Conveying the emotion within an image calls for conscious control of the colors and light

As Arizona landscape photographer Steve Kossack prepares to lead his annual Yosemite high-camp backpack and workshop across 60 miles of rugged high-altitude trail, he's again feeling the inner excitement. "Once again," says Steve, "I'm feeling that compelling urge to photograph the wonders of nature. I'm always trying for images that convey my emotional response to the scenes before me. I find that it's never easy to put emotions into words -- let alone a photograph! However it's the emotional moments and places that are so special for me.

"The Sierra Nevada mountain range is famous for what is often called alpenglow -- a time when a layer of blue and magenta bands forms in the twilight sky at high altitudes. On most days you can see alpenglow even on cloudless evenings. I have learned not to walk away from a Sierra sunset until well after the light has faded to almost complete darkness.

"In capturing the dramatic alpenglow above Cathedral Peak in Yosemite National Park, a couple of problems were solved by the use of my Singh-Ray filters. The most obvious challenge was the deep and dark shadow that the bottom of the composition presented. The trees added to this because they were an element that I thought would be most important. I’m shooting from a position above tree line! I needed enough shadow detail to tell this story. If I exposed for the highlights and let the shadow go where it might, I knew I’d have the deep rich color of the panorama but lose the detail in the shadow. The solution for the shadows was to use a 4-stop hard-step Graduated ND Filter. By taking a meter reading of the shadow area, I shot a series of manually bracketed frames, starting with the shadow exposure and then opening up one stop for each of four consecutive frames.

"I also realized that by doing this I would lose more of the rich color saturation with each step of increased exposure. Here the solution was to use the LB ColorCombo with the polarization set for a bit less than maximum effect to avoid over-polarizing and thus increasing the contrast. After all, my purpose here was to balance the exposure, cut the glare off the granite and enhance the green of the shaded trees. This capacity to enrich the greens makes both the LB ColorCombo and the LB Color Intensifier filters two of my favorite filters. Now with a fairly long exposure induced by the filters, I came away with the benefit of a slight blur in the clouds, lending a tranquil touch to the image.

"On the banks of the Tuolumne River in early morning light the emotional attraction for me was seeing the steam rising off the river. The challenge was to find the angles that would offset, yet not overpower the subtleness of the setting. Once I found the lines that led into and out of the composition, the proposition became how to capture the colors. I set my exposure for the highlights and then opened up 3 stops using a 3-stop hard-step ND Grad. This gave me an exposure in the foreground that still rendered the right side of the bank almost in silhouette. I needed this contrast to set it all off. Next was adding the LB ColorCombo, carefully avoiding too much of the reflection in the water.

"These final two images were both captured along Merced Lake in Yosemite National Park, which is the second lake from the headwaters of the Merced River. The quiet seclusion of this high alpine setting, with deep granite walls falling sharply into the lake, create a setting as tranquil as any I’ve experienced.

"When I set up the image on the left it looked somewhat sterile through the viewfinder, however it was anything but when I surveyed the scene. What I was missing was the slight movement of the water in the foreground. I knew that a long shutter exposure was needed. The Vari-ND enabled me to extend my exposure just enough, and I also used my trusty LB Color Intensifier to step up the color saturation. As I increased the exposure I came closer to the glow of highlights that I liked but I was losing the one color that was most important to me. Green! The LB Color Intensifier is my usual choice to solve this problem.

"As I was shooting this image, the lake's surface was almost white-capped as the result of a strong wind. A 30-second exposure -- made possible by using my Singh-Ray Vari-ND -- changed the water's surface into a lovely gloss. Stacking the ColorCombo and then a 3-stop soft-step Graduated ND brought the exposure range into better balance and enhanced the green of the trees while holding back the glow of the granite. These steps resulted in a perfect rendering of the fallen tree in the foreground. By applying conscious thought to the choice of my filters and the way I use them, I have acquired a much better 'feel' for the way they will work in the field."

