It’s getting to be that doldrum part of the summer, when in West Texas, the photography seems to be getting more sparse in terms of vegetation, and the days drag on. It’s like an old Ford/Wayne western placed in a dried up town with nothing but a jailhouse and the quintessential hotel. Alright, alright, so it’s not that extreme. It’s actually been a nice summer so far, but you can tell the heat is coming on and the photographic days are just creeping along.

The shot above is from a few years back, during the Spring actually. The Chorro Vista campsite in the Big Bend Ranch State Park is found on one of the longest stretches of unmaintained high-clearance road in to the Fresno Canyon area, just south of the Arroyo de los Mexicanos. At the time this photograph was taken, it was one of the newest roads in the park, and in Big Bend, when they say unmaintained and high-clearance, they mean bring two spares and plenty of what they refer to as “desert pin-striping.” The ocatilla and desert yucca are abundant, and the campsite offers some of the best vistas in the park looking toward the Chisos mountain range. Just below the campsite is another jewel of a find in Madrid Falls, the second highest waterfall in the state. It’s pouring straight out of the Chihuahuan desert.

I haven’t been back to this site in a couple years, but I feel an itching to get back that way. The Texas Big Bend is a special sight, and it’s worth every drop of gas getting you out there!

Here are a few formats for the calendar you’re welcome to download:

Large: 2400 X 1600

Laptop: 1440 X 960

iPad: 1024 X 768

iPhone 4: 960 X 640

It’s been a busy week, full of shooting, writing, designing, and some great discussions with other photographers, near and afar! I was going through some old images tonight looking for some submit-worthy photographs to go with an assignment, and I came across this image from the Big Bend Ranch State Park near Lajitas, Texas. I drove back in down some fairly fresh cut roads the afternoon before this morning and car-camped until an hour before sunrise.

There is nothing better than waking up before the dawn and hearing nothing, while being able to barely see across this vast expanse of rugged land, decorated with desert vegetation and craggy peaks. Twilight (no, not the movie) is an interesting time to shoot as well, and it’s a good practice to do so if you are interested in understanding the dynamic range capabilities of your camera (sorry, enough of the nerd talk, let’s just soak it in). You sense the stillness at this time of day, regardless of where you are. I continually tell my students that it’s worth waking up at least one morning out of the year before the sunrises. Your life will be better. Wake up more often, go take a few images, and you might just have struck the fountain of youth!

If you happen to be camped out on a mountaintop straddling the Texas-Mexico border, even better!

Photographers that spend a good amount of their time on the road will see the significance in this post, particularly those photographers who see themselves periodically popping in the travel photography sector of the industry. When I travel to a shoot, I tend to stake out the towns/areas/ecosystems I’ll be driving through for potential photo opportunities. It’s kind of like routing a band on tour, so they can make the most out of every potential stop. I mentioned in my last post about my recent long trek from West Texas to all over the Hill Country (Austin-area for you out-of-staters), and in that 1,000+ mile road trip, I HAD to make three stops for shoots, none of which actually included people, just locales. But HAVING to make those stops meant I was going to be traveling through some pretty cool country, right? Right!

I’m not going to share my entire road trip in this one post (because in my eyes, it was a really productive excursion across the “friendly state”), but I am going to share a travel tip that may interest some of you in your own travels. When I travel to a shoot that I know I don’t have to necessarily photograph any person(s), I opt not for a hotel room, but a campground. Alright, some of you just went, “Nope. Not doing that.” That’s fine, but as a traveling photographer, let me anecdotally take you through this.

My first stop was Waco, Texas, and I was going to be getting there late. I was determined, however, to camp out. Why?

1. I’m a travel photographer when I’m on the road, but I’m not necessarily one that wants to shoot the inside of a hotel room. I’d rather find a camp next to a river, knowing there is potential in the images that I might get of said location for others to use (i.e. magazines, adverts, prints, etc.).

2. It’s more affordable. Camp sites can run anywhere from $10.00 to $25.00, but if you don’t mind setting a tent up, or blowing a mattress up to go in the back of your vehicle, it beats paying at least $50.00+ for a motel/hotel room. Sure, some outfits will reimburse you, but this may take weeks, if not months. When you have a business to take care of, why not be frugal and make it count!

