22 Oct
2012
Posted in: Acadia National Park, Composition, Creativity, Inspiration, Landscape Photography
By    17 Comments

“You See It?”


“It’s right there Young Man!  Ha, ha, ha, ha…”

Okay, for all those out there that have no idea what I’m talking about and may be starting to think I’m going insane, I’ll let you in on an inside joke.  When Ian and I were in Belize last winter we hired a guide to take us up the Monkey River for a day of exploring and shooting.  We were most interested in checking out the rain forest and perhaps getting a crack at shooting some howler monkeys.  The boat ride up river was about an hour or so and our guide dutifully spotted and called our attention to a wide variety of wildlife along the way.  However, he had a somewhat unorthodox way of calling our attention to what he was spotting.  Rather than providing a clue to an animal’s location, like caiman at 3 o’clock facing left, near the dark log he would simply call out something like “Caiman!  You see it!  It’s right there young man!”  And then he would proceed to laugh hysterically when our heads rapidly panned back and forth in search of his illusive offering.  Let’s just say that he took particular pleasure in ribbing Ian for what he perceived as Ian’s lack of visual acuity.  Or perhaps he was just fond of Ian’s boyishly good looks, we’ll never know for sure.  Suffice it to say, his tip was not as good as it could have been…

So what does this little anecdote have to do with today’s image?  Simple, photography is about Seeing.  And what our Belizean guide highlights is how much better one’s vision becomes with familiarity, time on task and local knowledge.  He is so much better at Seeing what’s hiding around every bend because his eyes and brain are acutely tuned to his surroundings.  He easily Sees what we don’t not because he’s innately better at it; he’s just been doing it all his life.  He Sees the repetition and pattern in his surroundings and notices right away when something interrupts it, whether it’s an animal to spot for a client or a potential danger to his boat and personal safety.

Seeing photographically is no different in my opinion.  There is no substitute for time on task, practice, training, putting in the miles or any other sports metaphor you care to use.  If you relegate yourself to shooting well-trodden icons you’ll never learn to See for yourself, not to mention your portfolio will look like everyone else’s (Ian’s written a couple of great posts about this recently).  If, when on a photo trip, you run from location to location crossing them off your list without a second, third or fourth look, you won’t learn to See, especially not the full potential that exists in any given location.  If you plunk your tripod and camera down in the first or most convenient spot you find you won’t learn to See.   If you only occasionally get out to shoot you won’t learn to See and if you’re a long time shooter you’ll run the risk of being rusty and out of shape, perhaps not just photographically also.

There is no easy recipe for learning to See, you’ve got to put in the time exploring, observing and experimenting.  It’s a process or journey if you will.  And for all the photographers I know it’s one that never seems to end.  We don’t all of a sudden come to some epiphany and scream out “I can See, I can See!”  It’s a long slog.  If anything, you might start to realize your percentage of keepers increases during any given photo outing or trip.  New subjects, locations, and conditions constantly present new challenges for us as we attempt to make compositional order out of the chaos that is the natural world.  But having a deep well of previous experiences, observations and successes will aid in how well we See what’s in front of us.

The below image was made recently in Acadia National Park on the coast of Maine.  I’ve been photographing the Maine coast for the past 13 years and don’t think I’ve ever witnessed a more glorious or intense sunrise in all of that time.  Having arrived 45 minutes before sunrise I could already tell something special was about to happen.  I headed to a section of coast, not far from perhaps the two most iconic spots in the park, which were no doubt packed with photographers, and like previous trips had the beach to myself (with the exception of one other young man who had boyishly good looks).  The light started to get really good, and really intense, very quickly.  I scrambled around for a couple of minutes not happy with my attempts when the voice of our Belizean guide rang in my head.  “Don’t you See it young man?”  After calming myself down and walking back from the proverbial cliff of photographic panic, I finally began to See it.   The puzzle pieces started to fall into place; a nice collection of foreground rocks making a strong diagonal connection to the above and opposing line in the clouds, another diagonal formed by the incoming wave sets, some breaking white water over the immediate foreground to provide some additional energy and visual flow, and of course the light as icing on the cake.  “It’s right there Young Man!”

Acadia National Park

Technical Details:  Canon 5DII, EF 16-35 f2.8 II, f11 @ 1 sec., ISO 320, 3 stop reverse grad ND.  (A word on processing since I’m sure there are many who will question the color: white balance was left slightly below 5000K, I did some selective contrast adjustments to the foreground, slight boost in contrast to sky, no additional saturation of vibrance to sky colors, it was crazy.  And no, the red channel is not clipped…)

About Kurt Budliger (37 Posts)

Kurt Budliger is a full-time professional photographer specializing in landscape, outdoor lifestyle and fly-fishing photography. He is a frequent contributor to Vermont Life Magazine and works with a variety of other editorial and commercial clients throughout the year. His fine art prints of the Vermont and New England landscape can be found in many private collections around the country. Kurt teaches a variety of photography classes throughout the year, both in formal college settings as well as more informal field based workshops.