Steve and his unique approach to landscape photography are now featured in a new 100-minute DVD being released this week by Master Photo Workshops (Directed by Gregory McKean.) The new DVD, entitled "Every Picture Tells A Story," provides an in-the-field workshop experience packed with helpful information and clearly demonstrated techniques. You'll find more info on Steve's website or just order your copy today.

The more challenges we can solve with our filters, the more fun we seem to have

Arizona landscape photographer Steve Kossack applies years of experience and constant enthusiasm to the challenge of leading photo workshops throughout the American west. "Whenever filters are discussed in our workshops," says Steve, "the topic always brings out various opinions and views. Some seem to believe filters are magic, but others think they have no need for them now that the digital SLR camera is standard field issue. Some are just mystified or ambivalent about using filters -- which is reason enough to be attending a workshop. Earlier this month as we worked through a most rewarding workshop in Monument Valley, many of our Singh-Ray filters got a real workout. Here’s a look.

"One highlight of our workshop was this sunrise shot from the dunes of the Totem Poles. This classic image was helped immensely by the reflected light from the sand but we also had to control that same bright light striking the face of the rocks. Since I wanted to avoid the slight image distortion that would be caused by tilting the camera body upward, I simply raised the front of my 45mm Canon T/S (tilt/shift) lens fitted with the Singh-Ray LB ColorCombo filter. This image was the final shot of the morning. Before the sun rose and offered us this lovely image, I had begun the day using the LB Color Intensifier. It was the natural choice since there was no need for a polarizer and the 'lighter, brighter' Intensifier would not seriously slow the already long shutter speed. As the light became brighter the glare from the Totem Pole rocks became an even greater problem but the sand was still in deep shadow and reflected the blue of the sky. The LB Warming Polarizer was next out of my vest and it was about then that I also began using a 2-stop, soft-step Graduated ND filter, then switching later to a 3-stop, soft-step ND Grad and finally ending with a 4-stop hard-step that held the detail of soft glow in the sand.

"This iconic southwestern image was set up to be an action shot! I shot it that way to start. The sheep were herded down from under the arch in the shadow and then turned, on the run, away from us. My Canon 85mm 1.2L prime lens framed the scene perfectly and the light allowed both a very high shutter speed to stop the action and an acceptable aperture to hold focus in both the foreground and the arch. The LB ColorCombo was used here even though the objective was to freeze motion. I simply set the orientation of the filter's polarizer to cut the glare of both the sand and rock and then spot metered the sand. The intense color of the clothing and the richness of the arch detail was the great reward here!

"Perhaps a controlled burn around the Grand Canyon area or something like it in the atmosphere made our visit up on Hunts Mesa a hazy one. Still this unearthly place is not to be missed under any circumstance. A bad sunset or sunrise here is much better than an average one most anywhere else! I ran up against two major problems while there. I’ve already mentioned the haze and the second problem was a sustained wind that developed in late afternoon. Trying to narrow the composition and eliminate the sky as much as possible was my thought as I hiked to a point some distance from where I had started. I lined up the monuments and then went about stabilizing my 300 2.8L. An ISO of 800 was used to obtain as short a shutter speed as possible. I then started shooting with an f/8 aperture to hold as much depth of field as possible while still keeping the shutter time short. The haze problem was somewhat solved by using a drop-in 52mm Singh-Ray LB ColorCombo filter. This gave a needed contrast boost that carried the composition. As I left I was fairly certain that a good image was not possible, but I had a lot of fun trying! This one was a surprise.

