More Images From The Road

Note: These are images made while on a trip to the Rocky Mountains this summer. We traveled from Colorado, south to New Mexico, then up to Wyoming.

More Images From The Road

by William Lulow

Here are a couple more images made recently at Mesa Verde National Park in southwest Colorado. It was raining there for days and this day was no exception, but the clouds parted just long enough to make a few nice images. As I have said many times, when traveling, it is often difficult to stay in one place long enough to see changes in light or other elements that would improve an image, but if you persevere a bit, you just might be able to sneak a few in:

The tree bark close up was made with my 60mm f/2.8 macro lens. Actually, I had to move the camera back a bit for composition.

These were all made with the camera on a tripod and with a 25A (red) filter over the lens except the close-up of the tree. I am a great believer in using filters rather than convert a color image to monochrome in post production. For one thing, the electronic filters can never quite match the results you get with real filters, and the time it takes to use them when you are actually shooting, forces you to slow down a bit and think about what you are doing rather than just snap away.

On to Santa Fe, New Mexico:

While I am shooting, I sometimes stop at the side of the road if I see something intriguing, but when you have reservations at various hotels along the way, it is hard to spend the time one would like at those places. So the technique usually involves trying to make an interesting image with a subject that strikes you immediately, rather than one you would study for a while. All except for the bottom one in Santa Fe were made with my DSLR mounted on a tripod. I increase the ISO setting if I want to create greater depth-of-field by using a smaller aperture. I shoot original Black&White by changing the “Picture Style” on the camera to MONOCHROME. Then I usually use a red filter to add contrast to the sky and clouds. This filter cuts down exposure by approximately (3) three f/stops. That’s when the tripod, slower shutter speed and higher ISO settings need to be used to compensate for the less light in the camera. I have found that I can use an ISO setting up to 800 without any appreciable loss of detail or addition of noise or grain to the image.

These horses were shot with my 135mm f/2 lens on the tripod, ND gradient filter, ISO100, f9 @1/125th of a second:

Someone remarked that I was shooting a lot of Black&White images during this trip. The cloud formations and the rough landscapes almost cry out to be shot in monochrome mode because the filtering technique really adds to the drama of the photographs.