Tag Archives: landscapes

Experimenting with Monochromatic Color Photography

Posted on by October 16, 2018

When searching for our subject matter, photographers often look for scenes with diverse color palettes and wide tonal variation.

By using a mix of contrasting hues and strategically placing small instances of hot colors against cooler backgrounds, you can create differing levels of tension and balance within your composition. This helps direct your viewer’s eye around the frame.

But what if you go the other way and pare your colors down to a single dominant tone? What if you eliminate the element of color contrast in your composition and only feature a single hue or a very narrow range of hues in your photo?

I refer to this approach as shooting monochrome in color.

As much as I like playing different colors off of each other and creating high contrast levels in my images, I really enjoy experimenting with this technique.

The reason that black and white images often have such powerful visual impact is that they present the subject without the distraction of color. Since we naturally see in color, removing it entirely from a photograph creates a medium that suddenly becomes separate from our real life experience.

By narrowing down the content of your images to a single hue, you remove most of the color, and this creates a similar effect for your viewer. It denies you the most prominent visual element in your own creative palette, which forces you to get back to the basics of light and framing.

That said, since you’re not limited to using only black, white and varying levels of gray, your creative options are wide open. You can use any color as the basis for your scene, but the trick is to try and use only that color, or hues that are in the same family, or that live near each other on the color wheel.

You’ll find that your technique for creating these types of images will vary greatly. With some subjects, it will be relatively straightforward. Think closeups on foliage, flowers, or other monochromatic landscapes. These kinds of scenes easily lend themselves to a single color approach.

Other times, your effect will be created largely by the prevailing light, as with the portrait above, and sometimes you’ll need to stretch your visual skills and use creative framing in order to make this work. You can also create these kinds of effects with post processing.

How much color you use in your imagery is totally up to you. There are no rules; you can use a single hue or add small bits of other color in the image for added interest. Personally, I like the challenge of minimizing or entirely eliminating secondary colors other than the primary hue.

I’ve enjoyed using with this approach in my photography, and I encourage you to try playing around with it as well. By adding this technique to your own bag of tricks, you can expand your image making options in new and exciting ways. Your own visual senses will suddenly be tuned to fresh, fun, unique creative possibilities, and you’ll begin to see the world in a whole new way.

More Fujifilm X-T3 Image Examples and Camera Impressions

Posted on by September 24, 2018

Click to see this image at full res.

The new Fujifilm X-T3 has officially been released and it’s now shipping, so I thought I’d celebrate by showing you some more image examples to give you an idea of the quality and colors it can produce. (If you haven’t seen my full X-T3 review post, you can find it here.)

I took the X-T3 on a little flying adventure yesterday, shooting a variety of landscapes and mountain scenes. I started with some aerials, then landed by one of the glacier lakes and focused on closer up nature scenes and details.

I took my favorite landscape photography lens kit: the 14mm f/2.8, 35mm f/2, 50mm f/2 and the 100-400mm, which is currently $300 off. In fact, most of the X Series lenses are on sale right now.

I was pretty psyched to get out flying with the X-T3 yesterday. The weather was so bad during my initial test period last month, I went about three solid weeks without being able to get off the ground. I was like a kid in a candy store yesterday, hitting all my favorite places as I blasted off frames and tried out some of the new creative settings.

 

Click to view this image at full res.

I remain as impressed with the camera as I was on the first time I shot with it, and it’s been fun to dig in and experiment with some of the new settings. I’ve even done some side-by-side shooting with the X-T2 to compare quality and color reproduction. I’ll get those images up in a future post.

I will say that the differences are slight. The X-T2 is still an amazing camera and it holds well up next to the X-T3 in terms of quality, but the new hardware and capabilities on the X-T3 definitely put it ahead with regards to performance and creative options.

One of my favorite features is the new B&W ADJ. Setting, which allows you to add a warm or cool tint to your ACROS and MONOCHROME images. The lead off shot above was made using the ACROS film sim and +7 on the warm side. (The adjustment is up to 9 steps on each side.)

 

Click to view this image at full res.

The new sensor on the X-T3 has an even higher signal to noise ratio, which in layman’s terms, means less distortion, i.e. lower noise, and it has a lower native ISO speed of 160. This allows for even more sharpness and detail in your images.

