Playtime

I’ve often had a vision floating around in my fertile imagination, of a surreal world in stark black & white, except for one shocking bit of color. Or a scene that was half black and white and half color. In those dreams/visions, I sort of live with one foot in one world, and another in another……so to speak.

My visions are often presented to me in the form of a photograph, so it is only natural that when I play with pictures for my own personal amusement, I tend to bring those visions to fruition.

Window to the world at the Pecos Ruins, New Mexico

Quarai Ruins, New Mexico

Old barns, Wisconsin

Quarai Ruins again.

Color

Part black & white, part color.

Part color and part black & white.

Notice how in this last shot, some of the old blue sky still shows around the plant growth on the roof of the old ruin. That could be fixed by cloning the sky over the blue, but shucks this is not reality, only my imagination.

I thank you for indulging my bazaar visual fantasies.

More

Enough time spent playing. Let’s leave fantasy-land for the real world of wild animals. The four images below are simply the first four pictures in the order that they existed in one folder of previously shared photos.

The male Northern Cardinal is often called the Redbird. I will certainly agree that the first word that comes to mind when I see one of these guys is “red”!

A cute little White-tailed Prairie Dog in Colorado.

A North American River Otter migrating between waterways in Horicon Marsh NWR in Wisconsin.

A common sight in North America, the Red-tailed Hawk on a power line.

I actually flipped this picture horizontally. The hawk was originally looking to our right. I simply could not stand to have all four of these animals moving or looking in the same direction.

 

Go west.

The western American landscape includes a lot of different looks and feels. There are so many different types of desert and high desert, mountains, prairies, and especially rock forms.  It makes it seem like you are visiting several different planets rather than one large area in a single country. The western high desert rock forms, and the western rock mountains (Rocky Mountains?), are enough to fill up the lives of any photographer.

This western canyon is in Dinosaur National Monument, Colorado/Utah. Most landscape photographers ignore “Dino”.

Using the color of the land to lead us toward a beautiful rock formation is a traditional and artful way to display the west.

Shooting both verticals and horizontals of interesting rocks is the smart way to go. Flowers, be they a group, or one single blossom, make gorgeous lead-ins to golden rocks. Monument Valley Utah/Arizona. 

Valley of The Gods Utah

Arches N.P. Utah.

Most landscape photographers would make fun of the over simplicity in the composition of the next two images. I was attracted by the rock, the light, and the contrasting sky. So that’s what I photographed. Simple verticals that tell the story.

El Capitan, Guadalupe N.P., Texas. I have photographed this mountain on multiple occasions. Most of my images include expansive foregrounds that use plants and small rocks as leaders to to mountain. I actually prefer this photo. As much effort was put into lens selection, camera position and how I used the light in this one as the more complex images.  The main difference is that with this picture is there is an absence of ego. It is all about El Capitan.

Monument Valley

Mountains are rock forms. In the eastern half of America, the mountains are covered with earth and trees. In much of the west, they are naked for the world to see.

This is the Maroon Bells, Colorado.

This rather strange photo is actually my personal favorite of the group. I like the gnarled and twisted rocks, and I especially love the late day light and the color and the textures it produces.  And the mysterious shadows that it leaves behind.

Don’t run away from the shadows. They are just like everything in photography, a matter of perspective, as is life itself.

God Bless,                                                                                                                                                     Wayne