice texture, although rather
than just randomly shooting texture I'm
| | 03:38 |
still composing around strong elements
trying to build up a strong shot that
| | 03:42 |
makes sense to the viewers.
I just noticed this looks like a little
| | 03:45 |
face here I hadn't seen that before.
This was a little railroad bar or
| | 03:49 |
something (INAUDIBLE) see a little bit of
a crop and this image is really just a
| | 03:53 |
formal geometric composition mostly built
this circle.
| | 03:57 |
With this shadow in it, I like that.
I think there's more texture to be had in
| | 04:00 |
there with some more levels adjustments.
But again, I lowered the, or raised the
| | 04:05 |
saturation here just because it looked a
little dull.
| | 04:09 |
This is the inside of that weird
building.
| | 04:11 |
This is actually an HDR sequence, there
was no way to get detail out there and
| | 04:14 |
detail here in a single shot, so that's
three images merged.
| | 04:17 |
And then, of course, what may or may not
be Charles Manson's truck.
| | 04:23 |
you've seen this shot already, I haven't
really done anything to it.
| | 04:26 |
I just wanted to hit again the importance
of when you're working these kinds of
| | 04:29 |
compositions, you've got to pay attention
to every little detail.
| | 04:31 |
The difference, looking right here
between this shot and this shot, is very important.
| | 04:36 |
It's just really essential that we have
that extra little bit of room around there.
| | 04:41 |
This looks like a snapshot, this looks a
little more considered.
| | 04:45 |
I worked the truck with my macro lens and
I found these rust bits that I really like.
| | 04:49 |
They look like these kind of Jetson's era
astro iconography kind-of-things, so I
| | 04:55 |
shot some of those up and, like those a
lot.
| | 04:57 |
We were having great light even though it
was the middle of the day.
| | 04:59 |
Great thing about being here in the
winter is we've still got a nice, low
| | 05:02 |
angle, so we're getting a lot of relief
on these things.
| | 05:06 |
The next day we were on to, the Devil's
Golf Course.
| | 05:09 |
And as you'll recall, in facing this
really repetitive terrain, my idea was to
| | 05:15 |
build a composition around this one
darker element up here.
| | 05:18 |
Now you saw these frames while I was
shooting them, and it was difficult to
| | 05:21 |
see that.
I had to do a lot of work to, pull that out.
| | 05:24 |
A lot of adjustment layers with layer
masks to isolate my edits.
| | 05:29 |
But I like the way this is working and I
do think it was.
| | 05:32 |
This does hold the image and allow my eye
to just wander through this really weird texture.
| | 05:36 |
What I'm not sure of is whether I like it
with the sky or another frame that I shot
| | 05:41 |
without the sky.
I'm leaning more towards the sky one,
| | 05:44 |
which was not my impulse when I was at
the scene.
| | 05:46 |
When I was at the scene, I thought, well,
I'm going more simple here.
| | 05:49 |
I'm eliminating elements.
That's better, but as I look at this now,
| | 05:52 |
I like this more.
Again, this is why you shoot a lot.
| | 05:55 |
It's why you work your shot.
Sometimes you can't really tell through
| | 05:57 |
the camera, what the right image is.
This one could probably be helped by a crop.
| | 06:02 |
Maybe taking it down to there.
The foreground's just a little too dominant.
| | 06:06 |
My eye gets lost down here, and there's
no real detail here that's interesting.
| | 06:11 |
And then, of course, we were taken to the
really cool salt hole.
| | 06:14 |
Now, as you'll recall, we were on our
way, chasing the light to try to get out
| | 06:19 |
of the park to go to, or not out of the
park, but out of the Devil's Golf Course
| | 06:22 |
to go to Bad Water, and we were told
about this.
| | 06:24 |
We ran over there, we tried to shoot it.
And I think I was rushed.
| | 06:28 |
I didn't work this enough.
I, I like this shot in terms of, boy,
| | 06:33 |
this is just an amazing tonal gradient
out here.
| | 06:35 |
And I like that there's this bright star
burst here, and then all this weird stuff.
| | 06:38 |
I like the bright line on the horizon.
