26 Nov 13. I'm rather certain that everyone is aware of the idea of a monochrome image being one consisting of a color and white, such as B&W, sepia (brown & white), cyanotype (blue & white), and so forth. As such, B&W Tuesday should likely be renamed to Monochrome Tuesday, but I'm assuming that the idea easily translates across all types of monochromatic images and will leave it as is. The Gardner River is a tributary to the Yellowstone River and lies entirely within the boundaries of the park, but you would be hard pressed to ascertain that from the National Parks provided visitors map! It is a short river of approximately 25 miles in length, and is situated in the far NW corner of the park. The road from Norris to Mammoth parallels the river for perhaps 5 miles near the Gardner entrance and offers several nice views both of the river and the surrounding meadows, one of which is the subject for today's submission. Some of you may recall my comments a couple weeks back about a speaker who was talking about seeing color as B&W. Since listening to him I have been attempting to visualize the 2,500+ shots I took on the trip as B&W to determine what would and wouldn't look good as monochromatic images. Not quite as easy as one might think, but the experience is helping me to see better as a photographer. This image obviously began as a color capture, but looking at several shots taken in approximately the same location resulted in this one being chosen as a potentially good candidate. I've elected to go with a gold and white look which I chose as it reminded me of many of the photos I remember from my youth as well as many old photos of my grandparents era I'm currently scanning to save from the effects of aging and light. I've added a border that I feel gives the picture a wee bit of depth as well as complimenting the scene. Of course, such borders are not typical of the older images, but in this case I think it works. To get to what I'm sharing from the color image I proceeded as follows: starting with the original color shot as the background layer, I first added a levels adjustment layer to correct for some lost highlights, then a curves layer to add a bit of global contrast, then ran a filter to adjust the detail but painted it (the detail) in at various strengths to help provided for depth in the shot. Then applied another filter to give a bit of punch overall, and then converted to B&W selecting the tint you see. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture priority; ISO 200; 1/320 sec @ f / 8.
27 Nov 13. Another today from Artists Paint Pot. While walking around the thermal areas of the park one of the things that you immediately become aware of is that while "warm" water may be fine for thermophiles, it isn't for most plants, and most certainly not for trees. Everywhere you look in the neighborhood of the hot areas you notice an area completely clear of trees although you frequently see the remains of them all over. This is a shot of one of those former trees, now not much more than a nice place for helping oneself to a back scratch; the animals of course, not you. If I did this correctly, you should have the feeling that the two diagonal branches are sticking out at you beckoning you to consider at least the idea of a back scratch. To do this I started with the standard background layer, added a levels adjustment for highlights improvement, then a curves layer for global contrast adjustment, then a layer to add detail to the tree, which is responsible for the 3-D effect if it works (you may need to push back a bit from the screen to appreciate it), then I cloned out some distractions, ran a filter to selectively adjust contrast, then adjusted the hue in the reds and yellows to bring out the colors of the ground, and finally added a bit of sharpening. Then the normal stuff. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/400 sec @ f /11.
29 Nov 13. The image for today is one designed to give you an overview for several of the images to follow in the next couple of weeks. The vast majority of the image is a signboard hosting a map of the Mammoth Hot Springs. I've annotated it with one missing aspect of the area, Grassy Spring, which was the topic of last Friday's (22 Nov) image. I suggest you keep this image around for a few weeks, or just print it out, as it may be helpful in understanding my descriptions of the area. This is the view looking straight ahead at the location marked on the signboard as "you are here" so it gives you the big picture. Zoom in and have a look around. The majority of the images I'll be sharing will be from locations in the lower right quadrant. Other than enhance the sky a wee bit, this is straight from the camera. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/800 sec @ f / 9.