Of course, packing 2 million more pixels onto the same size APC-C sensor means that each pixel is slightly smaller than the pixels on the X-T2. With traditional sensor design, smaller pixels mean less light gathering area, but the Back-Illumination architecture, which puts the wiring behind the photocathode light gathering layer makes up for this difference and actually lets in 1/2 stop more light.

Combine that with the new quad-core processor and the use of copper wiring, which yields better signal transmission and conducts at lower temperatures, and you get fantastic light gathering capabilities, superbly sharp detail and even better low light performance.

 

Click to view this image at full res.

I’m rather intrigued by the new ETERNA film simulation. Designed primarily as a color profile suited for motion pictures, it has an even lower level of saturation and tonality than Pro NEG.STD, making it the most muted of all the Fuji film sims.

I wasn’t sure what to think at first. Honestly, my initial impression was that it was way too flat, but after trying it out, I recognize how it can be effective in certain situations. As much as I love Velvia and bold colors, there’s something very cool about pulling back and being subtle with your color. It activates the imagination of the viewer in a different way.

It plays right into the notion that photography isn’t about exactly reproducing your subject matter, or always bumping the colors and tons way up, it’s about creating a representational idea of your subject in a way that draws your views in and engages them as an active participant in the viewing and interpretation process of your images.

Where Velvia gives that “larger than life” look to your imager, ETERNA pulls back and “suggests” your subject with a softer, less “in-your-face” palette. It invites the imagination in different ways. It’s not dull, rather it’s meant to symbolize. Black and white imagery does this as well, and the new BW warm/cool tints only add to this effect.

Image shot with Velvia Film Sim.

Image shot with ETERNA Film Sim.

In playing around with the body, I’ve had more time to notice and appreciate the slight design differences that Fuji put into the X-T3. As I mentioned in my review, it’s very similar to the X-T2, but the body is a tiny bit the X-T3 is about 1mm deeper from front to back.

In addition, the dials on the X-T3 offer slightly more resistance and the main buttons and the front and rear command dials all press with a noticeably more forceful “click.”

I really like the new LCD “swipe gestures,” which effectively operate as four additional Fn buttons. I set “left swipe” as yet another Playback control, which gives me three total, since I like to set the AF-L button as a Playback button too.

Another plus is that you don’t need the vertical grip to shoot at ultra high frame rates. The X-T3 can go up to 11 fps with the mechanical shutter and up to 30 fps with the electronic shutter, even without the grip. Of course the grip gives you more battery power.

Another addition is the new COLOR CHROME EFFECT. Based on a Fuji fortia slide film that had even more vibrancy and contrast than Velvia, the X-T3 is able to add increased tonality to any film sim with either a STRONG or WEAK setting.

Here’s an example of the COLOR CHROME EFFECT applied to a Velvia image at the STRONG setting. As you can see, it adds a very small amount of color saturation and shadow detail, most noticeable on the main leaf.

I’m looking forward to putting the X-T3 through even more tests as well go forward this fall. I plan to shoot cyclocross with it this weekend. Right out of the gate, the X-T3 has already proved itself to be an incredible camera, retaining everything that’s great about the X-2 and adding some impressive new features and performance upgrades.

And, I’m sure you’ll be happy to hear that I’m already working on the next revision to my X SERIES UNLIMITED eBook. The next update will include the X-T3 and all the recent firmware updates that Fuji released since this spring. For anyone who has purchased the book, you’ll get an email notification when the new version is ready for download. I’m hoping it will be done within the next two weeks or so.

As of today, B&H has the X-T3 in stock, so if you’re hoping to get one, you can order the camera here. Or visit your local dealer, they should have them by now as well.

The Symphony of Autumn

Posted on by September 16, 2018

Fall is like a symphony for photographers.

After winter, we dust off our instruments, (I know that many of you shoot throughout the colder months, but just bear with me for the sake of this metaphor), we take stock of our and our skills, and once again, we begin practicing and reacquainting ourselves with our equipment.

As the first colors of spring emerge from beneath the melting snow, we ease into our rudiments, practicing basic skills like exposure and composition, as if we’re brushing up on our scales and chords.

When muscle memory returns and our fingers find their familiar places on the aperture ring, the EV dial, and the shutter, our hands grip our instruments with returning confidence. As technical proficiency beings to flow more freely, our creative brains let loose and allow our eyes to start gathering the shapes, colors and contrasting elements in the landscape into concise visual collections.