I want more of the circle of it.
| | 06:43 |
I wish I could have gotten back and up
more.
| | 06:46 |
maybe with a wider lens.
And I'm beating myself up now going well
| | 06:49 |
why didn't I get that shot, and my first
impulse is, well I was rushed and I was
| | 06:53 |
hurried, I was worried about the light
changing, I wanted to get the bad water,
| | 06:55 |
I didn't do my work as a photographer.
It maybe that I'm just forgetting that
| | 06:59 |
there wasn't actually anyplace to stand
to get that shot.
| | 07:01 |
This is not the most forgiving landscape
to be moving around on.
| | 07:05 |
If I come back to that valley I want to
go back out here and try it again.
| | 07:09 |
If I come back to that valley, when I
come back to that valley, I'm going to go
| | 07:11 |
try that again.
On to Bad Water, a difficult shooting
| | 07:15 |
situation, the light was going so fast.
We hadn't really had time to explore.
| | 07:19 |
I was frantically running around.
I like this shot.
| | 07:23 |
I think it works well.
It is what I thought it would be when I
| | 07:25 |
was shooting it, which is just these
nice, strong lines.
| | 07:28 |
Holding the eye.
This white bit kind of this path in the
| | 07:31 |
middle of this otherwise jumbled
landscape.
| | 07:34 |
But I really like this line on the
horizon.
| | 07:37 |
Nevertheless, I think this is the shot I
prefer more.
| | 07:40 |
This was one of the very last ones just
right before the light was going to
| | 07:43 |
change and I just feel like it has a
stronger subject.
| | 07:47 |
While this works conceptually, I don't
know if anyone else will see it, so.
| | 07:50 |
I did get a broader landscape view.
If I had had time to prowl the lake a
| | 07:56 |
little bit more before the light started
going, what I probably would have found
| | 07:59 |
somewhere would have been really strong
patterns with really tall salt ridges.
| | 08:03 |
That 's what I've seen before but you
gotta look for em.
| | 08:05 |
They're really nice geometric shapes to
find.
| | 08:07 |
this I think is going to need some
cropping also I would like to take that
| | 08:12 |
end off and maybe tighten in here because
while this is interesting what I really
| | 08:17 |
think will hold the image together is
this triangle right here.
| | 08:20 |
Against this, lighter mountain range
here.
| | 08:23 |
I feel like that's the, compositional,
relationip in the image that's interesting.
| | 08:27 |
So I'll probably do some cropping there.
Also, I'm not sure about the pink tint
| | 08:31 |
that the salt has.
It's accurate.
| | 08:33 |
That's what the light looked like then,
and it was really beautiful, but when
| | 08:36 |
you're standing out there you're so
struck by the whiteness of the salt.
| | 08:39 |
I might want to work on pulling that down
to actual blocking I'm not sure.
| | 08:44 |
Then into the sand dunes the next day.
a really miraculous day of shooting
| | 08:50 |
thanks to the light.
Simple composition, here I kept it square.
| | 08:53 |
What had caught my eye was just the
relationship of curve to strong pointy
| | 08:58 |
triangle, but I like that there's this
extra layer here and this is a great
| | 09:01 |
example of why you want something in the
sky.
| | 09:03 |
This image would not work, I don't think,
without With just a blue sky in the background.
| | 09:08 |
Other just simple, compositions moving
around just trying to play geometrically,
| | 09:12 |
playing with the light, like the triangle
here, and of course these just beautiful
| | 09:17 |
sand textures that were impossible not to
shoot.
| | 09:20 |
Going back and forth again between the
details of the scene, and the larger
| | 09:23 |
vistas at hand.
