Tag Archives: water

Ridges Into the Sea

Pololu Valley Lookout (2020)
The Big Island, Hawai’i

The last time I was here I hiked down to the base of these cliffs and looked up the Palolu Valley to the south. Waipi’o Valley is in the distance. This trip I did not make the trek down to the bottom.

On previous trips, my interest focused on the bay directly below and closer. The above ridges were in the distant background. This time the ridges caught my eye. I zoomed out to 400m to isolate them.

For reference, the photo below represents my previous focus.

Pololu Valley Lookout (2017)

As seen, this is quite a different perspective. It pays to return to special places and keep an open mind to see new things.

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Fall Wonder #3

Yakima Area Arboretum

I find that most of my images focus on details and small vignettes.  As I try to portray the larger grand landscape, I tend to fall short..  But I still keep trying.  This scene set itself up for me:  an interesting foreground, a reflective mid ground, and a colorful background that helped frame the image.

The Yakima Area Arboretum is a beautiful place to be on a fall morning.

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Yellowstone: Mammoth Hot Spring Cascades

Upper Mammoth Hot Springs Cascades

This image was taken from an observation point just below that of my previous post.  I liked the contrast of the orange-brown deposits against the white alkaline deposits.  The puffiness of the clouds balanced that of the deposits.

Next post, a view from below …

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Yellowstone: The Edge

Upper Mammoth Hot Springs

Mist steamed from the hot spring water even though the ambient temperature was around 90 degrees,  The water flowed over a series of small cascades over the edges of the basin down to the valley below.  The cascades stood out from the mountains across the valley.

I converted this image to black and white to emphasize the water and the edge of the bluff.  It represents the feeling that I had when gazing over the edge.

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Think Creative

Onomea Falls Water Color

I recently visited the Hawaiian Botanical Gardens, near Hilo, Hawaii.  My mission was to photograph creatively.  I did not focus on the overall beauty of the environment around me.  My focus was on separate scenes, small vignettes, and macro detail while using creative photographic techniques.

For this image, I took multiple exposures covering the range from the bright water and sky to the dark shadows.  When I brought them together into an HDR, all the tonalities were captured. However, I lost the feeling of the dense tropical rainforest setting.  So I decided to play a little with Topaz’s new ‘Studio” software.  I used the watercolor effect to create this image.

I haven’t given up on the natural presentation of this image yet.  It will require a lot of luminance masking with layers to get the natural image that I saw in my mind.  I will do this at a future time when I am in a very patient mood.

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