3. Camping is cool, and all the cool kids are doing it! Seriously, have you ever camped on the side of a calm river? It’s nice…humid, but nice.

I can think of a lot more reasons, but back to my story. I called ahead the afternoon I left, and the campgrounds I stayed at on the Brazos River (yes, the very one that John Graves wrote this iconic text about) had an open spot. Be sure to call ahead, and check. I usually like to stay at a state park, but many RV parks offer camping as well. Luckily, as I mentioned, this one happened to be on the river. AND, when I got there, at 10:30 p.m., the owner himself took me to a spot right next to the river. Nobody else around, just peace, quiet, the river, and a pair of raccoons that decided to argue a bit before I went to sleep. I set my tent up, and then I headed over to the water with camera, tripod, flashlight, and shutter release, and grabbed a few shots.

I knew I was going to get there late, and I knew I was going to have to leave before the sun rose the next morning, but that shouldn’t stop anyone from taking photographs at night on the river. Often times, this is when it becomes the most interesting. I came away with a few shots I was happy with that night, and early that morning, and then I was gone, all within a period of about six hours.

Night:

Morning:

I understand this isn’t the most ideal way for many photographers to travel, and then again, it’s a great way for those with inclinations of nature/outdoors travel photographic focus. I simply enjoy being out next to something more natural than the sounds of cars driving down the highway every now and then. So, think about your next road trip/photo expose across uncharted territory, and at the same time, think about publications that may be looking for imagery from those areas you will travel through. Find a state park or camp ground close to your destination, and enjoy the day/night and take a few meaningful shots along the way.

By the way, plenty of campgrounds and state parks have shower facilities…

I thought I would share this colorful thistle while I work on a new Field Lighting post. Thistles are a mix of beauty and danger combined in the same plant, and when they are in full bloom, they take center stage with their vibrancy. If you can find a calm, overcast morning to throw on a macro lens or extension tubes, it’s worth taking advantage of them. If there’s even the slightest breeze, shooting becomes frustrating, especially if you are creating images of a thistle that stands two to three feet tall!

Enjoy!

It’s been a while since I’ve put up a Field Lighting post, and Junction kept me from posting anything too extensive, so I have a little catching up to do. In regards to the last Field Lighting post, nick b pretty much nailed it beyond naming the exact light source behind the model to camera right. Click here for the full explanation and an image of the setup.

If you’ve been around this site enough, you’ll know that I don’t necessarily market myself as a wedding photographer, or a photographer for anything near-related to that industry. There are several well-established image makers in my area that do a superb job of fulfilling that role, such as Kristin Bednarz, Lissa Anglin, Cris Duncan, Brittany Strebeck, and a host of other great shooters, some of which have been through my classes (they all grow up so fast, ha)! However, every now and then, I get a call for a wedding or engagement/couples shoot (I didn’t say I didn’t like it, I just focus mostly elsewhere), and I couldn’t pass up on the most recent opportunity.

One of my good friends called me a few months back talking about some shots he saw of mine in Texas Parks & Wildlife Magazine, and wanted to know if I wouldn’t mind shooting he and his fiance. Bryan knew I don’t do much of this type of work, but after hearing how and where he proposed, I instantly had a shot in my mind that I wanted to get. So, we booked a date, and it just so happened to be a day that my wife, Amanda, was free to assist (free?), and we booked it three hours to the shoot!

Bryan proposed at a hitching post he built on top of a hill on a ranch near Seymour, Texas, which is justifiably named cowboy country. After a leisurely ride one day with his then girlfriend, Sarah, he proposed to her on top of the hill after they tied up their horses. He described how the setting looked to me, and when we were there, the weather held out over the month between engagement and shoot enough to pretty much replicate what I had in mind: green cacti, small yellow and white flowers, green, Spring grass (pretty much the Garden of Eden environmental circumstances for said country).

