New Hampshire

I hope I can spend more time in New Hampshire very soon. This shot is from the White Mountain region at Crawford Notch State Park. We were only in New Hampshire for a few hours, but we found some beautiful locations at this park. After sunrise, we passed this beautiful grove of trees and decided to pull over and take a few shots in the river. I cleaned out some of the dead leaves caught between the rocks, and put my camera down low on my tripod. I was able to get very close to this rock since I was using my wide 10-22mm lens. The inherent distortion makes the rock and the leaf seem large, since they are close to the lens. It exaggerates the distance between the foreground objects and the trees on the other side of the river. I love the depth I can create in an image with this technique, and you'll notice it in many of my photos.

I used a circular polarizer filter to cut through the reflections on the water and let me see the rocks underneath. The filter also enhances the color a bit, but I try not to let that get out of control. I can tone it down a bit in PhotoShop if necessary, but in this case, I was comfortable with the finished product. I used a long exposure to blur the water in the foreground. I wanted to capture the light coming through the leaves in the background, and also through the red leaf in the foreground.

Meander

Horseshoe Bend - Colorado River, Arizona. Huge storms were moving through the area on the evening I took this shot. Our friends were concerned about the weather, and decided not to join us, but we were thrilled with the dynamic skies. We spent a few minutes shooting from the sandy hillside overlooking the bend, and then approached as the sun neared the horizon.

The view here is absolutely stunning - I'm sure many of you have seen photos from this location before. The blue-green Colorado river meanders around this spectacular bend, and you are looking at it from 500 feet above. The cliffs are sheer - and there are no railings. We set up our tripods as close to the edge as possible, and started shooting. I shot at f/22 in order to capture the flare in the sun, and I'm happy with the results. I used my Canon 10-22mm lens to get as wide as possible (without resorting to a fish-eye lens, and dealing with extreme distortion). I love my 10-22mm. :)

I updated my website this week as well. There are some new shots up, so maybe that will hold you over until I get a little more work done, here.