Luck of the Draw

Alcove House
©Joe Bridwell
Canyon walls like protecting ramparts, a kiva, crumbled remnants of multi-story rooms…
Mostly lit afternoons and perhaps early evening,
Hidden far up a canyon above the Rio Grande,
Yet some deep shadows,
_A late-to-post Pueblo III ruin.

Storm’s Doldrums
“Should I load the car - or _not?”
It was early morning and raining; rain forecast most of the day. Was lazy going to win and stay home? Finally, no – we started north…
I’d seen a gallery print taken from the back wall, looking out past the kiva, and was intrigued. The idea was to get an HDR of that scene…
On site, another print caught my attention. If I made it up the 500’ south canyon wall, could I shoot a long telephoto HDR with polarizer to enhance rain’s softening effect? It was cloudy – misting outside.
It’s been one of those delightfully capricious springs. Occasional water, intermittent clouds, sun always a heated threat. Today didn't differ one whit...

Bandelier
One hundred and forty feet above the canyon floor there is a naturally eroded alcove about 65 feet wide. Rows of holes in the alcove walls originally held roof beams. Seventeen first-floor rooms were capped by a second story of six rooms. Three cave rooms were carved into the walls. Turkey pens occupied the far wall behind the kiva. A refuse heap contained potsherds, corncobs and shucks, red and yellow corn kernels, beans, fur and feather cloth, squash rinds, turkey droppings, and possible human waste. Pottery sherds indicate the alcove was occupied 1250-1550 A.D.
The 12 foot Kiva was reconstructed in 1910. Excavations showed a floor of hard, blackened plaster, a fire pit 2 feet from the ventilator shaft, and loom anchor holes in the floor with loops of reed or willow is still intact in three holes.

Alcove House Handout, Bandelier National Park.

Sunshine’s Blight…
That last part of the climb, up the 2nd cooling unit to the backcountry mesa top was swift. As I struggled up, sweat-filled eyes not protected by the customary bandana, vision-retarded, it was – climb, stop, sop with stinking sweater sleeve, then trudge on. Writing this reminiscence, I'm sunburned back up into the hair on my forehead.

Jemez Volcanism
The Jemez Volcano created these rocks in several magnificent eruptions over a million years ago. Gaseous lava would erupt, blow high into the sky, flow down the volcano’s sides, then spread outward, quickly cooling on top, but leaving ash below to cool more slowly and be softer. Many eons later, Anasazi found these delightfully soft rocks, carved rooms, and built Bandelier…
At the top – either open mesa or brush and tree filled canyon edge dipping steeply away. Ants, occasional but non-penetrating cactus, blessed juniper shade, ever present slap-slap to try to rid annoying bugs in the ears. Across the canyon, just below the lower cooling unit’s top, a magical alcove, a kiva, and awesome visual memories reminiscent of bygone Anasazi times.

Shootin’ Time
Feet hanging off the edge, tripod carefully braced, camera set up for 5 HDR shots, it was time to wait for visitors to leave those brief 2 seconds when images could be captured, trying to catch the ancient, sunlit essence of this magnificent, lonely ruin. The gray sky was now blue, clouds scudding east off the Jemez Mountains, patches of dark shadow occasionally interspersed with bright dashes of sun highlighting patches of canyon wall…
Between visitors who simply did not belong in this memorable photo of our past and scudding clouds, time passed slowly, letting me sit, absorb, dream about what was, yet be very much in each moment.
The first try let a few too many junipers draw my eye away above the alcove’s top; the last exquisitely framed walls, alcove, shadows, and strong kiva. Later, this simplistic scene _sans Anasazi_ would strongly remind me of realistic dioramas I saw many years ago at Mesa Verde.

You NEVER Know…
What started as a rain filled day to shoot in a hidden alcove turned into a day of exercise and sunlit capture of an exquisite memory from our Anasazi past. Sitting there, waiting to shoot, I recalled a morning at Fallen Roof ruin on Cedar Mesa, Utah. While waiting for the sun to really warm the exquisite roof and reflect magnificent colors, I heard children’s excited laughter up canyon well before I saw them.
A couple of striplings – big brother and little sister with parents – he climbing any wall, she enjoying the flowers – almost like ancient Anasazi children, natural, world-class climbers, as if monkeys from our distant past…
Were they premonitions of “How to think like an Anasazi?”

Technics
Nikon D300, 270mm, ISO 200, f/11, 1/250-1/15, 14 bit, 5 shots, -2/+2 EV
Photomatix, Tone Compressor @ Default Settings – 32 bit to 16 bit tif
Alternating Lightroom 2.4 / CS4 Tools.
LR2 Tools – Raw Camera Profile Nikon DX2 mode 3, Basic, Tone Curves - medium contrast, HSL Targeted Adjustment Tool (H&S), Detail – Landscape Sharpening w masking.
CS4 Tools - Curves Black and White Points, Photokit Sharpener final 3D sharpening (varying opacity, brush size), patch, clone, Dodge & Burn.

Enjoy…

Apples to Oranges

Cottonwood Narrows North

©Joe Bridwell
Before and After of shadowed, early morning scene where rocks stand on end. Cottonwood Canyon, Utah.

Apple of My Eye – Orange of My Camera
“I found several recent references to statements about the ethics of combining exposures for increased dynamic range, improved depth of field etc. primarily focused on the 'fact' that such images don’t represent what the human eye sees.
“Let’s be very clear here: cameras don’t see like people do. If you were to travel through life with eyes closed, opening them for a fraction of a second at a time, then closing them again, then such statements might have merit.
“In reality a brain image is perceived from a stream of information as eyes constantly move and adjust to gather information about various parts of the scene.
“In a sense you can think of the way the brain creates an image as constant stitching and blending of multiple frames in rapid succession. Seeing allows a person to be aware of detail in extreme highlights and shadows, swiftly covering an area far greater than a single ‘eye exposure’ could.”

Guy Tal, Blog, 6/29/09

Brain Teaser
Tal's comments have proved rather evocative.
While I'd read many pieces about the camera versus the eye, they were never stated in such a clearly contradictory anagram - Apple of My Eye – Orange of My Camera.
Sometimes, a word picture eventually takes me back over recent images. Something clicks, "Ah, now I can 'see' this image sequence in a new light!"
Often, this process occurs during rim sleep - that early morning, half awake state where the Muse comes to sit on my shoulder to help me create.

Cottonwood Narrows North
Cottonwood Canyon is northwest of Page, Arizona. A part of the Colorado Plateau flexed long ago; one side up, the other down. Along the long flexure, now Cottonwood Canyon, originally horizontal beds may become vertical. If they are multicolored, so much the better. If taken in a highly contrasting light, so much more the better.

Orange of My Camera
A static photograph starts off at a significant disadvantage when attempting to represent the process of seeing. In the Cottonwood Narrows case, it's the picture on the left (above). That's raw file capture of a Nikon D300.

