Category: Stories Behind the Photos

Dancing Light and Texture

Published on by tbeckerphotosLeave a comment

This was my fifth and final image of the five day black and white challenge on a social media site. I hiked 3.3 miles to the narrows of the West Fork trail in Oak Creek Canyon near Sedona, AZ for the first time this fall. Normally at this point the water is knee to waist-high and you have to swim to continue on the trail. This year the water is barely a stream and you can walk quite far into the canyon after the maintained trail ends. It was midday with harsh light not suitable for landscape photography.  As I looked around the vast canyon walls with varying shades of red, the texture and dancing light caught my eye.

I had challenged myself to using my 50 mm 1.8 lens and chose to use it for some close-up images. The reflected light off the stream was rhythmically moving and emphasizing the texture on the canyon walls. I briefly considered switching to my 105 mm 2.8 macro lens and decided against it. Why? With a macro lens, your depth of field is so minute that in order to capture all of the texture I would have had to stop down to F25 or smaller. With such a small aperture, diffraction was a concern. What about focus stacking? With the light movement on the canyon walls, each image would be different making focus stacking not a viable option.  I chose to stick with my 50 mm 1.8 lens as I knew the depth of field would be greater without using a tiny aperture.  The technical information for the image below:  F8, ISO 200 1/5 sec with a circular polarizer.

This image is in the Monochrome Madness #37 gallery on Leanne Cole PHOTOGRAPHY with photos from around the world.

canyon wall in the narrows of West Fork
Canyon wall of the narrows at West Fork

Why Monochrome During Autumn Color?

Published on by tbeckerphotos6 Comments

My favorite season is fall with all of the foliage turning vibrant yellows, oranges and reds.  Some years the colors aren’t as striking, which was the case in the fall of 2013 in Southeast Iowa.  I had scouted several areas in Van Buren county, and certainly in Lacey Keosauqua State Park, estimating it would be another week before peak fall color.  However, one week later, most of the tree lines had turned brown with some trees still green.  Frustrating for sure when you have driven 1500 miles to photograph beautiful autumn color!  I decided to try to make lemonade out of lemons as I had traveled so far.

It was a chilly and windy fall day with the temperature in the 40’s that morning.  The winds were so high, even shooting at ISO 800 I couldn’t stop all the movement.  At the time I was upset to not be getting the visualized images that had been bouncing around in my mind. Now a year later, the movement in the image tells the story of that day and  I like it.

The image below had been sitting on my hard drive unprocessed for over a year until last week. I was challenged on a social media site to post a black and white photo a day for 5 days and challenge another photographer each day.  If you have been following me for a while, you know I typically have colorful images.  Going through my archives to see what I could find, this image caught my attention.  What if I processed it in black and white?  Would it still be a lifeless image?  As it turns out, the image is stronger and one of my favorite black and white images!  So much so, I am having a print made for myself.  And I want to shoot this same scene in winter!  Click on the photo to see a high resolution image or to purchase a print.  It is also in the gallery for Monochrome Madness #36 on Leanne Cole PHOTOGRAPHY blog.

Stone Bridge In The Woods
Stone Bridge In The Woods

There was one lone orange tree in the distance up on the hill.  Wanting to capture some bright orange, I moved closer and zoomed in on the area.  What I saw through the viewfinder was an autumn scene reminiscent of a tapestry.  You can also click on this image to see a high resolution version or to purchase a print.

autumn color in the woods
Autumn Tapestry