As the weeks and months progress, we see noticeable progress in our technical ability and our compositional talents as we cleverly orchestrate foregrounds and backgrounds, color and contrast, shape and shadow. Our visual concertos become more intricate and elaborate, our intended messages more clear.

With summer in full swing, we’re hitting our stride, photographing on a regular basis, playing regularly with light and tone. We’re playing gigs in different locations, and always trying new things, working with different modes and altered scales in our constant attempt to redefine and expand our message and convey our feelings and impressions of the world.

The Crescendo of Color

Of course, in the back of our minds, we know the fall symphony is coming. That one big performance. The crescendo of color, when the hues of the earth change from stable green to fiery, attention grabbing, visual alarming tones of red, yellow and orange.

That one special time when the mid to higher latitudes of the planet become a patchwork of technicolor magic and we get to experience brilliant colors that only show themselves for a few short weeks every year.

As the season approaches, we can feel the sense of alarm and anticipation within ourselves, too. We know the increasingly complex visual arrangements can only go on so long before they peak.

We only have a brief time to perform as technically and visually adept artists and outdoor photographers as we strive to capture a photo essay’s worth of compelling autumn imagery before the big finale. It almost becomes a race to explore and create a collection of visually stunning imagery before the final note sounds, before those magical colors fade and the foliage begins to wither and fall from the branches.

You can’t see these ptarmigan. They’re hiding.

 

As outdoor photographers, it would seem that these brief few weeks of autumn are what we practice for all year, even if it’s a subconscious anticpation. This is the season many of us look forward to most out of all the different times of year.

The truth is that every season is fleeting. Every activity, season, magical display of light and every exciting or especially serene moment is merely a momentary event in the course of our non-stop lives. We practice  with our cameras in the hope that we can capture any of these special moments that occur throughout the year.

We strive to make intriguing photos of notable moments and events no matter when they happen, but there is something about the brief season of fall that captures our imagination and creative urges like no other time of year.

Perhaps it’s because there are so many symbolic elements intertwined with fall, aspects like change, comfort, balance (the equinox typically denotes equal durations of day and night), letting go, impermanence, harvest and the beginning of the increasingly massive holiday season.

Fall has always been a special time for humans, but for photographers and visual artists, it seems to be even more special, simply because we’re even more attuned to those magical displays of color.

The Symphony of Autumn is definitely underway here in Alaska. Down in town, we’re just starting to hear the first notes of the introduction; up on the high tundra, it’s already well into the third and fourth movements and heading towards a magnificent finale. The weather has been glorious lately, which has made for some very enjoyable and satisfying fall photography.

It doesn’t last very long up here, and soon we’ll have snow, but not before we have a few big wind storms blow all the brittle, brown leaves off the trees. Then we’ll be on our final crash course towards winter.

I wish you the best of luck with your own fall performances this season. This is what you’ve been working towards. This is what you’ve been waiting for all year. Make the best of it, and have fun.

Read a Feature Interview with me in Landscape Photography Magazine

Posted on by September 14, 2018

I’m honored to be included as the feature interview in this month’s issue of Landscape Photography Magazine.  In this 2,800 word article, I talk about my early days with outdoor photography, what inspired me, the challenges I faced when I … Continue reading →

Finally, The Evening I’ve Been Waiting For…

Posted on by August 23, 2018

August can be a tough time in Southcentral Alaska. By then, the days are getting shorter, and it’s usually the wettest of the summer months. August rarely sees the kinds of long, glorious sunsets that June tends to bring. During … Continue reading →

Playing With The Creative Controls On the Fujifilm Cameras

Posted on by August 14, 2018

The Fujifilm X Series cameras have a variety of creative controls that allow you to vary the look of your subjects, right “in-camera.” This allows you to explore your creativity with a variety of different image styles right there on the spot … Continue reading →

More Reasons Why I Love the Fujifilm XF 35mm f/2 Lens

Posted on by July 30, 2018

A little over a year ago, I wrote a blog post called Why I Love the Sweet Little Fujifilm XF 35mm f/2 WR lens, where I extolled my extreme fondness for this small, sexy weather sealed prime. Designed to resemble Leica’s … Continue reading →