Boulders II, Canyonlands National Park, Utah   View Larger Image

Purchase This Week's Print Boulders II, Canyonlands National Park, Utah is available as an 11"x14" Print, matted to fit an 18"x22" frame. Each print is signed and numbered by the photographer. Only 100 prints will be made, so order early to secure your piece.

Image of the Week Fine Art Print Offer Each week, I post an image from my recent or historical work and talk a little bit about it; the process, creative thought, and technical details that contributed to its creation. During the week an image is featured, I offer it as a Limited Edition Fine Art Print at a special price. Each image is printed personally by me on the latest Epson printers using archival pigment inks on acid-free archival paper. The prints are shipped matted and signed and can be framed using a standard size, off-the-shelf frame from your local frame shop. Learn more about my fine art printing process.

Other Images of the Week Beulah in the Carrizo Badlands, Anza-Borrego Desert, California Chapel of the Transfiguration, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming Cross-Country Runner Alexandra Krieg, Middlebury, Vermont Horse Bath, Morgan Horse Farm, Weybridge, Vermont Whitney, Citronelle, Alabama The North Window from Turret Arch, Arches National Park, Utah Jeff, Middlebury College, Vermont Hostas II, Middlebury, Vermont Hikers in Coyote Gulch I, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, Utah Ocotillo Shadow, Abandoned Cabin, Anza-Borrego State Park, California Moonlit Palms, Anza-Borrego State Park, California Park Avenue, Arches National Park, Utah Ashton and Whitney, Citronelle, Alabama Steven Halladay Road III Fall colors and ivy-covered wall, Middlebury College, Vermont Maple Tree, Middlebury, Vermont Jesse Hamner at Grand Prismatic Spring, Yellowstone NP Aon Center from Millenium Park, Chicago Mountain Biking I Boulders II, Canyonlands National Park, Utah Hosta Leaves Joe The Pour Skylar

Image of the Week

It's all about perspective.

You're out hiking, you come around a bend, and all of sudden you see a marvelous confluence of light, texture, and form before you. You quickly whip out your digital camera, slap it on a tripod, and hastily crank out several frames of the scene, knowing that the light can't possibly last much longer. Satisfied with your capture, you stow your gear and continue down the trail, ready for the next found image.

Or do you?

The paragraph above closely describes what I did while hiking in Canyonlands National Park. I rounded a bend in the trail and saw the scene pretty much as it appears in the small image on the left. I was struck by the dramatic side lighting, long shadows, and complex textures of the boulders. I attached my digital camera to a tripod, composed the image, and fired off a few frames.

But I didn't stop there.

With the camera off the tripod, I walked around the boulders trying to find a different angle...something more intimate, more graphic. At last, I settled upon the larger composition pictured at right. Resetting my tripod for the new angle, I shot a few frames with the digital camera. Because of the large depth of field needed to capture the front and rear boulders in sharp focus, I set up my view camera, applied a small amount of front tilt to produce the desired depth-of-field, and exposed a few sheets of film.

Walk around with your camera off the tripod and experiment with different angles and compositions. All too often, I see photographers compose an image only after they've attached the camera to a tripod, effectively limiting themselves to a single perspective with pan, tilt, and zoom as their only compositional tools. You can produce some fine images this way, but you're potentially missing out on other, perhaps stronger, compositions.

Think three-dimensionally, and don't be afraid to get on your knees.

Have questions, comments? Let me know what you think.

Technical Data

I shot Boulders II, Canyonlands National Park, Utah with a Tachihara 4x5 field camera and a Fujinon•W 150mm ƒ/6.3 lens on Kodak T-MAX 100. The exposure, though not recorded, was approximately 1/15 sec at ƒ/16.