The first thing I did was to crop it down and use the wrap tool to get the framing right and bring the size if the file down a little as it was huge, when I was done it was still over 2gb. The rest of the adjustments where some of the same ones I do in my commercial work flow. One of the adjustments that made a big differents was making a duplicate layer and converting it to B&W and then changing the blend mode to Soft Light. The rest was some curve and hue/saturation layers to add interest.

Here is the before and after:

Before

After

When I started going through all the photographs I looked at these barns and I discovered that I had a lot of photographs, but what I also discovered was how different all these images looked. I had images that I had light painted, shot with water in front, had bison in some, different angles and had one that was lit by moonlight only.

I have noticed that a lot of photographers will set up the tripod in one spot in order to get the iconic image that they have seen. These photographers are the “Checklist Photographers”, they have seen this image, and they have now taken the shot that everyone else has taken and are ready to move on to the next spot on their list. They now have that pretty photograph that they can show everyone where they’ve been and photographed, instead of exploring and looking for a different angle that people have not seen. This is not to say that I haven’t done this, because I have, but I have learned that you need to explore and look for new angles or different views so that you will come up with your own interpretation of the subject.

I had the opportunity recently to photograph Mesa Arch in Canyonlands National Park and this image has done very well for me this year winning the first place in landscape photography at the Florida Professional Photographers convention. In the past few days as I have been clearing out a lot of old magazines and I have seen a lot of images of Mesa Arch that are all of that same iconic image. It is a very nice image, but the image I took by going off to the side and coming in at a very low angle has given a different view to something that has been photographed by tens of thousands of photographers.

My point here is that after you get your “checklist shot” pick up your tripod and move around, look at a low angle, try from a different spot that you haven’t seen anyone try before. Try to get the shot that no one else is taking, it may be bad, it may be great, but if you don’t try you will never know and you’ll really never grow as a photographer.

Here are a number of images from the two workshops of the Mormon barns:

Like painting delicate arch was one of the highlights of this workshop. Having Dave show us his way of working with the lights to get the right effect was incredible. Each attendee was able to use the flashlights to make their own images and get the experience on this great technique.

Dave had suggested that maybe we try to photograph from a different angle, but was not sure that we would be able to get down there to do it. I decided to give it a try and see how hard it was to get down in the bowl underneath the arch. I think I made a few of our attendees a tad nervous as they watched me crawl down into the bowl. I made two great shots from there, but it was decided it was just too hard everyone to do the same.

On a side note to this, Dave had his new Nikon D 800 and let’s all the attendees put their cards in his camera. I also use his camera light paint on the set and was very impressed with the detail that the Nikon produced. So much so that unless Canon comes out with a camera that matches the quality of the D 800 I might even considered changing over to it. I’ll let you know how this plays out later this year.

What I loved about all the people that were photographing with us and also the other photographers that were on this tiny ledge was the ability to laugh and have a good time. Everybody was considerate of the other photographers around them and I was told that our group could be heard on the other side of the window laughing and having a good time. This is one of the aspects that I really enjoy our workshops, meeting new people, teaching them photography and laughing and having a good time. I have been some great people and hopefully new friends that enjoy photography as much as I do.

When we brought the attendees out to this location we told everyone they only had one hour to shoot as we had lined up mountain climbers to shot with Dave Black that day. It was like watching kids in a candy store as everyone ran around trying to get the shots in one hour. This is actually a good exercise to do, by giving yourself a limited amount of time to produce a number of photos. It allows you to assess your location and decide what is important to shoot and to work on those shots instead of trying to shoot everything.

Here are a couple of my photographs from Cisco and when we get some from our students oppose those too.

Dave talked about some the aspects of shooting mountain climbers on location and gave direction as to places you might want to go and how to capture people climbing that shows excitement and the story. We photographed for almost 2 hours and probably would have photographed longer but our climbers were getting tired and the sun was getting low so we all decided it was time to go have dinner and a drink with the two tired climbers.

Here are a couple shots I took I took today and I can’t wait to see some of our attendees images to.

Here is a video that Rick made while in Death Valley with a quick tip for shooting landscape photography.

When you make it to Ubehebe crater you are at the half waypoint and you have to stop to see an impressive natural example of mother natures force in Death Valley. The crater is over a half-mile across and over 500 feet deep. Magma pushed close to the valleys surface and super heated water that exploded. When you walk around the crater it is an odd sensation, as the explosion pulverized the rock in to tiny gray pebbles and you feel like you are on a pebble sand dune.

Now the fun starts. I was told we had it easy, as they had just re-graded the road three weeks ago. You could not prove that by my ride up. It was 27 miles of bone jarring, road watching out for sharp rock that had rolled back in to the dirt road. Did I forget to mention that is also a single lane road, so you had to watch out for cars and trucks coming down the opposite way? Jeff, my buddy and co-fonder of “The Digital Photo Workshops”, was the mad man driving the four wheel drive high clearance vehicle. Jeff likes to drive fast, I mean really fast and he has concocted a reason to drive obsessively fast on a dirt road. He told us that it wouldn’t feel as bumpy; I bag to differ with him on this point. To say the least it was a white-knuckle ride up that road for an HOUR.

I have to admit it was worth taking my life in my hands with Jeff’s driving. The shots we got where great and I have finely photographed the moving rock at the Race Track in Death Valley. Here are some images from that shoot and a video of that drive.