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.

Adding the finishing touches to the waters of Vermont

In recent years, Montreal-based nature photographer Rob Servranckx has headed south to northern Vermont for the first half of his June vacation. "For four dawn-to-dusk days, I'm the co-instructor for a photo workshop conducted by Gustav W. Verderber. Many don't understand that, for me, this is not work. It's an opportunity to do and think photography in beautiful locations. It's also fun to share ideas and images with other photographers and to see their reaction when they discover how Singh-Ray filters can improve their images.

"The Green Mountains in northern Vermont include many spectacular waterfalls, beautiful landscapes and magnificent lakes, making it a fantastic area for outdoor photography. I can't imagine going to our workshop without demonstrating how my Singh-Ray filters -- especially the Gold-N-Blue Polarizer and Graduated ND filters -- can help them.

"I find the Gold-N-Blue especially useful to enhance woodland waterfalls and streams surrounded by deep green foliage. For these first two images, I used it to insert a subtle touch of gold in the specular highlights and glaring reflections on the wet rocks and still water, and to gently warm up the deep green foliage. Under cloudy conditions (the only time I shoot waterfalls!), using this filter is enough to slow down the exposure time to about half a second, just about a perfect shutter speed to start blurring the water while holding some detail and texture in the highlights. By adding just a light touch of gold in images like these -- it keeps the image looking very natural.”

“When using the Gold-n-Blue Polarizer on a digital camera, a magenta cast is introduced, but it is very easy to correct for this and get the white balance just right. After shooting my images in RAW mode, I select the white-balance eyedropper in my RAW converter software, place it on the white water, click once... and voila! A perfectly color-balanced image. Another method is setting my camera's custom white balance in the field with the filter on the lens -- it gives me the same results, and allows me to preview the corrected settings on my camera's LCD in the field.”

"One of my favourite destinations during our workshop is Willoughby Lake in northern Vermont. This beautiful lake with pristine waters was carved by glaciers a long time ago. These glaciers created high, fjord-like carvings, with steep cliffs and a deep bowl where the lake formed. There are so many compositions here –- I could easily have spent 2 or 3 days in this one place alone. I really like this composition of the lake, with the skeletal-looking roots reaching towards the skull-shaped rock. This contrasts nicely with the lush greens of the forest and the aqua-colored waters. But the bright cloudy sky was making the exposure a little tough. By very carefully placing my Singh-Ray 3-stop hard-edge Graduated ND filter to follow the edge where the mountain meets the sky, I was able to darken the sky sufficiently to get a great exposure."

You can see more of Rob’s work on the Sojourns In Nature web site and on their blog.