Apple of My Eye
With 4 more images (-2 EV to +2 EV), I also captured high dynamic range. Using Merge to HDR in Photoshop CS4, I created an HDR image, then carefully tone mapped the high contrast rocks using tools of the Adjustments panel.
The dominant rock was red, but there were greens in the shrubbery and blue in the sky. In the initial raw file capture, these RGB colors seem muted.
But after tone mapping, the richness, the suggestive saturation, and the strong tonal patterns created an evocative, dramatic effect.

Standing Rocks
The combination of colors, the filigree of shadow and spire, the rich, red texture of the vertical rock layers, the slight flare of sunlight highlighting green shrubs - these are strong, provocative elements which become subtle Apples of My Eye.
Rather than identifying the final image by place-name (a geological custom), why not use its genesis for a name?
Me - I like Standing Rocks... a pleasure of enhanced tonal measure.
Now, all I have to do is learn to stop thinking of my camera as an Orange Crush!

Enjoy...

Luck of the Irish

Monsoon Finale
© Joe Bridwell
Sun’s last blaze does a truly wonderful job of turning nearby cloud underbellies to gold filigree while creating a fantastic golden carapace for our distant horizon.

June's Weather
I, for one, have been absolutely delighted with June's cool weather. Mindful weather controls so much of gorgeous photography, I always look ahead to predictions a week out for storms so Magic Light can be my photographic companion. As I look ahead today, it begins to look like we are finally going to have high pressure create blazing hot days and turn on the air conditioner. Until real monsoon season, that means potentially blah photography.

Yesterday was one of those days when, contrary to a relatively normal weather stability, nothing seemed constant. A noon shopping spree had foreboding clouds over the Sandia's with dust skittering in the parking lot. I get home; the skies are clear. Late afternoon; a thunderstorm sits in the Bear Canyon drainage making me turn off studio computers. Early evening; looking east, the mountains are a dull gray. Was it worth getting out?

What's Tonight's Weather Going to Do? But I recently found a place where you can do sunset with an unimpeded view across the Rio Grande to distant Mount Taylor and environs.
With such variable weather, I knew trekking to that place, setting up, and trying to capture a high dynamic range (HDR) sunset might become a total waste. But, that is the life of those who chase Magic Light!
About five minutes after sunset, 15 HDR panoramic images (+/- 2 EV) quickly slipped onto the CF card.

Processing
As we've pointed out before, even with high ISO sensors, noise is a pernicious aspect of HDR capture. Add the fact that there would probably be chromatic aberration at the land-sky boundary and you've got a few things to reduce.
First, I Stacked all images based on a four second capture in Lightroom 2. Five images at a time, I Tone Compressed with default settings in Photomatix. Three resulting tiff files were Merge (d) to Panorama in CS4.
CS4 returned the pano to LR2 where we promptly provided Luminance noise reduction in Details tab. Carefully examining the horizon, we found chromatic aberration as well. We Defringed All Edges with both red/cyan and blue/yellow slider modifications.
The pano was slightly Tone Mapped in LR2. Medium contrast in Tone Curve made our response better. A little Fill Light to move shadows to darks, Clarity, and just a touch of Vibrance for that delightful cloud filigree...

Luck of the Irish Consider the following variables; highly variable weather during the day, no clear indication of a gorgeous sunset, everything literally 'up in the air...'
I'd have to come down on the Irish conclusion...
Monsoon Finale is a gorgeous sunset (and not a half bad image)!
Enjoy...

Issues in HDR Tone Mapping

Candyland Sky
©Joe Bridwell
Convoluted, chocolaty red rock shapes contain subdued white sandstone stringers. Long sky cloud stringers subtly emphasize the point-counterpoint red rock surface. I find God's handiwork quite artistic...

What's the Best HDR Software for Noise Reduction and Chromatic Aberration? We've compared Photomatix and CS4 for Magic Hour HDR. When you use Lightroom to remove noise and chromatic aberration before HDR, Photomatix returns an image with chromatic aberration - though you requested it be removed.
CS4 provides a clean image; although processing may be more convoluted, when the end result is printed on large printer, I feel it's worth using CS4.
We describe the entire CS4 process to achieve complete tone mapping. It's an experimental but reproducible process; one where you learn more and get better as you do more of it.

HDR Capture
Five high dynamic Range images were captured at +/- 2EV. The negative EV range contained Noise; images also contained Chromatic Aberration. One might expect such behavior when shooting at Magic Hour, that hour around dawn and dusk.

CS4 vs. Photomatix
With Lightroom 2, we globally eliminated dust smudges, reduced noise, and reduced chromatic aberration for each image before submitting them for high dynamic range processing.
When Photomatix created a 32-bit Tone Compressed HDR result from these images, chromatic aberration was present. When CS4 created a 32-bit Local Adaptation HDR result, chromatic aberration was absent.

Tone Mapping in Several Stages
When CS4 receives images to Merge to HDR from LR2, it may take a little while to create a 32-bit file. We recommend you save that 32-bit file because you may want to work with it later.
Image> Mode> 16 Bit brings up the HDR conversion routine in CS4 to create a 16-bit tif file. Use the drop-down menu to choose Local Adaptation, set Radius about 90 pixels, choose Threshold about 1%, and carefully map the Tone Curve. Martin Evening has pointed out that tone curve mapping of an HDR image is both complicated and different from the normal tone curve choices for a single image.
The HDR result may same bland; little distinctive color, sort of soft.

Mask Sky and Ground with Color Range
Magic Hour is enhanced by dramatic clouds. It's usually easier to select sky and clouds to create a mask between sky and ground. For this task, I use Color Range. By setting small values for Fuzziness and Range, the mask selection usually fits the boundary fairly well.
It's a very good practice to examine the image at 2:1 (200% zoom). Although keystroke techniques differ between LR 2 and CS4, this scan size lets you look for various effects which would be immediately apparent on a large print. In particular, you quickly get to see if Color Range selected portions of the sky and ground which need to be corrected in the mask.
When you've completed the Sky mask, duplicate channel, invert the channel, and name it Ground.

Hue/Saturation Color Adjustments with Masks
Create 2 adjustment layers using Hue/Saturation. Attach the Sky mask to one, then find the right sky color using Hue. Attach the Ground mask to the other, then find the right ground color using Hue.
When appropriate colors are found, vary Saturation and Lightness until the colors reflect nearly true colors from the 0 EV image on the initial capture.

Final Tone Mapping in Lightroom 2
Lightroom 2’s close connection with Adobe Camera Raw provides easy Basic, Tone Curve, and Details tabs for final, accurate touch up. We pay particular attention to contrast, clarity, and vibrance. We apply the landscape preset then carefully enhance the masking portion of sharpening to finalize our image.

Finale…
I thank Bob Weber for a very enlightening session where, among many other topics, we dealt with fringing and correction of chromatic aberration. It prompted me to prepare a more detailed workflow describing how to use LR 2 and CS4.

Enjoy…

HDR - Tips & Tricks ~ Noise

Kaleidoscope
©Joe Bridwell
From Albuquerque, there is an entire land of enchantment north of Lake Powell. One hundred forty years ago, Charles Dutton conceptualized the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument as a huge stairway ascending out of the bottom of the Grand Canyon northward with cliff edge of each layer forming giant steps.
In the Escalante, there are some truly remarkable images of hoodoos, arches, and land which stands on its end. No wonder the Anasazi loved this country...

