Orange barrels in Glacier National Park can't keep Joe Rossbach from the right light

Every summer, we're used to the inconvenience of road construction around town and on the highways, but Joe Rossbach wasn't counting on finding orange barrels in the wilderness of northern Montana. "My most recent 9-day trip to Glacier National Park was productive, but incredibly frustrating. Shooting there is challenging enough, but to complicate matters, one of the main roads through the park was under heavy construction and completely closed down from the bend to Logan Pass each evening from 9pm until 7am. Because this trip was planned almost a year in advance, and we were staying on the western side of the park, it meant that we would have to get up way earlier than normal to drive around the perimeter of the park to get to many of our shooting locations. And on the flip side, it meant getting back well after midnight from sunset hikes in the high country around Logan Pass. Can you say "sleep deprivation?" Well it was worth it. Glacier is amazing, and occasionally she lets down her guard and puts on the most amazing show of light and land. I was fortunate enough to catch a few glimpses of her grandeur during the trip.

Mountain Goat above Hidden Lake
"In addition to the construction headaches, my first three days in the park provided absolutely horrid conditions for nature photography -- blue bird blue skies and not a cloud in sight. On the third evening of the trip, I knew there was finally great potential for dramatic light. We had clouds and thunderstorms building all afternoon. So I headed to Logan Pass and made the short, yet steep hike to Hidden Lake Overlook. The snow fields were still blanketing much of the trail up, and in some sections the footing was quite sketchy. After arriving at the pass above Hidden Lake, I started to scout potential compositions. When I encountered a large number of mountain goats roaming about the cliffs directly above the lake, I decided to hang out with them, watching their patterns of movement and letting them become comfortable with my presence. I was lucky to have a single goat pose on this rock ledge just as the sky was becoming very colorful. I quickly made my way within about 20 feet of the ledge, and framed up the scene with my Nikon 24-70mm F2.8. Because I needed to make sure the goat was tack sharp, I pushed the ISO up to 400 and shot the image at F8, making sure I had critical focus from front to back. I used my Singh-Ray 4-stop Soft-Step ND Grad to balance the light between sky and land. I also bracketed an extra frame at +1 with the ND Grad for a little more shadow detail in the landscape.

Triple Falls Sunset
"You have to make a decision when in the field -- sacrifice your own personal comfort, or miss the shot. But who needs sleep or food when you get light like this, right? On this evening, I found myself once again at Logan Pass with a huge thunderstorm billowing across the west. I knew that if I made the bushwack out to Triple Falls for sunset I would be forced to drive down the east side of the park and make the 120 mile trip around the southern perimeter of the park back to my campsite outside of McDonald Lake to the west. I had no choice in the matter. There was no way I was going to pass up these conditions for a little sleep and a hot meal. After crossing several snowfields, making sure not to trample the vegetation, I found Reynolds Creek and slogged my way up through ice cold water and over snow bridges until I reached the falls. At the start of this trip, I was certain that this image was going to elude me once again, since most of the Hanging Gardens were still covered in deep snowfields. In fact at the beginning of the trip, this area was still buried under about two feet of snow! I was lucky that the temperatures had warmed enough during the week to melt the snow. For this image I got low and close with my Nikon 16-35mm, using the Singh-Ray LB Polarizer to cut glare from the wet rocks and also intensify the sky. Because the light was so much brighter in the sky than on the landscape, I once again used my Singh-Ray 4-Stop Soft-Step ND Grad to balance the exposure. I also bracketed a few shots at +1 and +1.7 to blend in some fore shadow detail, especially inside the chasm. Even though I didn't reach the campsite until after 1 AM, and had to be out of the tent at 4 AM for first light, I went to bed with a huge grin plastered to my face. I got the light!!

Avalanche Gorge
"Finding a unique view on an iconic location is not all that hard. Just find where all of the well-worn tripod holes are, and then move on to another spot. I would guess that 99% of all photographers who visit this location set up right on the bridge looking into the gorge. It’s a beautiful spot to shoot from, but let’s be honest -- these images all look the same. I can’t feel satisfied shooting like that and insist on finding a unique angle or perspective. To achieve this, I climbed down below the bridge and belly crawled out across the slick rocks into the heart of the gorge. From there I was able to find a very different perspective. I used my Nikon 16-35mm lens fitted with the Singh-Ray Thin Mount LB Polarizer to cut glare from the wet rocks and increase contrast and color saturation.

Lake of Fire, Saint Mary Lake
"And finally a shot from Saint Mary Lake -- this amazing location is like having the sea meet the mountains -- the lake is gigantic. I visited this spot five times during the trip, getting shut out each time. On my last night in the park, with fingers crossed and thunderstorms once again pelting the high country with lightning, rain and sleet, I made my way past the crowd of photographers shooting from the parking lot. I made my way down the hill and headed off into the woods following a game trail to a location of sculpted rocks on the shore of the lake. I knew my composition already as I had scouted it out before. I set up and waited for the light. It came, but didn’t last too long. I used my Singh-Ray 3-Stop Reverse ND Grad to balance the light between sky and land.

"All told, it was ten days and lots of extra hiking and driving to capture four incredible displays of light! I consider it a successful trip, despite the challenges. We’ll be back again next summer leading a photo workshop, so stay tuned by visiting the website, joining our mailing list and following us on Facebook. Until next time, I wish you the best of light!"

On Thierry Hennet's recent trip to Iceland, his Singh-Ray Filters solved a wide variety of challenges

When Thierry Hennet was young, he loved to browse through the family's photo albums. "Over time, this reinforced more memories from my childhood than I otherwise would have. Now that I am a professional biologist, family man and amateur photographer in Zurich, Switzerland, I love taking pictures because they remind me of the eager anticipation I felt at the moment I released the shutter. For me, nice pictures bring back nice memories.