This is the other part of the dune field.
| | 09:26 |
There was one moment when it just lit up.
and so this again might need a little
| | 09:31 |
crop, I cropped it some already, I'll
play with this some more.
| | 09:34 |
The contrast in this is going to be
tricky because I am shooting through a
| | 09:36 |
lot of haze, I need these things to look
distant, but I really liked how punchy
| | 09:40 |
this stuff was, I'll play with that some
more.
| | 09:42 |
And then the light turned just insane, so
I, I like this shot.
| | 09:48 |
I like all of these shots where the light
just had this luminousness that was incredible.
| | 09:53 |
So, I've cropped obviously, I've worked
to play up these different bits of lighting.
| | 09:58 |
A lot of gradient masks to hold the sky,
but still get the highlights where I want them.
| | 10:04 |
This was that sky, that cloud that
suddenly appeared that I liked.
| | 10:07 |
This might need a little crop.
I'm not sure that this couldn't be a
| | 10:09 |
square image.
Because this round shape is actually
| | 10:14 |
mirrored pretty symetrically just by this
nice gentle curve here, with this x in
| | 10:18 |
the middle, so that might get some
cropping.
| | 10:22 |
This one struck me because I happened to
move in to a position where I could get
| | 10:26 |
this shadow to look triangular, which
mirrors this triangle right here, so I'm
| | 10:30 |
still not convinced about the crop on
this one, I might be able to.
| | 10:34 |
Make that a little more obvious, except I
like the sky up here, so I don't know,
| | 10:38 |
that I might be the keeper.
I'm going to play some more with contrast
| | 10:40 |
on that image.
I like this one.
| | 10:43 |
very often I'm hesitant to skew the
camera like that because it feels like
| | 10:49 |
it's overly dramatic or distracting.
It can upstage the viewers' experience of
| | 10:54 |
the image.
The first thing they think of is the
| | 10:55 |
camera is tilted.
But in this case I feel like this is a
| | 10:58 |
strong enough line and it's set up so
that it just leads you right into the
| | 11:02 |
setting sun.
I like this image.
| | 11:04 |
It's going to be a tricky contrast
question of finding out how dark I can
| | 11:08 |
take the shadows and still have them look
real.
| | 11:10 |
This shadow is starting to go a little
too dark but I like having that extra
| | 11:13 |
contrast in there.
I'll play with that some more.
| | 11:16 |
Then we were on to Pediment Dry Lake Bed.
As you'll recall I saw this stick and lay
| | 11:20 |
down in the ground to shoot it.
This is a focus stack image.
| | 11:23 |
I shot three different images and stacked
them, focusing in three different places
| | 11:28 |
and it came out.
I'm, I'm really happy with how this came out.
| | 11:31 |
Everything really is in focus there's
maybe a little bit of softness right
| | 11:34 |
there because I didn't have enough
overlap.
| | 11:36 |
I like this image.
Again, a focus stacked image but one that
| | 11:41 |
didn't work that well because I didn't
have enough overlap.
| | 11:44 |
So again, focus stacking is, I had
focused first here, then took another
| | 11:48 |
shot focused here, and then here.
And I'm using my fingers like this to
| | 11:52 |
indicate The depth of field and then
those are all combined.
| | 11:55 |
Well you can see that I didn't get enough
overlap in here so there's blurriness in here.
| | 11:59 |
There's blurriness right in the front
which is just too bad because I like the composition.
| | 12:02 |
That said, here's just one of the single
frames and I think this one actually
| | 12:08 |
doesn't need to be focus stacked because
When the focus is too deep I lose any
| | 12:12 |
sense of scale of this.
I actually like the fact that because of
| | 12:15 |
the really shadowed depth of the field, I
can tell this is just a twig, and a
| | 12:18 |
little rock.
And in a landscape that is otherwise
| | 12:21 |
overwhelming in its magnitude, having
just this moment of, yes, but there's
| | 12:26 |
this little twig here.
Everything in the desert has to fight so
| | 12:30 |
hard to survive, and there are so many
tiny little bugs and birds and things
| | 12:33 |
working to make a living there.
The fact that they can do it is amazing.
| | 12:35 |
And I, I had so I kind of like this for
that reason.
| | 12:38 |
I think maybe it's a square image,
though.
| | 12:41 |
There's, there's no point to that blue
sky up there.
| | 12:43 |
I've got that little bit of cloud.
That's nice.
| | 12:44 |
I don't need this blurry part in the
foreground, so I'll probably take it down
| | 12:47 |
like that.