"These final two images have much in common. Both were taken with Canon T/S lenses (45mm on the left and 24mm on the right) fitted with my thin-ring Singh-Ray LB ColorCombo. The thin filter ring has no threads on the front which reduces the chances of vignetting. Both frames were shot with the lenses shifted off-axis to their limits. The 45-mm lens was shifted up to capture as much of the side framing rock as possible and to eliminate the unnecessary foreground. The 24-mm lens was shifted to its full drop to capture the cactus in bloom while still framing the arch. With the ColorCombo mounted in a standard filter ring, these views would not have been possible because of vignetting. The combined benefits of the filter's polarizer and color intensifier are obvious here. An entirely different composition would have to be taken in both cases without the slim LB ColorCombo!

"Doing fine art landscape photography in the field becomes a passion for some of us. It’s the thrill of the hunt and the excitement of the chase. One more thing is very clear to me, filters are a mainstay in my photography because, when all is said and done, they add so much to the fun!"

You can see just how much fun Steve is having these days by visiting the extensive galleries on his website.

Landscape and wildlife images taken with your long lenses need Singh-Ray filters, too

Western landscape photographer Steve Kossack remembers it well. "When Singh-Ray introduced the LB (lighter, brighter) filter series, it meant that I could begin using these new filters in shooting situations where I would not have before. Because the new LB Warming Polarizer transmitted 66% more light than Singh-Ray's previous polarizer -- requiring only 1-1/3 more f-stops of additional exposure in most cases -- I began using it much more frequently, even in low light. More recently, we've been blessed with digital cameras capable of capturing top-quality images at much higher ISO settings -- which makes it even easier these days to achieve proper exposures with a polarizer on my long lenses.

"Although more and more outdoor photographers now realize they can improve their landscape images by using polarizers, not so many consider the importance of polarizing their long-lens images. One lesson I learned years ago is to always polarize any lens that's 300mm or longer. Even with the high quality of today’s lenses, I find there's frequently a loss of contrast unless I use a polarizer. I may not always see the benefit of using the polarizer while I'm in the field, but I do see it in the final print. Since I have always considered my Canon 300mm 2.8L IS to be my finest lens -- I also have the 500mm f/4 IS and borrow a 600mm for wildlife use -- I like to shoot with it just as often as possible. But it wasn't until I realized I could up-grade my standard Canon drop-in polarizer with Singh-Ray's three polarizers that I found the right answer. I now have the LB ColorCombo, LB Warming Polarizer and Gold-N-Blue Polarizer mounted in Canon Polarizer drop-in filter holders that have the little wheel on top that lets me quickly rotate the polarizer with finger tip control. Since I began using these three drop-in filters, I can’t imagine a time when I didn’t!

"The not-so-typical landscape above of the Navajo power plant at dawn was captured during one of our Landmarks of the Southwest workshops. It is at once magical, mystical and sinister! Shooting with a 600mm lens -- even from a more than a mile away -- would have brought the plant too close and revealed the plant for what it is, cold steel and all business. Choosing the shorter Canon 300mm 2.8L IS, however, gave me more of a panorama of the scene and hid the nasty details. The Gold-N-Blue drop-in not only captured more of the warm glow to the lights but the filter factor was also a bonus making for a longer exposure which produced the desired effect.

"As we watched the elk herd cross Yosemite's Madison River in the pre-dawn light, I took off with Canon 600mm f/4L IS attached to the Canon 1Ds MKIII with and Black Widow gimble mount on a Gitzo 1348 tripod over my shoulder. I also had with me a Canon 1.4 extender and my drop-in filters in my vest pockets. Wow, makes me tired just to think about it now! As the herd moved, I’d stop, set up, shoot and then move along with them. Using an ISO between 400 and 800 I was able to stop most of the motion in the low light by shooting with the lens wide open. As the light increased and the elk moved into and around the river a huge problem ensued. The reflected light from the river was like a spot light! The glare was almost blinding as I searched for an angle that would decrease its intensity. While doing this I realized that I was also helping myself by finding a 90-degree-to-the-sun shooting angle where I could block more of the glare from the reflecting sunlight. After finding the right location, I inserted the 52mm ColorCombo drop-in, focused on the river, turned the orientation of the filter to decrease the reflected light as much as possible and then dialed it in the highest ISO I thought appropriate. With only a filter factor of 1-3/4 stops there was not much downside and plenty of up for its use. Now I simply waited for the elk.