Getting There Ain't Easy... For, you see, some 90 miles of Lake Powell is really in the way. On the other hand, dramatic charm of some of these images may change your mind. For all you know, the exquisite Escalante may lie in your photographic future.

HDR Processing Even with one of the newer DSLR camera bodies where the sensor captures less noise, Magic Hour shots, those shots in the hour before and after dawn and dusk, (-2, -1, 0, +1, and +2) can be noisy. Photomatix 3.1.3 may not necessarily remove all blue sky noise.
I typically process five high dynamic range (HDR) shots using Tone Compressor at default in Photomatix. If you're using Lightroom 2 (LR2), Photomatix has provided a plug-in so that you can process HDR images from Lightroom and return a 16-bit tiff.
The resulting 16-bit tiff may show considerable noise at 1:1. So what do you do to get rid of it?

Photoshop LR2 and CS4 Processing
Once the HDR image is back in LR2, I usually click Ctrl-+ twice to scale it to 1:1. The Home key takes me to the upper left-hand corner. After that, sequential Page Downs move me vertically down the left-hand side, return me to the top of the next column, move me down, etc..
This way, I perform an initial image scan, with first objective to remove any dust spots.

Photoshop CS4 Processing In CS4, a similar scan can be created at any scale. The Home and Page Down keys perform the same function as LR2. To move laterally to the right, use CTRL-Page Down. To move laterally to the left, use CTRL-Page up.
I load the tiff image, press CTRL-J to duplicate, then begin a second scan.
This scan also allows me to evaluate precision of sky-land interfaces. If I select the Quick Selection tool, I can rapidly create an initial sky selection. The sunlit sections of my HDR images usually lack accuracy in the selection. I use the scan technique and an initial brush size of four pixels. If the Quick Selection tool has missed an area I can either add or subtract from that area to get the mask line in an initial position.

But the critical step is at a scale of 800%. At 800%, I can see how many pixels are off in the noise mask outline I'm trying to create. For this step, I press the Q key to enable Quick Mask, set my brush size to 3 pixels, make my foreground color Black, and carefully paint the red Quick Selection mask until it exactly matches the sky-land boundary.

When I'm done, I go to the Channels palette, make a mask (press Save Selection As Channel-second button from the left), and name it Sky. I then press the first button from the left (Load Channel from Selection) and am ready to create a mask in the Layers panel after returning the masks to RGB.
On choosing the Layers panel, I convert the Background copy to a Smart Object, and label it Noise. I then press the Add Layer Mask button to put the sky-land mask on the Smart Object.

Finally, We Can Filter that Pernicious Noise... Filter> Noise> Reduce Noise brings up a dialog box where you manipulate the sliders to remove noise. Basically, you can see how much noise will be created in the window the dialog provides at 100%. Reduce Noise is a situation where you get to roll your own (move the sliders as you like)...

Rigmarole?




Seem like a lot of rigmarole?
Maybe… or Yep...
But, try getting a noisy sky HDR photo in competition past a judge to become a winner. Forget that!

Here’s a layer panel for the entire Tone Mapping process.
Of course, after I complete noise resolution, I want to sharpen the entire image (only after removing noise), provide a spatial 3-D effect through individual customized sharpening brushes from Pixel Genius’ Photokit Sharpener, then work on additional 3-D Dodge and Burn dramatic enhancements before final Selective Coloring. This entire process is called Tone Mapping.

Finale
I was kidding you; the gorgeously dramatic aspects of Escalante memories attest to the remarkable vibrancy Dutton's Escalante creates.
I wrote this particular blog because each of these images is a ‘near’ Magic Hour HDR composite. Each also started with HDR noise.
Now, our skies are either quiet or dramatic, but clear and noiseless; nothing would be quite so debilitating as either getting low marks for your efforts or printing an image at 16 x 20 or 20 x 30 inches with a perniciously noisy sky.

HDR-Tips & Tricks

You might want to review some other HDR Tips & Tricks…
Auto-stacking
Chromatic Aberrations

Kaleidoscope contains a few images I've worked up from recent Escalante ventures...
Enjoy...

HDR - Tips & Tricks

Candyland
©Joe Bridwell
Late afternoon Hoodoos encapsulate beauty while crying subtle patriotism. In a remote Arizona corner, one can imagine a candymaker ladling chocolate in ropy swirls; in a fantasy land, maybe chocolate is red! Perhaps Mother Nature was the candymaker; she can choose to color any desert as she wishes.
For me, Candyland is also a delicately gorgeous high dynamic range (HDR) image which became a challenge during development.

Photomatix vs. CS4 HDR
Five HDR images ranging from -2, -1, 0, +1, +2 in EV (exposure value) are processed into a 32-bit image to capture the subject’s full color range. Then, one might choose to modify 32-bit image before saving it as a 16-bit tiff. I tried the same process in CS4 and Photomatix; each of the results contains major problems.



CS4 contains less chromatic aberration and a very distracting feature I will call 'edge grunge'. Edge grunge is a 4-5 pixel wide disruption - darker edge on dark colors and lighter edge at the sky (each about 2 pixels wide). It's usually noticeable at 100% magnification. Unfortunately, CS4 didn't achieve very much success in reproducing the rich colors of rocks and sky.



Photomatix tends to produce more appropriate colors. Unfortunately, it really emphasizes edge grunge and leaves red or blue chromatic aberrations much more strongly; not only on edges between sky and land, but within the rocks as well.
Scrooge would have said, “Bah…Humbug!”
Rather than use sliders provided by Photomatix, I've learned to take the 32-bit file at default settings, convert it to 16-bit. For best over all results, I use default values ~ then Tone Map in CS4.

CS4’s New OpenGL Ability as a Preferred Working Tool
CS4 does graphics calculations to a GPU (graphical processor unit). If your computer contains an appropriate graphics card, CS4 will let you blow your image to magnifications of 800-1200% for high-resolution touch up. At that scale, you're able to see individual pixels, scale your clone or repair brush to 3,4, or 5 pixels, and Clone these irritating scenes away.
To prepare CS4 for OpenGL, you go to Edit> Preferences> and choose Enable OpenGl Drawing for an appropriate graphics card. If you don't have an appropriate graphics card, the Enable button will not allow a checkmark (and you can't take advantage of additional features from the next section). An NVIDIA GeForce 7300 LT is about the minimum card to be of reasonable support.

Rotate, Smooth Pan and Zoom, Pixel Grid in CS4
A nice aspect of 'normalizing' edge grunge and chromatic aberrations is the speed CS4, OpenGL, and a good graphics card provide when Tone Mapping an HDR image.
I always evaluate the entire image at 1-to-1 (100% zoom) several times. I may be looking for dust spots, edge grunge, chromatic aberrations, or other eye-catching issues.
CTRL-+ scales your image up; above 600%, a pixel overlay is provided. For me, 800% quickly helps evaluate each problem and Clone corrections. ALT-click on a ‘good’ color lets me create a Clone source to replace bad colors. Holding down Space Bar turns the Clone Tool into a Hand; simply flick the zoomed image to a new position containing another repair area to swiftly proceed.
For those of you who do Paths (sharp vector outlines of specific objects to create masks), check out the Rotate tool! Instead of making corner points and bending lines during the creation of a path, you can use rotate the tool, use your Wacom pen tablet, and draw a straight line around the object. Wow; what a marvelously skilled Photoshop tool!