I did just some still life's walking around.
| | 12:51 |
I did not arrange any of these, these are
found.
| | 12:53 |
just this pattern, I like the red rock
and the stick.
| | 12:57 |
I take these, but I never do anything
with them.
| | 12:59 |
I never print em out or anything.
I don't know why I take them but they're
| | 13:01 |
fun exercises.
This I like this pattern of rocks,
| | 13:05 |
however, I've gotta bad flair over here.
I don't know if I can fix that.
| | 13:08 |
The sun was right here, it was a
difficult situation shooting this wide.
| | 13:11 |
I found in a few different angles I'll
have to see if I can fix any of that.
| | 13:16 |
Again this was some of that dry lake bed
texture that we managed to get to there's
| | 13:20 |
a lot more of this if you can go further
from the road so again just pretty
| | 13:24 |
straight up composition its leading me
into the center and then my eyes kind of
| | 13:28 |
come back out into the sky.
More contrast work to be done there.
| | 13:31 |
Pretty straight ahead image.
I like this leading to that stripe.
| | 13:35 |
I think I've got this overdone a little
bit.
| | 13:37 |
I'll probably pull that back in terms of
contrast.
| | 13:40 |
that I think might need a little crop.
This rock holds that bush in place really
| | 13:46 |
well and then I got those clouds.
There's this nice relationship there.
| | 13:49 |
I think it gets a little disrupted by all
that stuff on the bottom.
| | 13:54 |
More texture.
And that texture came from this thing.
| | 13:58 |
This was this river of mud that had
dried.
| | 14:01 |
It was not actually this contrasty.
I cheated this a little bit.
| | 14:05 |
I pulled down the saturation of the reds.
In the surrounding area to really play up
| | 14:10 |
the reds here.
So it's a little bit of a cheat, but I
| | 14:12 |
feel like, while there may not have been
that much contrast while I was standing there.
| | 14:17 |
While I was standing, my eye really did
just pick out this flowing river of mud.
| | 14:21 |
So I feel like this is an edit that
serves to recreate the feeling of what I
| | 14:26 |
was seeing while I was there.
Did that sound too defensive?
| | 14:29 |
Am I really like, do I sound guilty?
Anyway.
| | 14:31 |
Telescope Peak.
I kind of like this, sort of, mount doomy
| | 14:35 |
thing that it had going over it.
So, what I can't decide is whether I like
| | 14:40 |
that cloud up there or not.
I may crop, the top off.
| | 14:44 |
I've done, some contrasting work down
here, brightening up some of these little
| | 14:47 |
bushes, and brightening up the
foreground, just because it's too dark.
| | 14:50 |
on its own because it's such a high
dynamic range situation.
| | 14:53 |
And that's it, we're back to our trains.
So I've got far more images than that.
| | 14:58 |
Those are just a few selects and I
thought you might want to see so you can
| | 15:00 |
see the types of edit that have been.
So now we have to leave and.
| | 15:05 |
It's hard looking back at these images.
I really want to go back.
| | 15:07 |
I miss Death Valley already and it's been
all of 12 hours and now it's turned
| | 15:11 |
stormy outside.
I've got exactly the sky that I would
| | 15:13 |
want to have for going into the sand
dunes.
| | 15:16 |
This is why I'll return to this place in
addition to it just being a place that
| | 15:19 |
I'm so drawn to.
Photographically, I will return because
| | 15:22 |
now I can see that, wow, different
weather would really Make a big difference.
| | 15:25 |
So whether you are shooting low desert,
high desert, I hope you've seen some of
| | 15:30 |
what can be done with this landscape that
is so varied and so full of stuff when
| | 15:37 |
you stop and look at it even though that
your first impulse might be that it's
| | 15:39 |
just empty.
Take some time, there's a pull to it
| | 15:43 |
that's really hard to resist and I'm, I'm
feeling it right now So thank you very
| | 15:48 |
much for watching.
I hope you can get out somewhere very hot
| | 15:50 |
and dry and do some shooting real soon.
| | 15:52 |
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