"This duck pond was set up prior to the ducks' arrival on the scene. Schwabacker Landing in the Grand Tetons is a natural just after sunrise. The stillness of the setting was serene in the morning glow, and I was struck by the out-of-focus backdrop that the wide open aperture was providing. The fact that reflection of the sky was not as pronounced as it might have like led me to choose the Gold-N-Blue drop-in and reposition the camera for a stronger polarized effect. I shot several frames before the ducks suddenly appeared. The downside is that there is no direct light on them but the upside is that the beautiful reflection, which was my focal point after all, was broken up by them. 'Oh...' I exclaimed to no one in particular as they approached, 'Cue the ducks!'


"This otter image was also improved by using my drop-in ColorCombo. These guys are faster than lightning and their most attractive behavior is usually in groups. To make matters worse, they were playing on the distant bank of the Snake River across from our shooting position. This required the use of my 1.4 extender on the 600 f/4 lens which meant giving up a full stop of light that in turn slows the auto focus considerably. My solution was to manually focus on one otter and wait for it to stop in some sort of pose. I knew from previous experience that otters, for some reason, all come to a stop for a split second at intervals. I just needed to anticipate one of those split seconds! I also figured at this juncture in my shoot that if I were to capture what I was looking for, maybe a slower shutter speed would be OK. As you might expect, I shot a lot of single frames but not as many as I might have just firing the shutter as one does in fast action sequence. The result was a pleasing soft background with a nice patch of saturated green grass, and yes, the otters are cute as they can be.

"From previous experience, I can assure you the color saturation and contrast in each of these images were improved by using one of my drop-in polarizers. Considering the heavy cost of my long lenses -- as well as the heavy lifting they require in the field -- I realize that investing in Singh-Ray drop-ins was a relatively easy way to get even better images."

To see hundreds more of Steve's distinctive outdoor photographs, or to learn about his workshops and instructional videos, visit his website.

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), or LB ColorCombo ($420 + shipping). For more information, call Singh-Ray at 863-993-4100.

Returning to photograph Death Valley is like going home again... very rewarding!

Arizona-based landscape photographer Steve Kossack says, "It's interesting that the classic novel You Can't Go Home Again, by Thomas Wolfe, was published in 1940 -- two years after the author's death. I think the title, however, is generally thought to mean it’s not because home is different; it’s because we are different.

"Going back to any place that I've come to love really stirs my soul. It's a great motivator. I’ve now done more than a dozen workshops, for example, in the fabulous area known as Death Valley. It's not only the first place I learned both geographically and photographically, but it's become one of my favorite workshop 'homes' and the one that participants are most interested in revisiting. Returning in different seasons, year after year, and seeing the vast open spaces -- along with the hidden gems -- through the fresh eyes of our workshop participants helps keep the creative drive alive and burning. For me, it’s never the same place twice.

"I especially enjoy revisiting a place in different seasons. The light and the weather will always be different. These first two images show the same view of Zabriski Point in early morning light. It's the seasonal difference in light between the top image taken in spring and the second image taken in the fall that changes everything. The warmth of the spring image with the sun at a much higher angle forced a solution to a common problem. The background was bathed in rich light with the foreground in deep shadow. I chose the nearest lighted formation (the colorful ridge on the right) as my focal point and moved it off center as a way to lead the eye back and forth to the lightest object (the salt flats on the valley floor) and give a way out of the composition to the right. The balanced exposure was achieved with a Singh-Ray 4-stop hard-step Graduated Neutral Density filter carefully placed to not show the edge in the foreground.

