Steve Kossack reminds us that national parks offer endless opportunities to enjoy nature's blessings

"Our national parks are distinctly unique. Wallace Stegner described them as America's best idea!" Steve Kossack reminds us, "our country has set aside these vast areas of natural beauty and geological wonders for the enjoyment of all the world's citizens. In times of economic downturn, our national parks become public refuges. Most of the workshops I lead are in our national parks. Fine art landscape photography can be done almost anywhere, but it's the emotion and spirit of the parks that I find extra stimulating. It's not only where, but why I photograph!

"This summer prompted thoughts of revisiting several of the national parks I've not visited for some time -- parks off the beaten path and the road less traveled. I thought I'd try shooting from a different perspective as well. In a nutshell I would visit three of the quieter parks, two volcanoes, and the tallest trees in the world, with only Canon's four tilt-shift (T/S) lenses in my bag. (In 17mm, 24mm, 45mm and 90mm focal lengths.)

"Tilt-shift lenses are designed to control depth of field and perspective. They can dictate what is in or out of focus, as well as what lines of sight are straight or slanted. They can be adjusted to change size and scale. These lenses are manual focus and take time and effort to use. For the most part I become much like a view-camera photographer making many lens movements and constantly refocusing. For me these lenses offer opportunities not present in fixed lenses but like any tool, they can destroy an image just as quickly as make one! For insurance, I added to my kit a Canon 50mm 1.2 lens. In the low light that I usually like and shoot in, I find some instances when I'm not able to see well enough to focus with the T/S lenses and this fast and bright lens gives me the ability at times to set up a shot, at least initially, that I can't make with the other lenses.

"My first stop was Redwood National Park, which is located on the northern California coast and has a major highway, CA 101, running through most of it. Redwood is comprised of several state parks along with the national park just outside the little town of Orick. This vast woodland could consume months of a photographer's time but like many of the parks, it can also be enjoyed and photographed in short day trips. The national park has two major areas; The Lady Bird Johnson Grove where the park was founded and The Grove of Big Trees which is accessible by permit only. Campgrounds and lodging are almost everywhere!

"The image above was captured with a wideangle T/S-17mm lens that allowed me to get intimate detail up close while still revealing the habitat my focal subject lives in. Here surrounded by hundreds of various species of cluttered trees, I was able to show the majesty and girth of this scarred redwood tree that towered over everything and still hold detail in the forest beyond. Setting up with my 17mm T/S, the rise or shift control gave me the composition I wanted while the camera body maintained the level sensor plane rendering all trees vertical and not falling away as would have been the case with a standard lens pointed upward. This was all that was needed since most of the forest in view was still and I could stop down a bit for depth of field. If you have experience with Canon's new 17mm tilt/shift you'll know that it has a bulbous front lens that makes it impossible to attach filters. However I have been handholding my Singh-Ray graduated ND filters with much success. The trick is to keep the filter level to prevent some parts of the image from blurring. I use my camera's depth-of-field preview to judge where the filter is in my frame. I don't find live view helpful. Of course I needed my larger 4x6-inch versions of the Singh-Ray 3-stop soft-step ND Grad series and had to be careful not to get my fingers in the frame!

"This next image from Redwood National Park was simply breathtaking to make! Again the T/S 17mm was kept level on both planes, horizontally as well as vertically. Then the problem was to place the sun behind the tree with just enough showing to highlight the rays. Next was the use of the Singh-Ray 4-stop soft-step ND Grad and how to place it in the frame. I quickly realized that all would be in vain if the blue clearing at the top left were over exposed. As the sun moved so did I. It was only moments before the effect was gone and I had to set it up a few inches away all over again. The path was the main part of the composition and the grove had very few people in it at this early hour. As a matter of fact most that were there had gathered to watch me working! For perspective, I wanted people on the path and this is the only frame from dozens that answered my request. I was about to ask for volunteers to stage it when these two appeared out of the fog. Can you tell that they are headed in different directions? I waited as long as possible for them to come close to each other. The fact that one is in red was a gift sent along with those photography rays!

"The Grove of Big Trees at Redwood National Park contains some of the tallest trees on the planet and is as much fun to get to and from as capturing this photograph. It is a fairly strenuous hike to the grove. At midafternoon there was almost no direct light anywhere. The solitude and isolation were at once startling, thrilling and overpowering! The tall trees were everywhere but their lower trunks were almost overwhelmed by ferns and maples covered in deep moss. To make a composition from all this was daunting. My solution was again to set the habitat and let the over 200-foot-tall trees be merely the pillars with a foundation of ferns. The only suitable direct light I saw all afternoon led me to it. The tilt feature allowed for the straightening of the trees in the background while the rise set the stage with the ferns. Being down in a gully made both appear to fall away from me. As you can see, that effect was nullified. Singh-Ray 3- and 4-stop ND Grads were combined with the 4-stop stacked slightly higher in the sandwich.