Although longer than usual, this HDR tip will certainly put you in a better position to submit your final images for judging.

Enjoy...

Wild ‘Bill’ Hairball

Corona Arch
©Joe Bridwell

Utah has a number of truly spectacular arches.  Just west of Moab, Corona is a popular Colorado River site.  The ancient artifact in front of Corona is Wild 'Bill' Hairball... camper, arch hunter, HDR shooter, and sand-covered country bumpkin.

No, this is not an HDR image.  But, I did spend the onset of a long hot summer way off the highway down horrible washboard roads shooting HDR sunrises and sunsets, many in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
Since you just don't snap and show HDR panoramas, forgive me if there hasn't been time to do little more than document my return.
Thankfully, a primary order of business _ a deep, encompassing bath_ was joyous!

With time, some of these images will emerge.  As will memories of:
Seeing 4 sunlit crow's watching solemnly from a dawn-lit, nearby hill.
Finding 3 Japanese on a country road 14 miles beyond their goal, lacking English.
Carefully negotiating a small slot canyon, unable to believe my eyes 'Liam the Lizard running along, slightly ahead of me, body and tail parallel to the ground'!  I simply did not know lizards could do that...
On a back country road watching a pickup pull a hang glider by wire.
A windy Navajo rodeo with running horse's hooves creating dusty cloud puffs.
When occasionally around people, frequently hearing German...
Nightly set up a 30-year-old tent, recently renovated by REI (no charge)...
Taking pictures of the most incredible Southwestern natural landscapes.
Living out under great Western skies which softly welcome sunrise and warmly embrace opulent evening.

I would be quite remiss if I did not thank Sonny (Tracback) Lane and Larry (Magic Breath) Stroup for their emotional and intellectual support on this venture and safe return to technical nirvana!  In each unique way, these guys were the Wind beneath My Wings – teaching, arguing, testing my theories, and praying for great images…
And, my beautiful daughter Donna aka Chris, who patiently listened to disjointed and rather intermittent cell phone calls from where ever, contributing care and love on this lonely vigil.  Perhaps the most unusual was from Hole in the Rock Road, some 45 miles down, way in the outback, as Crocodile Dundee might say.  I can only guess that a flashing red light on Navajo Mountain farther south of Lake Powell let me make that jewel… mostly it was ‘Can’t Find  Service…’
Enjoy...

The Future of HDR – III

Blue Mountain

©Joe Bridwell

The direct sunset already gave a splendid HDR ~ two planes crossed above the clouds. But, simply by turning south, the sky was in half tones. The almost shimmering distant mountain reminds one of scenes in the movie Cold Mountain.

HDR (high dynamic range) Has Been on My Mind Lately...

There's controversy over how your workflow should go when you put together an HDR image. There are different amounts of EV range to capture, there's the choice of which photos to use for the best 32-bit HDR image, there's the choice of which software to use to create that 32-bit image, and, then there is the choice of how you tone map for the final image to please your emotional palette.

You ask, "Well, isn't there one simple way?"

Not really; for various reasons, neither your eye nor your camera can see the full range of color available. While it's clear the camera doesn't have the range of your eye, there are some questions about what your brain automatically does to a scene before/as it stores it in your memory. Without getting into all the biophysical reasons for that statement, let's just discuss limitations from software's viewpoint.

HDR Approaches

Let me take three photographers, John Doogan, Matt Kloskowski, and Tom Till, and highlight differences in their HDR approaches.

Doogan (Fellow New Zealand Institute of Professional Photographers and Adobe Ambassador) uses Lightroom 2 and CS4. John selects images in Lightroom, performs emerge to HDR, then tone maps in CS4. John addresses some of the subtleties an HDR image can capture while showing advanced workflow in CS4. Some of his efforts suggest other intriguing ways one may think of additional steps to really enhance the tone map image. John’s example shows an EV range of -2.64, 0, +2.64 (Calculated by CS4).

Kloskowski (NAPP) uses Photomatix Pro. Matt selects images in Lightroom, uses the Lightroom/Photomatix plug-in to create the 32-bit image, then tone maps in Capture NX2. Photomatix converts the 32-bit to the 16 bit image. Matt will do a little bit of correction in Lightroom but prefers capture NX2 for his final tone mapping. Matt shot 5 images, then just used -2, 0, +2. I think Matt is a bit overzealous when he decries, "Everybody uses Photomatix..."

Till (Till Galleries, Moab) has only recently begun HDR and promises more discussions on his presently in frequent blog. Tom prefers 0 and -2, -4,\ EV images, but has been known to use a 4EV ND filter as well. At present, Tom has not given a full-blown blog indication of his preferred HDR workflow. However, Tom is well known around our planet for some of his incredibly splendid Four Corners sunrise/sunset shots.

I've used both Photomatix Pro, Lightroom 2, CS3, and (for me, soon to be) CS4 for my HDR imaging. At present, I'm using Lightroom 2 and CS3. With the enhanced flexibility of nondestructive local adjustment brushes in Lightroom (and CS4), I can let LR2 and CS3 create the 16 bit image, then do some processing in Lightroom. Because I spent the time and energy to learn CS3, I can instinctively appreciate superior advantages of the coveted CS4. Clearly, that's the reason to elevate to the level of CS4...

About Blue Mountain…

The image above is a sample -1, 0, +2 EV range, brought into LR2, Merge to HDR in CS3, return 16 bit tif to LR2, and successively tone map with local adjustment brushes. I followed the basic Adobe Camera Raw workflow advocated by Bruce Fraser in Real World Adobe Camera Raw for Photoshop CS3. In essence, Bruce said, ”Go down the Develop module ~ tweaking sliders in Basic, Tone Curves, Detail (Landscape Sharpening using preset [particularly using the Masking] and Chromatic Abberation), before finalizing more subtle changes in HSL (Hue, Saturation, and Luminosity).

What are the advantages of this approach?

This approach does away with some of the superfluous histograms produced by Detail Enhancer in Photomatix Pro. Superfluous; DE will take a normal bimodal distribution for your sunset histogram then create its own shape - creating an 'overblown' HDR effect. It often creates sky halos.

The LRx/CSx approach lets you work with raw files, PSDs, and ultimately JPEG's in Lightroom. It does away with major histogram redistribution. It lets you take serious advantage of a much deeper range of brush capabilities provided by Photoshop for some serious, yet subtle tone mapping.

Enjoy...

The Future of HDR - II

Whether its DVDs, videos, or books – High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography is flourishing with Lightroom 2 (LR) and Photoshop CS4(PS).

The authors shown above

John Doogan FNZIPP (and Adobe Ambassador),

Ben Willmore (HDR & Beyond), and

Matt Kloskowski NAPP (DVD)

take different approaches.

Last Thursday’s Future of HDR was prelude to a central question, “Where and how will our future growth proceed in digital photography as we use better cameras to provide HDR images which represent what our eye actually saw?”