"I paid close attention to the highlights as I exposed the fall image. The composition is based on those highlights. The extremely low angle of the light provided a more intimate look at the fantastic geologic shapes and forms. One of the focal points for me when shooting at Zabriski Point has always been a small dark mound in the bowl just before the ridge that leads the eye to the salt flats beyond. In the spring image it is still effective, but it became dominant when captured in the fall image. Now bathed in light, the color was saturated. With this in mind, the Singh-Ray LB Color Intensifier was chosen. I had looked at the LB ColorCombo earlier but the slim benefits of its polarizer were negated by the high winds that we were exposed to on this morning. I knew the ancient seabed before us was not going to move, but the tripod and camera might! I gained 1-1/2 f-stops by using the LB Color Intensifier and an ISO setting of 800, which resulted in a much faster shutter speed. This is a great example of why I carry both the ColorCombo and the Color Intensifier filters!

"Returning to the high ranges of Death Valley is a treat for my senses and my landscape photography. I like to plan a workshop around a full moon whenever possible. Watching the rising moon during a colorful sunset can be a thrill in itself.

"To try capturing the moonrise in an image -- such as this third photo -- takes some thought and a little technique as well. The moon is a sunlit object so exposure has to follow this rule. It is also moving (rising) more quickly than you might think so this must be taken into consideration as well. With a long lens (greater magnification), all these factors are even more pronounced. With a blanket of haze on the horizon and a very dim but evenly lit foreground, the moon suddenly appeared. It only lasted a few seconds. I had been shooting detail with the Canon 300 2.8L lens and my Singh-Ray 52mm LB ColorCombo drop-in filter to intensify the already saturated color that the reflected light bestowed on the scene. Fortunately all I needed to do was reframe the image and quickly figure out an exposure. I say fortunately because that’s all I had time for. This lovely composition disappeared within seconds!

"I include the fourth image of Dante’s Dawn mostly because both it and the moonrise image are what I call 'bookends.' They span the end of one day and the beginning of the next, and were taken from the same location more than a mile above the valley floor. I was shooting detail of the ridgeline on the far right when the moonrise ended the previous day. Once again, deep saturated color in the pre-dawn was the attraction. The use of the LB ColorCombo -- even before there was much skylight to polarize -- helped accentuate the glow of the blue and magenta in the sky and cut just a little of the haze as well. To further heighten the color and give a better reading to the mid-tones and shadows, a Singh-Ray 2-stop soft-step Graduated ND filter was also used.

"I'm convinced," says Steve, "we can all go home again! For me Death Valley is much like home and every time I'm there, I’m different, and in some way so is my work. The key is to f/8 and be there!"

There are about 100 more Death Valley landscape images, not to mention a number of other galleries, colorful how-to essays and news about his various 2009 workshops on Steve's website.

Singh-Ray's new Vari-N-Duo "solved two problems with one filter in 8 seconds"

When Arizona-based landscape photographer Steve Kossack received his new Singh-Ray Vari-N-Duo Polarizing Variable ND filter, he immediately saw new possibilities. A few days later, Steve led his annual backpack photo expedition into the Yosemite Park high country and to a dramatic setting at Tuolumne Falls -- where the river drops into the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne above Hetch Hetchy Valley.

"In capturing this image," says Steve, "I wanted to give the falling water a more serene effect than I was seeing, and I also needed to reduce the strong glare from the wet surfaces of the rocks. The glare, in fact, was masking much of the raw texture and detail of the rocks in the foreground. Both of these problems were addressed quickly and easily with the Vari-N-Duo. Using the front "min/max" ring, I had no trouble dialing in enough density to achieve the eight-second exposure in shaded daylight. I then rotated the polarizing ring just enough to cut the glare from the rocks without over-darkening the sky.

"This next image captured on the Madison River in Yellowstone National Park was a very different situation. Here the setting was almost too quiet and tranquil. The mist off the river was barely visible in the pre-dawn darkness and the long test exposures I was making hinted at the color that sunrise might deliver. I wanted to continue making long exposures, but as the morning light intensified my exposures with the Singh-Ray LB Color Intensifier were becoming much shorter.

