Deer Skull, Citronelle, Alabama, 6in x 8in palladium print on Arches Platine watercolor paper. The tone of the palladium really brings out the texture of the deer skull and the weathered wood of the barn wall.

Late in the day you have to use whatever light is available, and in this case it was a greenish mercury vapor lamp attached to a power pole quite some distance away. Even with a custom white balance setting on the camera, it was difficult getting realistic color out of the scene, so I decided to try contact printing the image in palladium. The result exceeded my expectations.

Technical Information

I photographed Deer Skull, Citronelle, Alabama, with a Nikon D200 DSLR and an Nikkor 50mm ƒ/1.8 AF-D lens. Since this was shot at night and the only light was a mercury vapor light, the exposure was approximately 30 seconds at ƒ/8, ISO 100. I processed the image in Nikon Capture NX2 and Adobe Photoshop, and output a digital negative onto Pictorico OHP transparency film. I then contact printed the negative in Palladium on double-coated Arches Platine watercolor paper, developed it in warm Potassium Oxalate, and cleared the print in Kodak HypoClearing Agent and several water soak baths.

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Due to the time-intensive nature of printing in palladium, I only make this print on demand. Please contact me directly to discuss size and price options.

Moon Halo Over Desert Cane, Anza-Borrego Desert, California

Moon Halo is another night scene I photographed in the Anza-Borrego using some basic light painting techniques. Unlike the previous images where I used a Petzl headlamp, this image required a little more power because of the distance involved. I used a Streamlight Tactical Flashlight that pumps out 180 lumens with a cool white LED using a couple of big 123A batteries. I use this light sparingly as it’s incredibly bright for most night photography at high-ISO settings. It’s also not very good for your night vision.

Technical Information

I photographed Moon Halo with a Nikon D800 and Nikkor 17-35 ƒ/2.8 AF-S lens. The exposure was 20 seconds at ƒ/4, ISO 800. I used a Streamlight Tactical Flashlight from the hillside off camera right to illuminate the cane, dead trees, and opposite hillside.

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Ocotillo, California – An Ancient Native American female fertility symbol, or “yoni” petroglyph, at Piedras Grandes in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park.

Technical Information

I photographed Yoni Petroglyph, Piedras Grandes, Anza-Borrego Desert with a Nikon D800 and Nikkor 17-35 ƒ/2.8 AF-S lens fitted with a Singh-Ray 3-Stop Hard Graduated Neutral Density filter. The handheld exposure was 1/80s at ƒ/16, ISO 100.

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Ice on Kingsland Bay, Lake Champlain, Vermont

Technical Information

I photographed Ice on Kingsland Bay, Lake Champlain, Vermont with a Graflex 4×5 Crown Graphic and Fujinon 125mm ƒ/5.6 lens on Kodak TMax 100 (TMX) rated at ISO 64. I developed the sheet film in HC-110 diluted 1:49.

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Stars and Smoke Tree, Canyon Sin Nombre, Anza-Borrego Desert, California

Canyon Sin Nombre is full of these beautiful Smoke Trees (Psorothamnus spinosus). This particular specimen was killed by colonization of epiphytic plants whose seeds were dropped on it by passing birds. Sirius is the bright star directly above.

Technical Information

Stars and Smoke Tree, Canyon Sin Nombre was photographed with a Nikon D800 and Nikkor 17-35mm ƒ/2.8 lens. The exposure was 25 seconds at ƒ/2.8 on ISO 800. After setting the self-timer to allow me to get in position, I “painted” the smoke tree with a Petzl Tactikka Plus LED headlamp while walking behind the camera from left to right.

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This photograph is available as a fine art quality print in a variety of sizes, or for licensing to be used in your project. Click here to view print and licensing options.

An ISO setting of 1600 and a wide 2.8 aperture setting provided plenty of light-gathering ability to record a sky full of stars.

Mountain Palm Springs is one of my favorite locations in the Anza-Borrego Desert. On a clear night, the sounds of the palm fronds rustling in the breeze coupled with the unbelievable amount of stars visible makes for a unique experience.

Technical Information

Stars Over Mountain Palm Springs was photographed with a Nikon D800 and Nikkor 17-35mm ƒ/2.8 lens. The exposure was 30 seconds at ƒ/2.8 on ISO 1600. After setting the self-timer to allow me to get in position, I used an LED headlamp from the hillside to far camera left to fill in the palm trees.

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This photograph is available as a fine art quality print in a variety of sizes, or for licensing to be used in your project. Click here to view print and licensing options.