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17 Comments

  • nate parker October 23, 2012 at 7:36 am

    holy christ- what a massive sky! I saw it while reading PetaPixel and drinking coffee that morning, glad you caught it, your patience with dealing with the weather of the previous couple days before payed off in spades here! Wicked good one bub!

  • NilsZ October 23, 2012 at 8:50 am

    I just love water with around 1 sec exposure.

    • Kurt Budliger October 23, 2012 at 11:02 am

      1 second and be there I guess Nils ;)

  • Dene' Miles October 23, 2012 at 12:08 pm

    This is a glorious work of art Kurt. Love the story that accompanies this image as well, great words of wisdom with a dose of humor. You deserve 10 of these skies for persevering for 13 years. Outstanding work young man! :)

  • Jeff Loomis October 23, 2012 at 1:27 pm

    Excellent read with some very good advice. Love the image too. The point of view you chose really gets the most out of those foreground rocks. Amazing colors too.

    Question: “the red channel is not clipped…” How did you achieve that without the whole image being dark? I find that any scene with a extra rich colors (usually sky, flowers or foliage) is tough to expose correctly. If the other colors look good, then the rich color is clipped and bleeds. If I lower the exposure, the rest of the scene gets underexposed. I can fix some of it in post, but then noise can be a problem. Just curious if you have a method in the field to get the best exposure possible?

    • Kurt Budliger October 23, 2012 at 2:26 pm

      Hey, thanks Jeff.

      As for the exposure and not clipping colors like red, there are a number of variables, not the least of which is the camera sensor you’ve got. Are you shooting full frame or other? I’m finding that my full frame sensor is holding a lot more detail in these hard to hold areas. Also, make sure you’re shooting raw which gives you the fullest range of tones/colors possible for any given scene/exposure.

      For this image I also used a 3 stop grad ND to bring the the bright highlights in the sky closer to the foreground luminosity. I could have also shot a frame for the sky and one for the foreground and blended them in PS but there’s no way I could have shot one frame and held the highlights.

      The final variable is processing in ACR. In the field I was definitely seeing some clipping on the histogram, but you have to remember that the histogram is based on a jpeg preview. Experience is now telling me that I can easily get those “clipped” highlights back when I open the file in LR so I don’t even worry that much about them. In fact, often times (as is the case here) they aren’t even showing as clipped when you open them in ACR, and that is prior to making any adjustments. I will however usually shoot a frame specifically for the sky in case I need to do some blending but much prefer to get a single frame using a grad.

      A couple of little tips: the new whites and highlights sliders in ACR are pure magic at restoring/darkening highlights and you can also darken specific colors using the the luminosity color sliders in the HSL tab. I find this works great when I’ve got a color like red or yellow that is bordering on clipping, or blue in a pale washed out sky. Hope that helps and let me know if you have any other questions.

      • Jeff Loomis October 23, 2012 at 2:50 pm

        Thanks for the reply Kurt!

        I am shooting a Nikon D300s, because I do a lot of bird photography and enjoy the extra reach of the crop sensor.

        Your explanation makes a lot of sense. I do shoot RAW, but I am probably too conservative with the histogram, making sure nothing is blown. It sounds like there might be some more room there given the recovery slider in ACR. The idea of making a second exposure – even just for insurance – is a good tip that I will definitely try out.

        I purchased CS5 back in the spring, so while I have learned a lot, there is still a lot to learn. I will explore ACR and other options as you suggested.

        Thanks again,
        Jeff

        • Kurt Budliger October 23, 2012 at 3:09 pm

          You’re welcome, anytime…

          Just to be clear, the newest version of PS, CS6 (or Lightroom 4.X) has a revamped raw conversion app. The new configuration is far superior to the previous versions, ie the ones with a recovery slider. The new processing engine is way better and in my opinion allows you to get a lot more out of your files.

  • Iker Aizkorbe October 23, 2012 at 2:13 pm

    Really fantastic tones and very attractive movement of wave!!

  • Bill Chambers October 23, 2012 at 4:51 pm

    Great article Kurt – so very true! That’s one reason I enjoy intimate landscapes so much – it forces you to see, organize, compose, and somehow form a coherent message from chaos.

    Your image is fantastic!! That must have been so glorious to take it all in!

  • Ian Plant October 23, 2012 at 5:07 pm

    How come these blog posts from Kurt and George always involve a story at my expense? Sweet image bro, I’m just glad that I didn’t get in your way for a change.

    • Kurt Budliger October 23, 2012 at 9:09 pm

      Cause we love you Ian ;)

      • Ian Plant October 24, 2012 at 9:44 am

        Yeah, right, that’s why!


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