"So I then switched over to the ColorCombo to cut the glare off the river as it began to overpower the brightness of the sky. Still what I saw in the viewfinder was not as appealing as what I had seen earlier. The sky, as colorful as it had become, was still not dramatic in my opinion. That's when I decided to try 'painting' with my ND Grad during a long exposure.

"With the Vari-N-Duo's built-in polarizer there was no need to stack filters together and then figure out which ring to turn. No more getting them stuck together either. The filter’s operation is quick and easy -- something I can do in the dark! After I adjusted the polarizer ring, I then did the same with the ND ring. I now had a 30-second exposure and all that was left was to experiment with my Graduated Neutral Density filters to get a pleasing exposure for the painted sky. I went from 2 to 5 f-stops and then back until the first light was completely gone. In the image seen here, a 4-stop hard-step brought it all together.

"From now on", says Steve, "I'll keep my Vari-N-Duo ready for all those times when I need to polarize a long exposure, and I'll also keep my trusty Vari-ND filter along side for those shots when I don’t need the built-in polarizer. Each has its place."

To enjoy more of Steve's fine-art landscape photos, colorful how-to essays and news about his workshops, you'll want to visit his website.

Singh-Ray's new Vari-N-Duo "solved two problems with one filter in 8 seconds"

When Arizona-based landscape photographer Steve Kossack received his new Singh-Ray Vari-N-Duo Polarizing Variable ND filter, he immediately saw new possibilities. A few days later, Steve led his annual backpack photo expedition into the Yosemite Park high country and to a dramatic setting at Tuolumne Falls -- where the river drops into the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne above Hetch Hetchy Valley.

"In capturing this image," says Steve, "I wanted to give the falling water a more serene effect than I was seeing, and I also needed to reduce the strong glare from the wet surfaces of the rocks. The glare, in fact, was masking much of the raw texture and detail of the rocks in the foreground. Both of these problems were addressed quickly and easily with the Vari-N-Duo. Using the front "min/max" ring, I had no trouble dialing in enough density to achieve the eight-second exposure in shaded daylight. I then rotated the polarizing ring just enough to cut the glare from the rocks without over-darkening the sky.

"This next image captured on the Madison River in Yellowstone National Park was a very different situation. Here the setting was almost too quiet and tranquil. The mist off the river was barely visible in the pre-dawn darkness and the long test exposures I was making hinted at the color that sunrise might deliver. I wanted to continue making long exposures, but as the morning light intensified my exposures with the Singh-Ray LB Color Intensifier were becoming much shorter.

"So I then switched over to the ColorCombo to cut the glare off the river as it began to overpower the brightness of the sky. Still what I saw in the viewfinder was not as appealing as what I had seen earlier. The sky, as colorful as it had become, was still not dramatic in my opinion. That's when I decided to try 'painting' with my ND Grad during a long exposure.

"With the Vari-N-Duo's built-in polarizer there was no need to stack filters together and then figure out which ring to turn. No more getting them stuck together either. The filter’s operation is quick and easy -- something I can do in the dark! After I adjusted the polarizer ring, I then did the same with the ND ring. I now had a 30-second exposure and all that was left was to experiment with my Graduated Neutral Density filters to get a pleasing exposure for the painted sky. I went from 2 to 5 f-stops and then back until the first light was completely gone. In the image seen here, a 4-stop hard-step brought it all together.

"From now on", says Steve, "I'll keep my Vari-N-Duo ready for all those times when I need to polarize a long exposure, and I'll also keep my trusty Vari-ND filter along side for those shots when I don’t need the built-in polarizer. Each has its place."

To enjoy more of Steve's fine-art landscape photos, colorful how-to essays and news about his workshops, you'll want to visit his website.