"The parks were never assembled in any set or logical way. They are instead simply jewels strung together one at a time to make a beautiful necklace. Not all are equal and not all are the same. Crater Lake was the fourth National Park to be established (1902), and it is unique and unusual. At first glance it boggles the mind! An exploded volcano that left a caldera that was eventually filled by only rain and snowmelt. There are no rivers or streams that flow into the lake which is why it is the purest and deepest in the country, if not the world. The fact that it became a national park so early is what kept it from becoming what Lake Tahoe is today. The lake is 6 miles across and sports two islands. Today the newly rebuilt lodge is still the main feature with the visitor center and usual concession area. The majority of visitors are harbored here with most of the rest in vehicles at overlooks on the loop road. If you are willing to hike even a short distance you will find that the park is quiet and peaceful. I find this place highly inspirational and almost impossible to photograph!

"At sunrise in the crisp cold air, the 24mm Canon T/S 24mm provided the desired field of view over Crater Lake from this distance. Struggle as I might with various positions, however, I could not find a vantage point that held the scale. That was solved with the fallen tree. As I scouted the area I found this was one of the few places that you can actually get below the rim safely. Most of the rim is sheer cliff and at first even the loop road seems treacherous to drive, let alone hike. The rise/shift enabled the view above the stump and the tilt allowed me to "lean" the stump toward the lake giving the feeling of pulling it up by its roots!

"Lassen National Park in northeastern California is also off the beaten path for most and contains geological features found around the Yellowstone area. A state highway that closes for the winter season is the main access to most of the well-known areas of the park and winds its way around three quarters of the volcano. Although dormant now, Lassen Peak exploded twice in a matter of a few days almost one hundred years ago. It takes a little hiking to witness the thermal features.

"Finding a setting with as many of the parks features as Kings Meadow offers was a gift, and I did this particular set-up three times! I was reminded of Tuolumne Meadows in the high country of Yosemite and how short the time of green meadow grasses are there as I pondered a composition. On this almost cloudless morning in the meadow before the volcano and in the dark I used my Canon 50mm f1.2 for visibility and made several thirty second frames wide open to tweak the composition. As suspected, pointing downhill rendered the trees on the right and the volcano leaning severely and smaller in scale. As soon as I had enough light to focus manually I switched over to the 45 T/S and mounted a Singh-Ray ColorCombo being careful to keep the reflection and still be able to see into the river. At times the wind picked up and the plants in the foreground began to sway.


"This final image was captured at Manzanita Lake, which is located in Lassen Volcanic National Park. One of the inescapable feelings as I visit any of the volcanoes in the Pacific 'Rim of Fire' is the fact that they can become active again at any time. Sure there exists modern equipment to measure movement and loads of people interested in monitoring every aspect every minute, but as I watched a thunderstorm develop to the west and then some of it dissipate over Manzanita Lake with wafts of smoke from campfires, I could not help feeling that I was waiting in tranquility for the next 'blast' and that it might occur before dark! Here the T/S 24mm was used without tilt or shift. I've I learned that in photography and especially in life itself, just because you can make adjustments does not necessarily mean you should! However, I did use my Singh-Ray ColorCombo and a 4-stop soft-step ND Grad to lend the finishing touches to the light."

Steve still has a spot or two available in his upcoming Eastern Sierra Fall Color Workshop October 13-17. You can get more information on the workshop, or Steve's other work, by visiting his website now.

Steve Kossack's visit to Death Valley NP was his first chance to check out his new tilt/shift lens

"I begin each of my workshops in Death Valley National Park by saying that we're standing in the lowest, hottest, driest and windiest place on the planet," says veteran outdoor photographer Steve Kossack. "I then add, 'on most days.' Our visit this year to Death Valley followed a far-from-ordinary winter in California, so we weren't too surprised to be greeted this spring by some rather hostile weather. In a short one-week span in mid-April, the temperatures fell from almost 100 degrees F to the mid 20's, and then headed back to the century mark again as we departed. Snow fell at daybreak, wind and rain tried to chase us off ridges, but colorful sunsets and a break from the really hot weather made for some great shooting days as well. From elevations of almost 300 feet below sea level to more than 6,000 feet above, this magical landscape gave us more to experience and photograph than we could have imagined.