"My last trip to Iceland several weeks ago is a good example. Iceland richly deserves its reputation as the perfect playground for landscape photographers. To capture its magnificent textures and vibrant colors, I made sure to bring along all my Singh-Ray filters. The filters take very little space, they're light in weight and they turned out to be extremely valuable. My filter kit includes hard- and soft-step ND grad filters, the LB Neutral Polarizer, the Vari-ND filter and the Gold-N-Blue polarizer.

"The ever-changing weather and strong winds are the main challenges to deal with when photographing Icelandic landscapes. Often, rain and sunshine alternate at a fast pace, thereby increasing the haze and muting the rich colors of the landscapes. In such conditions, the LB Polarizer is simply magical at restoring the tones of Icelandic earth and vegetation. I especially appreciate this filter's excellent optical quality and its impressive light-transmission that allows me to maintain high shutter speeds at apertures between f/8 to f/11. The amazing properties of my LB Polarizer saved the day several times during the trip.

"For example, I captured the image at the top of this story during a hike to the Bláhnjúkur mountain (Blue Peak in English) in the Landmannalaugar. The strong wind made taking pictures quite challenging, even using a sturdy tripod. The LB Polarizer enabled the selection of short exposure times while saturating the natural colors and increasing the contrast of the beautiful rhyolite formations of the Landmannalaugar. This picture was taken close to the top of Bláhnjúkur. It is a stitched image of five frames captured with my Sony a900 using a Zeiss Vario-Sonnar T* 24-70 F2.8 zoom set at 50 mm. Even with the LB Polarizer on the lens, I managed to freeze the scenery at 1/320 second at f/8 with the ISO set at 400. The polarizer perfectly neutralized the morning haze, thereby rendering the rich tones of this Icelandic landmark. The LB Polarizer nicely complements the sharpness of the Zeiss lens and I am always impressed by the amount of information recorded when examining images at 100% magnification. On the original size of this panorama view, several hikers can be spotted near the opposite ridge on their way to the Hrafntinnusker hut.

"Waiting for the right moment is not always possible under harsh weather conditions, especially when standing at the bottom of a rushing waterfall fully exposed to strong winds. While visiting the Svartifoss waterfall in the Skaftafell National Park, I wanted to render the water as white streaks falling on the sharp hexagonal rocks at the base of the waterfall. Svartifoss is flanked by high basalt columns, which break off to the bottom of the cliff as nearly perfect hexagonal prisms. Being so close to the waterfall required extreme water protection for the camera and quick handling to avoid being soaked to the bone. I used a preset f-stop of f/8 at ISO 200 on my Vario-Sonnar T* 24-70 F2.8 zoom set at 70 mm and used the Vari-ND variable density filter to achieve the best effect in the shortest time possible. This image was taken at 1/13 second with the neutral density set at 5 stops. The truly amazing Vari-ND filter allowed me to test several exposure times in rapid sequence. I could not have imagined switching solid ND-filters and tuning the shutter speeds under that kind of shower. Overall, I was surprised how often I used the Vari-ND filter on my trip to add slow-motion effects while capturing waterfalls or breaking waves on coastlines.

"For the end of my stay in Iceland, I did not want to miss the glacier lagoon of Jökulsárlón, where dozens of icebergs float towards the sea. The view is impressive in itself but even before my arrival, I was imagining how my Gold-N-Blue Polarizer could enhance the scene. Jökulsárlón is a recent appearance, which is caused by the melting Breidamerkurjokull glacier. Before 1950, the glacier almost reached to the sea. Breidamerkurjokull now recedes by 200 meters per year and calves large blocks of ice, which drift as icebergs on the lagoon. The icebergs of Jökulsárlón feature beautiful white and blue tones with bands of black lava sands. Their slow motion on the lagoon looks like a hypnotic ballet, which mesmerize any spectator. Jökulsárlón is one of the few places on earth where everyone becomes a photographer.

"This picture shows a typical view of Jökulsárlón captured with the Vario-Sonnar T* 24-70 F2.8 zoom set at 50 mm without using the Gold-N-Blue Polarizer. To maintain a broad depth of field, the photo was taken at f/18 and ISO 200. The composite image above illustrates how the mood can be transformed using the Gold-N-Blue. As discussed in several previous stories on this blog, it's important that the white balance be adjusted either prior to shooting -- by creating a custom white balance in the camera -- or during post-processing. If you plan to adjust the white balance in post-production, be sure to shoot in RAW format when using the Gold-N-Blue polarizer. Software such as Adobe Lightroom and Apple Aperture allow me to change the white balance easily and achieve the desired effect with very little tweaking.

"For this image, I used the Gold-N-Blue polarizer to increase the blue tones of the glacial water and enhance the impression of cold. At some places, the turbid water of the lagoon was loaded with sediments, of which the brown-gold tones could be underlined using the Gold-N-Blue polarizer. The Gold-N-Blue filter is definitely a powerful tool in any filter kit. The filter's color effects, however, need to be carefully controlled to achieve the best result. In any case, this filter is definitively an ideal tool to achieve a personal expression of a photographic subject.

"I am still processing the photographs I made in Iceland. I do not try to rush through this task, because playing with my digital darkroom pleasantly extends my experience of this magnificent country. I will return to Iceland and my Singh-Ray filters will certainly come along, too."

Thierry has recently begun to build an impressive gallery of images on both his website and his Flickr stream. Be sure to watch for new photos to be posted regularly.