Zabriskie Point

Dawn breaking over Death Valley

Yes, I still have one or two more Death Valley photos to share. I've been rationing them since spring is taking its sweet damn time getting here. This one is from Zabriskie Point, easily the most popular spot for photographers in the park owing to its sweeping view of the badlands and valley beyond and its ease of access. It's one of those iconic national park locations where you stand almost shoulder to shoulder with other photographers, which is always great fun. I shot here my first morning in Death valley, but the lack of clouds made for nice, if somewhat boring shots. On my final night high clouds moved in, and fingers crossed I made my way to Zabriskie in the morning on my way out of the park. As you can see it didn't disappoint.

www.chrismurrayphotography.com

Mesquite Sand Dunes at Dusk

This was my final shot of the Mesquite Sand Dunes in Death Valley, made on my last night in the park and my third foray into the dunes. The Mesquite Dunes can be very frustrating to photograph because of their immense popularity and the preponderance of footprints. However, after a few days in the park I noticed from the road how extensive the dune field truly is, and surmised that by avoiding the main parking area I would find undisturbed dunes that had not been trod upon. This section of the dune field doesn't have the largest dunes (size doesn't matter, or so I hear), but they do spread out like an undulating carpet of sand (wow, what a crappy metaphor). Anyway, enjoying the solitude I gathered several shots of the dunes in the late afternoon light, including this one after the sun had set below the range behind me.

www.chrismurrayphotography.com

Ripples

Some photos have an interesting story behind them. Others, well, not so much. This one falls into the latter category. No matter, the image speaks for itself. Here the picture-perfect ripples provide an excellent foreground feature, leading the eye to the dunes in the middle ground and the mountains beyond. The wispy cirrus clouds are the icing on the cake. I was running on fumes when I shot this, having had only three hours sleep in the past 36 hours.

www.chrismurrayphotography.com

Cutting the Facebook Cord

This week I made the momentous decision to discontinue my photography page on Facebook. I know, I know, I'm a wild man. But I say that not entirely tongue in cheek, because it was a fairly big decision. Last night I had moments of doubt, wondering if I had cut off my nose to spite my face, something I've been known to do from time to time. But this morning I feel good about my decision.

I spent four years cultivating my Facebook page and accruing fans. However, I feel that Facebook left me long ago. I spent a rather tidy sum of money advertising on Facebook, and in the end Facebook wanted me to pay again (and again, every time I posted something) so those same people I already paid for once would see my posts. My most recent post reached a little over 10% of my fans. And that percentage will only continue to drop. In short, Facebook is no longer free for businesses such as mine. I'm not naive, Facebook is a business and as such has obligations to its shareholders. They won't miss me. But their practices seem duplicitous at best, and I'm not alone in that belief. I feel as if I was abused by Facebook, and staying with them any longer made me feel like I was okay with being abused, even if I didn't drop another penny into their coffers. No longer content to be Facebook's bitch I decided it was time to call it quits. I do have my principles after all. Really, I do. One or two, at least.

So I've moved on, and it feels good. To be completely honest, my years on Facebook contributed next to nothing to my bottom line. That's not Facebook's fault, just a fact. If my page on Facebook was generating business I would be okay with paying to promote my posts, but it hasn't worked out that way. To spend time and effort on something that clearly wasn't progressing my business is foolish. So I have revived this dormant blog, secure in the knowledge that at least I won't be taken advantage of. Thank you to all that have followed me from Facebook, and I hope you may see fit to suggest my blog to your friends and family and help expose my photography to a larger audience. I sincerely appreciate you all and I'm happy you're along for the ride.

The Racetrack, Death Valley National Park

Today's photo is from The Racetrack, a must-see for anyone visiting Death Valley National Park. Here these boulders move by themselves (a phenomenon caused by a combination of strong winds and ice and/or water on the playa) across the ancient dry lake bed, leaving little trails behind them. The lack of clouds made for a rather boring photograph from a color standpoint, but the graphical elements in the scene made for a very strong black and white image.

http://www.chrismurrayphotography.com/

Anatomy of a Shot - Letchworth

Great Bend at sunset

I had scouted this location the evening before, having made the shot you see here. Since the view is to the east I knew it would be much better at sunrise, although this version stands up well on its own. I arrived a good 45 minutes before the sun was up to get in place and have everything ready. Given the very high dynamic range of the scene (bright sky, dark foreground) I knew one exposure was not going to cut it, and in fact three was barely enough to record the range of light in the scene. As many of you (or the few of you who read this) may suspect this is an HDR image composited from five exposures. (I am a fan of HDR as a process, but I don't like the HDR "look" that is so prevalent these days). The sky was so bright relative to the foreground that I also used a 2-stop soft graduated neutral-density filter, something I carry in my arsenal but rarely use these days. The low light and smaller aperture necessary for depth of field meant that the entire time required to obtain five bracketed exposures was several seconds. Fortunately there was little wind this particular morning, otherwise things would have been much more difficult.

I always shoot in RAW, so on the processing end I converted each RAW file to a 16 bit TIFF file and then ran them through Photomatix to obtain the HDR image.

While this was a somewhat technically difficult shot, it by no means was unusual. Shooting at the edge of light often requires these steps.

Here are the particulars:

5 exposures, separated by one stop (-2, -1, 0, +1, +2)

f/11

focal length 24mm

ISO 250

You can never go back (and sometimes that's a good thing)

Last week my wife and I had the occasion to visit Houston, our former home of ten years. It was my first time back in over four years. Living in Houston never agreed with me, it's nothing against the city, just contrasting personalities. Good things did happen while I lived there, however. I met my wife in Houston, and it is also where I learned photography. I am self taught (which probably sometimes shows), and I largely learned my craft taking photos each spring of the wildflowers in the ranch lands between Houston and Austin. For that reason that area will always be special to me. At work I was known (not among the bosses) for contracting what I called "bluebonnet fever" each spring, taking a sick day here and there to go and photograph the wildflowers. Such dedication to my job. A model employee.

On this recent visit we were able to take a drive and visit former photographic haunts. I didn't bring my camera with me, but we did have my wife's new Nikon 1 J3 ILC (interchangeable lens camera). Below are two photos I made with this camera, my first wildflower photos in six years. With no tripod I was limited in what I could do, but they came out nice nonetheless. ILC cameras are the new rage, offering DSLR (or near DSLR) quality photos in a much smaller camera body.

Coreopsis

Bluebonnets

My wife came across a greeting card still in circulation that has my photo on it.