Starry Night in Joshua Tree

Often is the case when travel photos are merely records of people, places, and things. A slice of a timeline tied to a location or event, sometimes haphazard and spontaneous and sometimes planned. Where? When? How? Who? It all seems random, but sometimes planning and patience are essential to the success of an image.

Knowing where to go, when, and how to capture the image are key factors that support your effort. For this image, captured in Joshua Tree National Park, knowledge of where the sun set in the sky and when that would happen contributed to the image-making process. Scouting the location was done hours before the exposure was made. Trying to find the right foreground was important.

We arrived on-location about an hour before the sun set and set up the tripod and camera facing Southwest, pre-focusing and framing what would be included in the image during daylight helped build confidence in the effort. Waiting patiently in the dusk and early evening was difficult, too, since we were about 100 yards from the Jeep and there was no comfortable place to sit down. As we stood quietly in the darkness, a desert fox whisked by us in close proximity as it followed a game trail near our setup, the thrilling part of a somewhat boring vigil.

When the time came to make the night-sky image, it was obvious that the lack of light was going to determine the image’s success. I persuaded Corinne to hold her cell phone to the right of the tree and elevated it to help illuminate the right side of the tree and some of the desert ground cover. This helped give the image a base and made the foreground more relative in the scene. The right amount of light was trial and error, but after a few test exposures, Corinne provided just the right amount of light for the subject and location. All the hours of prep and patience paid off as the finished image conveys the feeling of Joshua Tree at night.

The Squirrel, Idaho Abandoned House

As we traveled during the “COVID-DAYS”, we escaped to Idaho after touring Western Oregon and Southern California and points in between. We found ourselves in a small RV parkin Squirrel, Idaho. The RV park was more of a field with full hookups for five RVs than a commercial park. Our GPS recommended we dare not travel down this road with a 38-foot motorhome tipping the scales at fifteen tons.

Every day that we went to Yellowstone National Park, we passed this house. Clearly unused for some time; even the driveway had been reclaimed by nature. Surrounding the house were fields of barley and seed potatoes, two important crops for the farmers in this area. But, in all its solitude, there was nothing remarkable about it. Visually, it was not a standout.

Until one day as we returned from Yellowstone, a storm was brewing and everything changed. The new atmosphere was one of impending doom with a sharp contrast in light and dark and added drama to bring this scene to life. Hurriedly, I set up a tripod and camera and made several bracketed exposures to make sure I got “the one”. Or as Cartier Bresson would say the “decisive moment”. This image is one of my all-time favorites. It captures the essence of life in the agriculturally rich farmland and speaks to the temporary dwellings that dot the vast lands of the West. When I look at this image, I can hear the wind, smell the rain that is on the horizon, and tell that any moment is fleeting.

The image capture is only one part of this image. The post-processing is a bit more complex. There is so much data that is captured in a digital RAW file that the initial view of this image was boring and almost a letdown. With the help of a plug-in for Photoshop from Greg Benz, the subtle tones in the sky, grass, and house were brought out and the drama of the moment was intensified. Greg’s plug-in utilizes luminosity masks which isolate areas of interest through their luminosity (light or dark values) much like Ansel Adams’ Zone System did for black-and-white film photography. Thanks Greg for such a powerful tool!

https://gregbenzphotography.com/lumenzia/

Quartzite, Arizona and a Gathering Of RVs

Thousands of RV’s dot the night landscape in Quartzsite, Arizona at an annual convergence of freedom-loving enthusiasts, full time RV’rs and weekend curiosity seekers. A January invasion of this little desert town in western Arizona provides participants with the chance to renew old friendships, make new acquaintances and explore the majestic Southwest as only an RV can provide.

Folks travel from as far away as Canada and across the USA to camp, shop the multitude of flea markets and swap stories around the campfire at night.

The camera was on a tripod on the roof of Blue Steele. A long time exposure was made to record the starscape and a separate exposure was made for the foreground and then combined in Adobe Photoshop to create the final image.