Photographing both the forest... and the tree

Steve Kossack sends these two images from his recent Great Smoky Mountains fall-color workshop along with an instructive article just posted on his website. We're picking up parts of that article here to provide a glimpse into how thoughtfully and carefully Steve approaches all his landscape photography.

"Blinded by the light? It happens to all of us at times. I'm always looking for light, color and texture to help me tell the story of every landscape and how I feel about the scene. While with our Smoky mountains workshop in October, we entered Cades Cove on a warm but stormy dawn as the light danced across the vast expanse before us. The weather was moving very quickly and the light was fleeting at best. With so much great color, I now became worried about being overwhelmed and not seeing the forest for the trees!

"In a small section of the cove we were presented with both muted light, strong directional light and beautiful color, but not all at once. In the top image, using the muted light, I saw the wide array of color as the focal point and used a telephoto lens to capture detail.

"The second image of the single tree took more time, however. As the storm drifted by in the distance, the cove before us became dark. The tree had lost most of its leaves and color but I saw it as a strong focal point, isolated as it was. One of the first questions I ask myself when setting up a composition is, 'What brought me here?' In this case it was the tree. Without any filtration the image seemed flat and lifeless. However, foreseeing the possibility that the light in the distance might soon bathe the tree as well, I placed the Singh-Ray LB Color Intensifier on my lens and waited. As the light hit the tree the need to darken the sky behind it became apparent, and that was accomplished by using a 4x6-inch Singh-Ray 4-stop, hard-step Graduated ND filter which I moved quickly through the composition during the exposure."

We thank Steve for these two equally fine -- but very different -- color compositions made within minutes of each other in the same thoughtful manner... by seeing and distinguishing the forest from the tree. To read Steve's complete description of this process and explore his Great Smoky gallery, you can visit his website.

F 2.8/300mm tele plus drop-in Gold-N-Blue work a little magic in the rain

Photographer Steve Kossack sent this story to us from his Arizona home following his latest Fall Workshop in Great Smoky Mountain National Park.

"During the six days our group spent in the park," says Steve, "we had two days of rain. That's not too bad, but on this day -- our last chance at a Smoky Mountain sunset -- it never quit raining, at least not for long! At this point, as we all sat waiting impatiently in our vehicles, we agreed our workshop's success was already assured -- even if we did not fire another frame. Before this trip began, I was concerned that the severe drought in that area would cause the leaves to drop from the trees before they turned color. During our first several days in the park, however, we were nearly blinded by dramatic fall colors.

"As we sat gazing out at this rain, we saw virtually no color at all. We thought we were more likely to witness this sunset on our wrist watches than through our viewfinders. So what else could we do?

Each time I got out to make an image, I was attracted to a constantly moving cloud study in my viewfinder. With little prevailing light to work with, I went to my beloved Canon 300mm 2.8L IS lens to frame what seemed to be a nice composition. Using this f-2.8 tele wide open with a fast shutter speed worked well with the quickly moving clouds. I shot dozens of frames between the squalls of rain and then quickly jumped back into the vehicle, leaving only the tripod out in the rain.

"When I thought more about what I might do with the scene, I realized the little bit of color I was seeing was flat. I was concentrating mostly on the light areas in the sky -- light areas of reflected light -- the thought came quickly. LIGHT! … MUTED REFLECTED LIGHT!! That’s long been my recipe for the Singh-Ray Gold-N-Blue Polarizer!

"Some time ago, I became frustrated because I could not use any filter other than the standard Canon 52mm drop-in polarizer with my Canon 300 2.8 and 500 f/4 lenses. I was forced to change to shorter lenses in order to use any of my favorite Singh-Ray filters. I solved this dilemma by having Singh-Ray install a Gold-N-Blue Polarizer in my Canon drop-in polarizing holder. The rest of this story is, and was, easy to read in the results. Compare my two "rain frames" made seconds apart -- with my Gold-N-Blue (at top) and without it. Maybe my Gold-N-Blue drop-in filter did not make this a super-great shot, but I feel it certainly produced a much improved and more interesting image of a very wet Smoky Mountain sunset."

Be sure to look at more of Steve's recent Smoky Mountain images on his website, stevekossack.com

To upgrade your drop-in polarizer, you'll need to ship the drop-in polarizer that fits your lens to Singh-Ray along with payment for the LB Warming Polarizer glass plus $50 custom mounting fee ($260 + shipping). This service is also available for our Gold-N-Blue Polarizer ($240 + shipping). For more information, call Singh-Ray at 863-993-4100.