What Does Each Approach Offer?

While I have not seen Kloskowski’s HDR DVD, I have seen his Lightroom DVD. His approach is simple; a nuts and bolts use of Lightroom rather than enhanced tool application. I presume he uses Photomatix for HDR the same way. I can’t speak to his tone mapping approach.

Ben Willmore briefly touched on his HDR approach in two short CS3 videos with Bert Monroy. The first shows how to use CS3 to Merge to HDR to align and create an initial image. The second uses CS3 brightness and other advanced masking tools (curves) to more carefully tone map images. He has a book out next month entitled HDR and Beyond with CS4.

John Doogan’s videos spend 2 hours skillfully showing how to use several HDR approaches. In New and Improved Adobe Photomerge and Merge to HDR in Photoshop CS4, he uses Lightroom to Merge to HDR, then either applies CS4 layer adjustments or Lightroom nondestructive graduated filters or local adjustment brushes to enhance and add subtle changes to his HDR images. As a nature photographer, I enjoyed his Landscape Photographers Guide to Lightroom and CS4. Both can be viewed on video by clicking on each title below.

My HDR Experience

I began using HDR in October, 2007. For perspective, that was 6 months after the Photoshop CS3 release. At that time, few reviews suggested use of CS3 and its HDR capabilities. Rather, Photomatix Pro was hero from that day.

As I’ve worked with CS3 and Photomatix, one interesting reaction has been, “That image seems to be ‘science-fiction’ – meaning, it’s over done.” Hindsight, centered around shooting Magic Hour shots, that period between dawn and dusk, suggests HDR should be approached carefully with Photomatix. Use of Detail Enhancer (DE) provides a histogram which rarely seems to fit the general histogram shape from the initial capture image. On the other hand, Tone Compressor (TC) seems to be more consistent; it maintains similar histogram configurations. While DE has numerous knobs and dials for tone mapping, TC only has half that amount.

When you think of dodging and burning in CS3 as well as exciting new graduated filter and adjustment brushes in Lightroom 2 (and CS4) ~ that impressive tone mapping list shows Photomatix appearing to strongly lag behind. Moreover, those local nondestructive Adobe Camera Raw 5.x brushes allow us to swiftly add subtle clipping, recovery, fill light, shadows, brightness, clarity, vibrance, sharpness, auto align, auto blend, etc.

When compared to combinations of various tools used in tone mapping from Lightroom 2 and Photoshop CS4 – the few global Photomatix knobs and dials, which only treat a global image, seem to become minor.

Brief Historical Perspective

So, what can we learn by perusing noted experts and their present approaches to HDR?

HDR began to appear through tutorials from different photographers. Early on it was Photomatix, but in 2008, Bridge and CS3 became prevalent. With release of LR2 in September, 2008 and CS4, October, 2008, Adobe Camera Raw, the underpinning of both, had become an active local brush adjustment environment. Workflow steps taking hours are reduced to 10s of minutes.

Now, HDR found a new home with more subtle nuances to its plethora of image corrections. I think advent of Lightroom 2 and Photoshop CS4 as a combo puts us in a better tone mapping situation to softly, yet persistently enhance HDR. Several people are using Merge to HDR from Lightroom. Then they go on to use the sophistication of LR/PS. Of course, you will want to find your ‘guru’ or gurus’ and follow them… Adobe eSeminars provides you both HDR and additional topics.

As you become facile in use of various combo brushes, you will produce subtle, yet evocative HDR images – eschewing that old paradigm – HDR ‘science fiction’. And, should you be interested, we think you may become leaders in helping judges, sometimes rutted in tradition, widen their horizons…

Where Few Men Have Gone Before…

For me, CS4 is definitely on the near horizon; specifically because of some of the intricate steps Doogan’s 2 videos showed me - which work only with LR and CS4. With local nondestructive tools applied to different segments of an HDR image, we suggest a pen tablet for precision in advanced tone map modifications.

Doogan
HDR
Landscapes
Willmore
HDR I
HDR II
HDR and Beyond
Klowkowski
HDR DVD
Kelby
Lightroom 2 Book (p. 262-267)
Revell
HDR Tutorials
Adobe eSeminars OnDemand
Various HDR and CS4 Topics

Nature's Old Men...

Old Man's Face

©Joe Bridwell

"I love the place (Four Corners)," Tony Hillerman wrote of vast lands that span the northeast corner of Arizona and straddle borders of New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado. "I need only drive west from Shiprock into that great emptiness to feel my spirit lift."

One of my friends saw an earlier version of this image and wrote me, "Did you see the face in the rock of an old man with a beard; it looks like he is holding a teddy bear."

When I looked again, his face, somewhat crushed, with broken nose askew, and almost loosing a left eye beneath a stately Tam-o-Shanter, seemed to add such simple strength and a quizzical, wrinkled charm to distant Mt Taylor.  Is he a guardian of such mountain beauty?  In Anasazi lore, the teddy bear might really have been a treasured child. 

Keeper of the Gate

©Joe Bridwell

Later, around a distant corner, this splendid, gnarled old tree, guarding a shrine up the road, might have been equally at home in legend’s ancient Sherwood Forest.  Could Coronado’s Conquistadores have ridden under this majestic tree, searching for Seven Cities of Gold?

Somehow, this old man and Robin Hood’s tree, guarding our past in variable tone poems, seem to speak together, "Age and grace are one - the same."  Both nature’s tree and broken rock face are wrinkled; both have survived the millennia; and each, in their unique way, is testament to age and simplicity.  Softly painting tree and face bring out their enduring longevity.

From Anasazi times, elders have gone to ground – found a quite place to pass their later years.
Our prayers are with them all…

The Future of HDR...

Credit: John Doogan, FNZIPP

With advent of Lightroom 2 and Photoshop CS4, new Tone Mapping twists are beginning to be applied to high dynamic range (HDR). An exhaustive Google search provide only a few tutorials; nevertheless, they were quite illuminating. John Doogan, Scott Kelby, Matt Kloskowski, and Ben Willmore each have a new direction in HDR. Doogan works with LR2 and CS4; Kelby and Kloskowski work with Lightroom 2; Willmore likes some of the advanced masking tools in CS4 (his book HDR and Beyond in CS4 is available in March).

Regardless of how the cookie crumbles, one can choose either Photomatix or Lightroom and Photoshop to assemble a 32-bit HDR. After converting to a 16-bit tiff file, paths and workflow techniques differ. Doogan shows both CS4 and LR2 working paths. Kelby and Willmore proceed to use Camera Raw sliders for global changes. Then, techniques differ for localized changes. Personally, I prefer nondestructive local adjustment brush changes - either in Lightroom or CS4 - based on Adobe Camera Raw 5.3.

To get this sense of future direction for HDR, Doogan’s videos bring LR2 and CS4 to life. Kelby has six pages in his new Lightroom book describing the process. You can either buy a DVD or take online training to watch Kloskowski's HDR video. You can watch 2 Willmore videos free or buy his upcoming book.

