Randy Stetz Images Web Design & Photography

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Sedona West Fork – Success as Last

October 25, 2009 by admin Leave a Comment

Yesterday we decided to do Oak Creek Canyon, with the major goal being West Fork.  This is one of the most famous hikes in the USA (also known as Call of the Canyon from the Zane Grey novel.)  I’ve done this hike twice before, once at Thanksgiving and once in the Winter.  Both were great.  I loved the Winter hike with snow coating the trail and the stream frozen almost solid.

On Friday when we got to the parking area, it was totally jammed.  We decided to park along the highway (89A) and walk back to the trail head.  On the way one of our party fell down and skinned up their hands pretty badly.  OK, no hike.

On Saturday we had already decided to hike Doe Mountain.  When we went to tourist info to get a map for this hike the associate said “The view from Doe Mountain is spectacular.  Have you ever heard of West Fork?”  We assured him that we had.  “The colors up there are at their peak right  now.  The Arizona Republic today had a picture from there and it was amazing.”

Well plans were made to be changed, and we decided to go back to West Fork.  Once again we needed to park out on 89A.  No injuries this time.  And the colors really were spectacular. 

oak_creek

Filed Under: Travel Photography

Sedona Pano

October 24, 2009 by admin Leave a Comment

I did 2 panos yesterday. A traditional left to right pano & top to bottom pano. I did the top to bottom because I couldn’t get the entire scene into the picture. (Really need to get a new wide angle lens some day.) For now I’ll publish the left to right pano.

sedona_pano

Filed Under: Travel Photography

Sedona 1st pic (Using Lightroom 3)

October 23, 2009 by admin Leave a Comment

We arrived in Sedona around 3PM. Decided to rush off and check out Red Rock Crossing and the views to Cathedral Rock. I’d hoped for a dramatic sunset. The sunset was OK but it didn’t really stretch out to Cathedral Rock. Turned around and used the slickrock as a foreground element.

Don't just work main event - turn around
Don't just work main event - turn around

Filed Under: Travel Photography

Grand Prismatic

October 18, 2009 by admin Leave a Comment

On Wednesday I leave for Sedona.  And I know that there is no way I’m going to finish my Yellowstone & Grand Teton Galleries before I go.  I know… there are worse problems in life than being on a short schedule for Sedona.  One of my favorite places.  But I thought that I need to get some thing moving, so I decided to publish a gallery of images from the Grand Prismatic Spring (in the Midway Basin in Yellowstone.)  When I complete the Yellowstone gallery not all these images will be there.  But I can honestly say that I’m happy with all of them.  The Grand Prismatic is an amazing place.

http://stetz.smugmug.com/NORTH-AMERICA/NORTHWEST/grandprismatic/10014469_EcCYN#685302710_jMmEc

Grand Primtatic
Grand Primtatic

Filed Under: Galleries, Travel Photography

Back from trip to Yellowstone / Grand Teton, now for the hard work

October 4, 2009 by admin Leave a Comment

I have over a thousand images from Yellowstone, and several hundred from Grand Teton.  I need to

– copy to 2 different external hard drives

– give each photo a preliminary rating in Lightroom

– edit the photo’s with a rating of 3 or higher, perhaps apply a plug in

– re-rate the photos

– create a gallery of the top 30 or so from each place

–  publish to Smugmug, get comments on the photos

– review and decide on the very best 10 or 15, and create a Flash gallery for my web site.

Well at least I’ve got the “To Do” list done.

So many photos.....
So many photos.....

Filed Under: Photo education, Travel Photography

Artist at Oxbox Bend

October 3, 2009 by admin Leave a Comment

I went to Oxbox Bend 3 times hoping for the perfect light.  Never really found it.    But I did find an artist whose hard work makes a good foreground element.

OXBOW_ARTIST

Filed Under: Travel Photography

Chaos Theory

October 2, 2009 by admin Leave a Comment

One of the themes that I keep coming back to is what I call the “Chaos Theory”.  I believe that there is beauty in chaos, and I especially enjoy finding chaos in the midst of beauty.

Chaos Theory in Grand Teton
Chaos Theory in Grand Teton

Filed Under: Photo education, Travel Photography

Musical Batteries

October 1, 2009 by admin Leave a Comment

I have 2 Canon bodies that share the same batteries and another Canon body (converted to IR) that uses a different battery.   Should have had plenty of battery power to handle the day.  But I didn’t count on 32 – 37 degree F temperatures.   From the first shoot of the day I started to get the battery dead message.  Luckily I knew that I needed to take the “dead” batteries and put them in a warm place (inside pocket).  So that by the time the next battery appeared to be dead, I could re-use the last one.  I was able to make it through the day but it involved a game of musical batteries, swapping them out every 30 minutes or so.

MORMON_ROW

Filed Under: Photo education, Travel Photography

I missed my tripod

September 30, 2009 by admin Leave a Comment

The weather has been beautiful with one exception.  Up until yesterday there have been crisp blue skies.   Me, I like some clouds to give texture to my photos.  Also it’s hard to get a good sunrise / sunset photo without a cloud.  It made me lazy and I wasn’t getting up in time to work the sunrise.  Well yesterday I woke up just as the sun was coming up.  I peeped out the window and realized that there were some clouds and a beautiful sunrise.  I rushed outside and took a few shots.   It really was a nice sunrise, and I found the “Whoa” sigh interesting (below).

The problem was that when I came back to my room, I brought the tripod into the room.  (I usually leave it in the car.)  Of course I ended up forgetting it when we went to Jenny Lake / Cascade Canyon.  I had to hand hold for the entire day.  There were times I did 3 shot AEB (automatic Exposure bracketing) leaning on a rock / tree / shoulder/ etc.  I’ll see how these turn out.  I also assume I can do some pseudo bracketing with the raw files in Lightroom.  (Develop normally, create a virtual copy and under expose, create another virtual copy and over expose.)  This some times works with about +/- 1 EV latitude in the raw files.  My AEB files are +/- 2 EV apart.

My only images using a tripod on Tuesday
My only images using a tripod on Tuesday

Filed Under: Photo education, Travel Photography

Mormon Row in IR

September 29, 2009 by admin Leave a Comment

I thought that Mormon Row would be fun in IR.  The old barn done a zillion times by every photographer to ever visit Grand Teton.  I liked the results, but surprisingly there are a lot of cool buildings at Mormon Row then just the famous barn.

More then just the barn in Mormon Row
More then just the barn in Mormon Row

Filed Under: Photo education, Travel Photography

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