"The image above of Zabriskie Point was captured at my favorite sunrise location, bar none. This image is also noteworthy as one of the first taken with my new Canon 24mm Tilt/Shift Lens Mark ll, which, as its name indicates, is one of Canon's newest tilt-shift lenses. Now that I've seen the greatly improved optical performance of this lens, I'm tempted to shoot every frame with it from now until forever! It is just that good. For this image, I wanted to raise 'the platform' we were shooting from. Since the Mark ll allows tilt and shift movements in any direction, I simply made the lens tilt downward along the same vertical axis as the upward shift of the lens. This accentuated the sand-colored shelf on which my tripod was set up, making it look more like a cliff instead of a small hill. The stage was now set for the magnificent sunrise we witnessed. All that was needed, as the intensity of the light increased, was the use of a Singh-Ray 3-stop soft-step ND Grad and then, as the direct light made its way to the Panamint Mountain range across the valley floor, I switched to a 4-stop soft-step ND Grad for this frame

"This next image was taken at Aquereberry Point 0as the morning snow dissipated. Yes, snow in April in Death Valley. We witnessed no more than a few seconds of partial clearing. Setting up a shot I made many times before gave me the freedom to watch and wait. It paid off big after making the movements of the T/S to straighten the vertical lines of the foreground rocks while holding the depth of field at near infinity. Knowing that I would need the quickest shutter setting possible to stop the motion of the moving clouds -- thinking that a slower shutter speed would render fast moving clouds a gray mess -- I then raised my ISO to 800 and again waited. In the moments of clearing and light that followed, I was able to make only 3 frames at a wide open f/3.5 as I inserted a 3-stop hard-step ND Grad horizontally across the lens. At this point, I had to stop and watch the last few seconds before the entire scene disappeared. It was all simply breath taking!

"It's been many years since I added anything to my basic photo gear. As I get older, I think more like a backpacker than a pack mule! These days, I'm more inclined to use the smaller lighter pack, with the zoom lenses, rather than the much bigger and heavier one that contains the fixed-focal-length lenses. I've long traveled with both packs and usually make a decision according to how far and how long when I depart the vehicle or campground. Today two zooms and an extender will usually suffice, with one exception. My tilt/shift lenses go with me no matter which pack I choose.

"This sunrise image of the southern basin of Death Valley was captured at Dante's View. After several previous attempts to get a break in the weather, we finally got one. In the pre-dawn light, we could see more than a mile down -- from over 6,000 feet above sea level dropping to almost 300 feet below sea level on the floor of the basin. We stood awaiting the sunrise. Since the wind was sporadic, I began making frames in between gusts but quickly changed my setup to include mostly rock so as not to be concerned with moving objects. After working many frames with the Singh-Ray Color Intensifier, I switched to the ColorCombo at first light to reduce the glare and haze. As the bright sunlight muted the color in the clouds, I then ran through my ND Grad filters starting with a 2-stop soft-step and working my way up to a 4-stop hard-step. The frame shown was captured with the ColorCombo and 3-stop hard-step.

"No place in Death Valley reveals more clearly the hand of man than Twenty Mule Team Canyon. This is where the Borax company had their first operation and where the teams of mules set out on their 120-mile trip to deliver the goods to the railhead. If you stand still in the morning light on the ridges of this now quiet setting, I think you might imagine the sound and struggle that took place here some 100 years ago. For me, this is long-lens country. In the cross light here, there seem to be many compositions that work no matter what the weather or light situation! Here all that was needed was to pick some lines that went dark-to-light-to-dark, then dropping my modified Singh-Ray ColorCombo into the filter drawer of the Canon 300mm 2.8 IS and adjusting the filter's built-in polarizer to cut the glare of the brightly lit rock. I metered for the mid tones. It's a rare day when, using this lens, I don't want the ColorCombo. I have a bad habit of leaving it in the lens. If I can't find it when working with the 500mm, I know it's still in the 300mm, or vice versa, but I rarely have both with me in the field. Having a filter to leave in each lens would be the ideal solution!

"As much as I enjoy photographing in the Dunes, I find it difficult to come up with images I consider unique and creative. Maybe that's why I've tried long and hard, with varying degrees of success, and so many drastically different compositions! Angle of view and degree of light are the keys. Exposure even more so. To get the highlights glistening off the early morning sand patterns is difficult to say the least. Careful metering gives way to best guess -- as the intensity of the light increases with each second after sunrise. Choosing where to meter for this frame brought both the highlights of the foreground sand and the sweep of the huge dune into usable zones. Just before actual sunrise and direct light, I attached the ColorCombo knowing that I would have to visually check the orientation to make sure I did not cut the highlights from the foreground. With the direct light, the next step was choosing a 4-stop soft-step ND grad to hold as much of the bright blue sky light as possible. This frame is simply all about the exposure and the filters used to get it.

"Death Valley is the place that initially drove me to learn the art of landscape photography those many years ago. It's a place where I return to remember this fact, to learn more, and to enjoy the beauty of nature."

You can find a number of other images from this year's Death Valley workshop in the "new images" section of Steve's website gallery. He is currently preparing for his Yosemite High Country workshop in September and his Eastern Sierra Fall Color workshop in October. More information is now available on his website.