Let's think about how these two images gained color saturation and sharpness

Although photographers can find many articles and books advising us to put more thought into the creation of our images, it's not so easy to find examples of how a successful photographer actually thinks through the process. That's why we always welcome the fine images and thoughtful discussions of Arizona-based landscape photographer Steve Kossack.

"In some ways," says Steve, "these two seemingly very different images are very similar in terms of imaging style and technique. Both compositions 'read' from left to right which is the usual way we all like to see things. It's how we compose when we write in the English language and it feels like the most 'natural' flow whenever we arrange the images in our viewfinder. So the composition of these two photos was the easy part. The challenge was dealing with the different problems each scene presented which were solved the same way. Both images, in fact, were made by using a tilt/shift lens and the Singh-Ray LB Color Intensifier, but these tools were used in different ways for each image -- and for different reasons.

"Let's begin with this visit to Cedar Creek Falls which we reached by climbing off the trail in the back country of Glacier National Park We found this pristine setting totally engrossing, and we shot from many vantage points for over half an hour in the dense forest. The direct light, however, was causing problems. The shadows were deep and dark, and the reflected light off the water was almost four stops brighter than most of the rock face wherever I metered. A polarizer helped some with the reflections, but I still needed more help. The fern I used in the foreground to anchor the composition was swaying in the gentle breeze and my small aperture setting required for maximum depth of field was giving me a very long shutter speed. By switching to a tilt/shift lens, I was able to get both the foreground at the base of the image and the background area at the top in sharp focus while using a much larger aperture which in turn allowed me to use a quicker shutter speed to stop the motion of the fern. By also shifting the lens upward from its normal axis, I was also able to straighten the perspective of the top of the falls as a bonus. It no longer fell away because the camera's image plane was no longer tilted upward. As a cloud cover moved in and out, the late afternoon sun was more subdued and when a long 'open shade' break looked possible, I switched the polarizer for the color intensifier and gained 1-1/3 stops of light. The resulting increase in shutter speed made the frames that followed sharp and usable. Now with the much more even light, I had the exposure right. The dark areas became much more pronounced and the overall feeling would have been dull and somewhat flat without the Color Intensifier filter. My beautiful fern would have been almost colorless in the foreground. Green is a very dark and hard color for me to manipulate in post processing. This is one challenge I like to take care of in the field. As I removed the Color Intensifier at the end of the shoot, I took one more look through the viewfinder. I was right; the choice of the TS lens had actually sharpened the focus!

"Here at Indian Dick Camp in the depths of the Grand Canyon on the Colorado River, the problems were reversed. Rising from my sleeping bag a few feet from the river, the morning light was intense in the sky above the rim. The ground with reflected luminous light was warm enough to work with and even though the river was causing a slight breeze, the blooming Desert Datura was protected by the elevation of the river bank and its surrounding rocks and shrubs. That same bank needed to be eliminated from the image by lowering the camera to tell my story of the Datura's short survival in its hostile environment -- it only blossoms during the night and closes shortly after sunrise. The shade and its proximity to the river would tell this story.

"Again a tilt/shift lens made it possible to shoot from the low angle I had chosen to hide the river bank and get close enough to capture the lower blossom -- the two key elements of the composition. This time I did not need, or want, a fast shutter speed. The river was a muddy, unattractive and powerful flow that gave no readable reflection. The fast moving river actually detracted from the beautiful reflected light on the far- left canyon wall. Using a Singh-Ray 4-stop soft-step ND Grad evened the lighting and helped produce the 1-second exposure that not only gave the river the reflection but also a slight blur to the moving clouds above. As in the Creek Falls image, the LB Color Intensifier’s saturation helped produce a sharper, stronger image and yielded the deep green foliage that set the composition in motion!

"One of my favorite silly expressions is 'it's the same only different.' I say these two are!"

To enjoy more of Steve's images and essays and explore his many image galleries, you can visit his website.