While many people use Photomatix to assemble HDR images, opinions differ about post process Tone Mapping. Lightroom 2 and Photoshop CS4 both depend upon Adobe Camera Raw 5.3 for nondestructive global and local tool packages. CS4 adds the remarkable facility for masking.

Future Directions in HDR…

Now that we have ‘honking’ CS4 subtle adjustment brushes available - a truly remarkable masking tool - it is my anticipation we may see more HDR tutorials which step beyond the ‘Photomatix uber alles (German for over all)’ HDR paradigm. So, I began an advanced Google search for today's viewpoints and projects…

I’ve actually seen a book and several free video examples which preach new paths, similar to our LR2 path proposed in prior workflows. You ask, “What paths…?”

Paths the Pro’s Use…

John Doogan, FNZIPP, Adobe evangelist, and Adobe beta tester, lives in Christchurch, New Zealand. Last night, after watching Eric Jones present a tantalizing Alternatives to HDR workflow at Enchanted Lens Camera Club, I found Doogan’s Landscape Photographer’s Guide to Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop, watched the 80 minute video, and felt like I witnessed a Revolution…

Doogan showed both Photoshop CS4 and Lightroom 2 performing the same Auto-Align and Auto-Blend steps as well as more refined interactions between LR2 and CS4 in each separate piece of software. Granted he was doing broad brush landscape tone mapping – but, I was able to see far enough into CS4 to know it’s clearly in my future. In effect, he indicated, “While CS4 can do more than the present LR2, some of its steps are clunky compared to the more streamlined LR2.” Then, he showed how LR2 reduced his first cut development and tone mapping time by ~ 30% - so, even though he has CS4, his total time in LR2 now approaches 90%!

For those interested in tone mapping the future thru CS4, I commend Doogan. I would also suggest perhaps you take a careful look at some other free tutorials on Adobe’s eSeminars website.

Landscapes:http://pacific.adobe.acrobat.com/p74392052/
HDR:http://pacific.adobe.acrobat.com/p59269932/

*John Doogan is a commercial photographer and digital retoucher from Christchurch. He has been using photoshop since the mid 1990s. John is a Fellow of the New Zealand Institute of Professional Photography, an Adobe Ambassador and a software beta tester for Adobe Photographic software. He has a particular interest in landscape photography, and has won the NZIPP Landscape Photographer of the Year three times.

Scott Kelby, National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP) President, discusses HDR from a different view - in Lightroom 2, HDR images can go straight from Lightroom to Photoshop's Merge to HDR feature. The result is a 32-bit file. Choose Image, Mode, 16 Bits per Channel. The HDR conversion dialog appears. Choose Local Adaptation. You've finally started to add the HDR look. Ctrl-Shift-S opens a save dialog box, you name the photo, then save as a tif file.

Now, open the tif in Photoshop which opens the Camera Raw menu. In CS4, development sliders are like Lightroom 2. Now, you're back to familiar ground.

Kelby describes the use of sliders to Tone Map. Now, it's time to get that file back into Lightroom. Click and drag the file into the same folder where your original bracketed photos are stored. In Lightroom's folder panel (Library module) choose Synchronize Folder. The dialog says you're importing one new photo (finished HDR you drug into the folder).

The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 book for Digital Photographers, ©2009, Scott Kelby, p. 262-267.

Matt Kloskowski, NAPP Educator, has released an HDR video. It advocates minimal use of Photomatix as a tone mapping tool; rather, Photomatix is great at Assembling the initial file. Matt is great at subtle tool masks and usage in Photoshop. I haven’t seen it, but would like too…

http://www.kelbytraining.com/player/index.html#150

Ben Willmore has 2 free videos with Bert Monroy at Pixel Perfect. The first discusses how Photomatix can leave uneven interpretations from Tone Mapping. The second discusses intricacies of using subtle masks in CS3 to emphasize or de-emphasize more refined aspects of HDR capture. I find this video interesting, simply because it shows a somewhat more limited approach to local tone mapping in HDR.

Part I: http://revision3.com/pixelperfect/hdr/
Part II: http://revision3.com/pixelperfect/hdrpartii/

Willmore shows how he fashioned the Cover for his new book HDR and Beyond in Photoshop CS4…

High dynamic range (HDR) imaging uses multiple exposures of the same scene to create a single image with a huge range of values between light and dark areas of a photograph. It is an extremely popular and ever-growing niche of photography; a search for "HDR" at Flickr results in over 975,000 uploaded images.

In this book by noted photographer and popular digital imaging expert Ben Willmore, you'll learn the best practices for the entire process: from image capture through tone mapping and output. You'll learn how to create stunning HDR images...and you'll go beyond those "basic" techniques to learn exactly how Ben creates his own trademark HDR images, which have a slightly surreal and painterly quality to them. Equally instructive and beautiful, HDR and Beyond will teach and inspire you to create stunning HDR images! Amazon Product Description.

http://www.amazon.com/HDR-Beyond-Adobe-Photoshop-CS4/dp/0321617029/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1234901420&sr=1-1

Perhaps these examples can broaden our horizons. For me, use of Camera Raw 5.3’s tools have both sped up my workflow and provided rich, yet natural appearing fine art. And, it matters little whether it’s Lightroom or Photoshop which acts as my final localized brush Tone Mapping vehicle.

Take a look at a more in-depth Lightroom 2 HDR Tone Mapping workflow here.

Enjoy...

Dawn’s Cacophony

Dawn’s Cacophony
©Joe Bridwell

Stillness of dawn’s breaking light
captures elusive radiance…
Birds explode in brilliant flight
rapid thrust of swift wing
and cacophony of quack…
Punctuating dawn’s ascendant light
as genial, elusive silhouettes…

Nikon D300, 0649, 24-130 @ 63 mm, 1/100, f 5.6, iso 200

Dual Explosions…
The dark, pre-dawn drive to Bosque del Apache’s first pond near the Flight Deck did not seem particularly auspicious. Yes, some clouds were on the horizon. Yes, birds chose to be very near shore, spiritually tantalizing avid digital photographers.
But would all those birds wait until the sun was just right ~ before exploding into flight during the renowned Flyout? And, would now somber clouds reflect light in a paean of golden ecstasy – a second, magnificently embracing explosion?
Anyone who is an aficionado of Magic Hour, that potentially tumultuous hour around dawn and dusk, knows chance plays such a big role in what the camera can capture. Yet, this morning, Chance simply sat on our shoulders like an inspiring Muse.