Steve Kossack had to quickly refocus when he found no snow had come to Yosemite Valley this winter

For a veteran outdoor photographer like Steve Kossack, "Yosemite Valley is the best seven miles on the planet! I have believed that since my first visit in 1980. The park itself is vast and almost all wilderness. It is a wonderland of granite and water with sheer cliffs, beautiful waterfalls and lakes. There is no one season that's better than the others, and photographers should experience it in all seasons!

"Each summer I lead a photography workshop to the 'high camps' along Yosemite's mountain ridge line, far removed from the more civilized valley floor. The high country provides more seclusion and tranquility and is quite unique in many ways, but over the years I've come to appreciate the winter months on the valley floor just as much. Every winter the valley seems to provide something different, and this year was no exception. This year it was fall all winter long.

"With an elevation of only 4,000 feet, winters in Yosemite Valley don't get a lot of snowfall that stays very long on the valley floor. On the peaks that tower over 9,000 feet directly above the valley, however, there is almost certain to be a heavy snow cover. On the other hand, in the valley the weather is always a guess until we are actually there. Some years we may find snow drifts over our heads and sometimes hardly any cover at all. In the fall, the trees go bare and some of the waterfalls go dormant. When we arrived this past February, we found Yosemite Falls to be a mere trickle in the frozen morning and Horsetail Falls only 'a wet spot.'

"The image above of Mt. Watkins reflected in Mirror Lake, was actually 'discovered' as I was photographing the reflected image of the red tree seen in the fourth photo below. This was the opposite of finding a picture within a picture. As I worked the previous image, the sky began to open some and the changing light brought fresh highlights and detail to my attention. As I watched the changing light, I could see that all that was needed to also photograph the image that was surrounding my close-up image was a change of lenses. I then mounted a 35-mm lens on the camera and attached the ColorCombo filter, orienting the filter's built-in polarizer to give a partial view into the river in the foreground without entirely removing the reflection. I then used a 4-stop soft-step Graduated ND filter to hold the marvelous detail of the sky.

"This next image shows one of the iconic views of Yosemite that is always a stopping point for me. Through the seasons, the angle and direction of the light changes dramatically. In many places, this one being a prime example, I could be content to simply leave my camera set up and open a shutter morning, noon and nightfall in every season of the year!

"This image, however, presented some challenges. The first was that this popular vantage point on the Merced River had at least a hundred people on the banks to watch the passing storm. Finding a place just to set up proved difficult. The second challenge was the lack of snow cover on the far river bank and meadow which I felt detracted a bit from the scene. Then, in the last few minutes, the solution arose when the scene took on fresh colors as a gloriously muted light found its way through the clouds. A canopy covered us overhead and the soft reflected light set the scene aglow. This effect was so stunning that most of us took time away from our viewfinders just to absorb the spectacle! The movement in the clouds and river were rendered by a 6-second exposure and color heightened with the use of the Singh-Ray Vari-N-Trio and light from the sky balanced with a 4-stop soft-step Graduated ND filter.

"There are areas of Yosemite Valley that get little direct sunlight during the winter months. If you know where to find these, they can appear to be in deep winter regardless of the situation elsewhere. Under circumstances such as this very dry winter, finding these locations improves the photographic opportunities and brings fresh detail into the shoot. Here as the Merced River turns and slows, the still and chilled morning air rendered the bare trees on the banks frozen while allowing the trees with leaves to remain green. The color green in any of my compositions, which I find is one of hardest to manipulate in post processing, is always cause to reach for my Singh-Ray Color Intensifier. Wanting to slow the shutter speed while cutting the glare from the water and bright snow, I then decided on the ColorCombo that combines the color intensifier with a warming polarizer to get the three effects I needed to make this image.

"On a cloudy day when the sky becomes a canopy of soft reflected light, it almost always leads to images with deeply saturated color. What's more, it takes away heavy shadows that would normally make for difficult exposure problems. That was the kind of light we were working with in the area around Mirror Lake and Meadow. The snow around the base of this mostly bare tree caught my attention and the red glow in the water gave life to the composition. I wanted to work with the red glow but did not want to take away the reflection of the bank. This element was crucial to the composition in my mind. This image was made with the color intensifier, which has no polarization and very little filter factor to be concerned with.

"In years such as this one with so little snow on the ground, we are nevertheless grateful that the walking and hiking were made easy. We covered just about all of the valley floor in our 5 days and proved once again that in any season, no matter the weather conditions, Yosemite Valley is the best 7 miles on the planet."

Steve is now taking reservations for his Yosemite High Country workshop in September 2012, and his Eastern Sierra Fall Color Workshop in October -- for more information, check out Steve's workshop schedule. For more news, fine outdoor images, DVDs, and more, visit his website.