Now on to the lighting. By the time we got to the post, the sun was on the horizon, and the light was diffuse enough to delineate some of the contrast on the land, but not so much that it was flat. Tying a horse up at the post, I had Bryan and Sarah stand about 25 feet away, and using a focal length of 47mm, framed the shot up like you see it. What we needed was a little more light to pop the couple off the background. This is a great place to have the Elinchrom Ranger Quadra lights around, and one simple light with the 39″ Rotalux softbox, powered down all the way on the B-channel (the lowest it will go). One little pop, that’s it. Nothing over the top compared to the ambient. No 2-stop difference between artificial and natural light sources (not that I’m opposed to that, just not in this case). Just enough light to make it work. This is exactly what I had in mind for this shot, and the meaning in their faces and their posture could not have been better. Ultimately, the cherry on top of this layered image is Bryan’s hat. The little things make me happy in the image: light, hat, expressions, small flowers…

Again, a quick post, but to be totally honest, when you conceptualize the image beforehand, particularly one that you know you want to get, then it’s not necessarily a drawn out process! Thanks to Bryan and Sarah for a great shoot, and good luck in the future!

The June desktop calendar is now available! Just right click the image above and save it do your designated folder! This shot was actually taken from a location that one of my students came upon during a shoot on one of the most beautiful stretches of the Sabinal River in Utopia, Texas! Several of us came away with nice images. Good find Brent!

Each Spring, I spend two weeks photographing in the Hill Country non-stop, and quite a bit of that is taken up with flowers, lush vegetation, rivers, and…er, flowers. Last year, I decided to do something different (in my book at least). You could say my inspiration came from Joel Sartore’s images of rare animals on black backgrounds, only I didn’t have a black background for the flowers I was photographing. All I had on me was a few Canon Speedlites and some Pocket Wizards. That’s all you need to knock those backgrounds to black, or at least close to it!

If you turn your flashes (I’m being brand-generic here, you’ll have to find your flash operator’s manual to decipher for your own gear) on high-speed sync, you can use insanely fast shutter speeds to kick the ambient light out of the frame whilst popping your subject with an ultra-fast dump of light! Most of the images in this post were actually shot at 1/8000 at f/2.8 with the ISO set to 50 (approximate, there are a few variations).

You can reverse engineer most of these light setups. I used two lights at back 45s on the Mexican Hats, and for the others, I just handled one flash to pull all the weight. TIP: use a sturdy tripod and a shutter release! A macro-lens or extension tubes don’t hurt as well!

Here’s a before and after look at how powered-up your flash will actually go (depending on when it  was made…I’ll let you figure that out).

Before:                                                                                       After:

Also, shooting with high-speed sync activated will drain your battery faster than normal, so it wouldn’t hurt packing extra batteries.

This is a fun technique, and it complements the repertoire of tools you keep in your flower shooting bag! Try it out next time you’re around a field of bluebonnets or pinwheels!

I probably have this in a previous post (no doubt a failure of my memory), but I just wanted to post one of my favorite shots taken over the past few years. These are artist James Watkins’s hands. I have an upcoming Field Lighting post generated around this shot and a few portraits of this great ceramicist, but I thought I would go ahead and show this one. I just love the light, the texture, the work taking place, the solidarity of the subject, and the combination of a moving and a still subject play in tandem to make this image come together for me!

Hands are so important to many craftsmen/women and artists. For this reason, I’ll always consider this one of my best portraits!

Please provide any interpretation of the shot that you feel like…

I’m a little early with this one (just to make up for how late I have been with the past three). Just click on the shot, and download it to your desktop for your day-keeping pleasure!

It’s been a treat walking to the Texas Tech office during the mornings and seeing all the Bradford Pears blooming. I don’t know about any of you, but I’m pretty tired of what has been this winter (up and down, up and down). Here’s to a happy April, and a pleasant and photographically productive Spring!

I was just down in the Hill Country for a show with the Hogg Maulies, and it was refreshing to see some of the rivers coming back to level! Here’s a take from the Sabinal River running through a beautiful ranch in Utopia, Texas. This has been the site of a lot of great photography!