Wildlife Photography – Friends of the Bosque, Feb. 7, 2009
We were here for Friends of the Bosque’s February Wildlife Photography Workshop - led by Jerry Goffe. Some 35 bird enthusiasts from New Mexico and Texas had come to experience Jerry’s deep, natural enthusiasm for the Bosque, all things bird, and his truly irrepressible, infectious humor. With co-instructors, Jerry welcomed these participants who hit the cold pre-dawn dirt then simply became enchanted.
Early morning shoots, a 2 hour working session before lunch, an afternoon shooting a raptor (hope I am right – don’t know bird lingo), another, shorter session before dusk, then the final dusk shoot.
Lots of interesting people, different viewpoints, coalescing spirits, desire to learn new things… a well versed teacher, and, of course, dem awesome boids…

Don’t Try Any More Poetry…
The first time I saw Jerry at the Bosque, he was telling someone, “For me, this place is spiritual…!”
I can only hope Dawn’s Cacophony meets Jerry’s meritorious standard…

Cross Roads

Hidden Mountain

©Joe Bridwell

It was just a lark at first. We went sunset shootin’ west of Los Lunas. NM. A low cloud bank was pushing in from the west as the sun vanished behind Hidden Mountain. Then, the surprise began… vapor trails from an eastbound and northbound plane appeared. In a moment, their paths crossed, seeming to transfix yet emphasize the sky above the gorgeous pageantry of a remarkable sunset. And Hidden Mountain, as captured, indeed, is hidden…

This stunning image is a high dynamic range composite shot with a Nikon D300 on a steady tripod. Each image was shot at 14 bits, providing 4 times the color range of a 12 bit capture. This choice helped dramatize shadows, midtones, and highlights.
Three images were captured and brought into Lightroom 2.3. The new Photomatix Pro 3.1.3 Lightroom plugin then processed those images into a 32 bit hdr file (which we saved in case future software brush improvements provide other, more compelling benefits) before seamlessly returning a Tone Mapped 16 bit tif using Tone Compressor with no global color changes.

Back in Lightroom, we cropped the dark foreground, increased exposure 0.5EV, created a medium tone contrast, added a graduated filter in the sky, then modified a local sky-only grad filter contrast and saturation until our eye’s memory was satisfied.

Two unsuspecting pilots skillfully avoiding collision provide a sacred signature to the truly gorgeous aspects Nature provides as we extend what a camera can capture to what our incredible eye can make as a transcendent memory.

Enjoy…

Bosque’s Memorable Brilliance

©Joe Bridwell
A cold but still morning found Bosque birds on the move. As the sun burned underbellies of capping clouds and began lightening distant hills, hunger called birds aloft.
A relatively short handheld lens ranged behind this flock; yet, image clarity balances an off-axis presence of the uppermost bird, where all are capped by morning’s glory.
Although these birds are normally white-gray, morning’s gentle, forgiving light, filtered through distant atmosphere lying east, shows such a wonderful concordance of soft, pastel color between sharp, in-focus birds and slightly out-of-focus hills as backdrop.
Nikon D300, 70-300mm, 155mm, 1/500, f4.5, iso 200, 0700 112308

Laptop Workflow
These days, my blog or workshop is written on a laptop. I put an image in Word, I pick up a microphone, and I begin to talk around the image. Pretty soon, a well edited piece, often containing multiple images, is the result.
That morning, I filled two 4 GB cards. With other commitments, it took a day before I actually uploaded the cards; I put images on the studio's external hard drive.

But Lightroom 2 contains a lot of the 'grease' to simplify this process. Indeed, this image took a few minor nondestructive changes and it was ready to publish. To start the blog, I needed to do several things:
1. Go through initial images, throwing away out-of-focus or badly composed images. Voilà... essentially, shooting rapid fire, many shots produced only a few usable images.
2. To make that decision, I uploaded all cards, imported images with metadata, then went through using flags to Pick (P) or Reject (X).
3. With a 4 a.m. Bosque departure, when those cards were uploaded, I was still tired. So I exported images converted on the studio to make flag choices on laptop, then re-imported to begin development.
4. Bosque’s Memorable Brilliance used Lightroom's Develop module to perform the following steps:
a. Create a Virtual Copy of original DNG image.
b. Tweak Exposure, Clarity, Vibrance, Strong Tone Contrast, TAT (Lighten Clouds), Gradient Filter, and Landscape Sharpen Preset. I do this color work on studio computer with a calibrated monitor.
c. Save as a full-size JPEG.
d. Downsize JPEG using CS3 and return image to catalog.
5. Export appropriate images to laptop to write this blog.
6. When I'm done, it'll end up on an external hard drive on the studio computer with main catalog up to date from this new effort.

Checkout Scott Kelby’s Laptop Workflow In today's Photoshop Insider blog, Scott Kelby talked about a recent vacation where he used Lightgroom’s Collections, flags, and labels to quickly create Picks and Selects for a Travel Slideshow and a Fine Art Book.
For this Bosque trip, I shot two classes of images; birds in flight and five shot HDR still images. I found Collecting five HDR images in a unique collection let me quickly use the Photomatix plug-in to decide if HDR shots were any good.

Shidoni's Color Scapes

Shidoni Foundry, a fascinating photo adventure, is located in Tesuque, NM. With a museum, a yard full of unique shapes, and deep fascination of a roaring, hot metal pouring room, the foundry is a mecca for photographers.
Some 20 of us spent an excited Saturday wandering Shidoni. It was like we were on some other planet...

Pouring Hot Metal

Metal workers, clad in metallic heat reflection gear, seemed ghostly shapes from a science fiction novel. Were they really Klingons?






Here we've just retrieved a red hot iron cask full of flaming, molten metal. It's interesting ~ the man on the left, although some distance from the cask, reflects lots of heat.
Here's a close up ~ they set the cask on a base to cool slightly. I find it fascinating that flames are coming up off the liquid metal.






Notice the cooler cask rim after workers set it in the crane-mounted pouring device. It's only the second pour for this set of shapes. I was lucky enough to catch a splatter shot - don't you love the flaming hot metal streaking away across the sand below? The roaring sound of the heater drowned any talk within earshot - unless shouted!






It's almost like Fourth of July fireworks; oops, really, it's just some Klingon warship factory. Wouldn't want to get one of those flaming metal streaks caught in an open top boot...

We've seen how metal figures are cast at Shidoni's Foundry. Now, let's look at physical manifestations of this incredible process.

Outdoor Shapes

Outdoor figures seem from other worlds ~ yet with their own picturesque beauty.
From an eagle in a pond fishing, to a red box, to an abstract silver figure, then another dark, distant eagle... Shidoni’s yard is fascinating! Would beings from another world cheer?
Our image is a high dynamic range (HDR) mid-afternoon composite.
Our poster is color-coordinated - more subtle, pastel colors are chosen from within the image to create a complementary boundary.

Was this art or science fiction? The entire pouring shoot took about five minutes.

Tony Hillerman, 1925-2008

From my vantage point along the ancient dike, the Sun had dropped below the western horizon, casting long shadows down its backside. Yet, direct sunlight was reflecting from Ship Rock. A slight front was trending southeastward from Utah, up north past Four Corners. Highest cirrus clouds, seeming to consolidate the eye, jaded from Ship Rock's beauty, trailed to the edge of the world.

The basalt dike, Mother Nature's bold brickwork wall, trending from the upper right edge toward distant Ship Rock, acted as an arresting lower frame for our image. Magic Hour's shifting sunset pastel lights, some direct, some reflected, add a softer, evocative upper element.

Ship Rock, that ancient almost Gothic spires lit by the setting Sun's golden hues, assists with the same silent wonder, bears prolonged silent witness to man's wanderings across this dry, semi-arid desert. The distant Roman nose shape of Sleeping Ute Mountain is another famous, dominant Four Corners landmark.