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Orchard, Kingsland Bay, Vermont

Technical Information

Orchard, Kingsland Bay, Vermont was photographed with a Hasselblad 500CM fitted with a Carl Zeiss 50mm ƒ/4 Distagon on Kodak TMax 100 (TMX) E.I. 64. Developed in HC-110 1:49.

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If you’ve ever used a large format camera, you know that focusing them is a challenge. The image on the ground glass is reversed and upside down, meaning you have to mentally flip and rotate the composition in your mind while you’re framing. And the image on that glass is dark. Real dark. That’s why you see large format shooters focusing their cameras underneath big black cloths — the image is nearly impossible to see in any sort of daylight.

So what do you do when you want to shoot at night? Use lasers!

I carry a small red laser pointer in my large format camera backpack. Looking through the ground glass, I point the laser all around the periphery of the scene so that I know what is and is not in the image. The pinpoint beam is also helps to achieve critical focus on the subject.

I’ve tried various flashlights, but nothing matches the brightness and portability of a small pocket laser pointer.

EDIT May 8,2013 : I’ve put away the laser pointer in favor of a new Tactical Flashlight. Read about it in my post Moon Halo Over Desert Cane.

Technical Information

I photographed Smoke Tree and Star Trails in Canyon Sin Nombre, Anza-Borrego Desert, California with a Tachihara 4×5 Field Camera and a Schneider 210mm ƒ/5.6 lens on Fuji Provia 100 Quickload (RDPIII). The canyon wall and the smoke tree were illuminated by the rising full moon, requiring an exposure of several minutes at ƒ/5.6.

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You can buy a print of this image by visiting the archive. You can choose a print with the film border or without. Prices start at $200 for a signed 8″x10″ image matted with bright white museum board to fit a 16″x20″ frame.

Emma Kitchen in front of a projected MRI scan of her brain.

Earlier this year I was lucky enough to photograph Emma Kitchen for a feature in Middlebury College’s alumni magazine. Emma is a very brave and determined young woman who, in an unfortunate bicycle accident in 2010, suffered a TBI, or Traumatic Brain Injury. Since her recovery, she’s founded an organization to help support others overcoming brain injuries.

You can read more of Emma’s story in “A Beautiful Mind” at Middlebury Magazine, or visit her website concussionsspeak.com.

My job was to not only portray Emma as the gregarious and motivated person that she is, but to illustrate a bit of the struggle she’s faced. I got the idea to photograph her in front of a giant projection of an image taken from one of her MRI scans. I emailed her about this plan and she agreed to bring a disc of images with her to the shoot.

I arrived at one of Middlebury College’s “smart” classrooms an hour before the shoot so that I could connect my laptop to the projector system and make sure everything would work as planned. I brought along some stand-in images of MRI scans I’d downloaded from the internet so that I could establish brightness levels and balance the intensity of the projector with my studio strobes.

View the Lighting Diagram

To light Emma, I planned on using a single strip softbox coming from camera right. Because I needed the room to be completely dark in order to keep the projected image from washing out, I fitted an “egg crate” grid to the face of the softbox. These grids channel the light, preventing unwanted light rays from going anywhere but directly in front of the softbox. I positioned the softbox hard to the right to rake across Emma at an acute angle, that way any spilled light would be directed off to camera left and not toward the projected image behind her.

An alternate take

Once Emma arrived, we selected an appropriate image to project and began the shoot. We tried it a few ways, including a few where we let part of the projected image fall upon the dark side of Emma’s face (see the photo to the right) but my favorite is the main image above.

Technical Information

I photographed this portrait of Emma with a Nikon D700 and a Nikkor 80-200mm ƒ/2.8 AF-S lens. The exposure was 1/50 sec at ƒ/4, ISO 100. I lit Emma with a White Lightning X1600 monolight inside a PhotoFlex Half Dome strip soft box fitted with an “egg crate” grid to create soft, directional light. The background was created with an LCD computer projector on a projection screen with the room lights turned completely off.

Water Tower and Moon, Anza-Borrego Desert, California. » View this image in the Anza-Borrego Gallery

Tachihara 4×5 Wood Field Camera, Schneider 210mm ƒ/5.6 Symmar-S lens, Fuji Provia 100 Quickload (RDPIII). Exposure unrecorded.

View the entire Anza-Borrego Gallery.

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This image is available as a fine art quality archival pigment print in a variety of sizes, with or without the film border shown.