"I love the place," Tony Hillerman wrote of vast tribal lands that span the northeast corner of Arizona and straddle the borders of New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado. "I need only drive west from Shiprock into that great emptiness to feel my spirit lift."

Over 10 years ago, Hillerman penned The Fallen Man…

They could see the snowcapped top of Mount Taylor looming over Grants, New Mexico, about 80 miles to the east, perched on one of relatively few outcrops of basalt in what Ship Rock climbers call Rappel Gulley. On the way up, it was the launching point for the final hard climb to the summit, a slightly tilted but flat surface of basalt about the size of a desk-top and 1721 feet above the prairie below. If you were going down, it was where you began a shorter but even harder almost vertical climb to reach the slope that led you downward with a fair chance of not killing yourself.

Whiteside slid along the wall, getting closer. He was moving slowly along the cliff, body almost perfectly vertical, toes holding his way on perhaps an inch of sloping stone, his fingers finding the cracks, crevices, and rough spots that would keep him balanced if the wind gusted. He was doing the traverse perfectly. Beautiful to watch. Even the body was perfect for the purpose. Just bone, skin, and muscle, without an ounce of surplus weight, moving like an insect against the cracked basalt wall.

And 1000 feet below them - no, a quarter of a mile below him lay "the surface of the world." Almost directly below, two Navajos on horseback were riding along the base of the monolith - tiny figures that put the risk of what Whiteside was doing into terrifying perspective. If he slipped, Whiteside would die, but not for a while. It would take time for a body to drop 600 feet, then bounce from an outcrop, and fall again, and bounce and fall, until it finally rested among the boulders at the bottom of this strange old volcanic core.

It was late afternoon, but the autumn sun was far North and the shadow of Ship Rock already stretched southeastward for miles across the tan prairie. Winter would soon end the climbing season. The sun was already so low it reflected only from the very tip of Mount Taylor. Eighty miles away early snows already packed the higher peaks in Colorado's San Juan's. Not a cloud anywhere. The sky was a deep dry-country blue; the air was cool and, a rarity at this altitude, utterly still.

The silence was so absolute one could hear the faint sibilance of Whiteside's soft rubber shoe sole as he shifted a foot along the stone. A couple of hundred feet below them, a red-tailed hawk drifted along, riding an updraft of air along the cliff face.

Whiteside moved, and stopped, and looked down.

"There's more honeycomb breccia under the overhang," he said. "Lots of little erosion cavities. It looks like some pretty good cracking where you can see basalt." He shifted again. "A pretty good shelf down about _"

Silence. Then, Whiteside said, "I think I see a helmet."

"What?"

"My God!" Whiteside said. "There's a skull in it."

Tony Hillerman, 1996

Over the past 20 years, I've read and reread Hillerman's fascinating novels of the Four Corners. I was deeply captivated with Tony's description of Skinwalkers, Navajo tradition, and the land he so deeply loved. At times, cassette tape players spun breathtaking tales of Leaphorn and Chee as I trekked repeatedly into those beloved wilderness lands Hillerman brought to life in his novels.

Tony... your full life, your incredible ability to tell stories, your writing - I'm simply much the better because you took me far beyond just the land, invested me in the spiritual, and deeply intrigued me with Navajo myth, tradition, and mystery.

A week ago, I captured this HDR image of Ship Rock, knowing then it was very simply one of my better efforts. After Hillerman's recent passing, I found a deep, compelling need to complete the image, whose stories so helped invest me in our gorgeous Four Corner myths and legends.

I dedicate this gorgeous Ship Rock image to you!

"I need only drive west from Shiprock into that great emptiness to feel my spirit lift." Tony, I truly understand…

I suspect your spirit may have joined that of other Navajo spirits atop Ship Rock... may you continue in hozhó. May you walk in peace, harmony, and beauty… !

Ship Rock

Places that really strike me have features in common. Harsh powerful grandeur, graduations of colors, tortured eroded shapes…

All are empty and lonely. They invoke a sense of both space and strangeness. All have a fierce inhospitality, an infinite variety of desolate beauty…

Man is not himself only, but a changing pattern of immediate experiences. He has all he sees; all that flows to him from a thousand sources; half noted, or noted not at all except by some sense that lies too deep to name. He is the land, the lift of its mountain lines, the reach of its dusty, dry valleys, the subtle delicacy of its pastel evening colors. If there is in this country of his abiding, no more than a single resplendent color, such as the splendid wine of sunsets built along Ship Rock, he takes it in and gives it forth again in directions and occasions least suspected by himself, as a manner, as music, as his wind song, as a prevailing tone of thought, as the line of his camera’s eye, and, finally, the pattern of his personal growth.

This sense, always at work in Man, takes up and turns into beauty the stuff of his sensory contacts. It works so deeply in him its only notice of perpetual activity is a profound contentment in the presence of the thing it most works upon.

By land, I mean all those things common to a given region: flow of prevailing winds; legends of ancient life; and the scene ~ above everything a magnificently shaped and colored scene. Operating subtly below all other types of adjusted experience, these are things most quickly and surely passed from generation to generation, marked in the face of all daunting or neglectful things a land can do to its human inhabitants, by that piece of inward content, the index of race beginning.

By ancient life, I mean both planetary origin and life lived on the land. Ship Rock was formed as the throat to an ancient volcano 30 million years ago. A volcanic ray - thirty or forty feet high but only about three feet thick - wanders like the Great Wall of China southward from Ship Rock. Molten magma squeezed up through the cracked earth. Up the wall to the north, the core of old Ship Rock volcano rose a thousand feet against the sky, like a free-form version of a Gothic cathedral. Gothic, too, was the color — the stone reflecting soft sunset umbers. Balanced on the wind just over the wall, a red-tailed hawk hunted a rodent to kill. A million years of frost and heat cracked this dike as chunks have fallen out.

Before that, from 700 AD to ~ 1300 AD, the Anasazi lived all over this land. Their time honored legacy of remarkable stone dwellings is legendary!

I would want Ship Rock to look exactly like this. The Navajo call it Tse’ bit’ a’i – Rock with Wings. What about deeds done by Monster Slayer here in the time of Navajo myth? Monster Slayer, climbing the vertical stone of Ship Rock toward the nest of the Winged Monsters to kill them and make this landscape safe for the Navajos. Monster Slayer, at the nest, taught the Monsters' chicks to become the eagle and the owl. Monster Slayer rescued from his impossible perch by the sacred Spider Woman.

On a day I most like to remember, gusting wind pressed me against the dike’s west wall. This wind was advance guard of a front sweeping eastward out of Arizona and Utah. It bombarded Ship Rock with long tendrils of cirrus clouds against blue sky, sending dust devils skittering across the prairie. Ship Rock, the dike, and sunset's pastel hues provide a truly evocative memory of the West.

It’s been such a deep pleasure to read Hillerman and traverse his Beloved Land! Adapted from Tony Hillerman’s consistent influence on the Southwest; his Spell of New Mexico is well known for its portrayal of New Mexico’s contribution to the Four Corners. Mary Austin, cited in Spell, wrote a provocative piece on man which gave me much pause for thought.