Playing Around with the Landscape

Val Vidal Waiting for Rain by J. Binford-Bell

The first time you visit an area with a camera you pay it sort of straight especially in a landscape as spectacular as the Val Vidal and the Vermejo Park Ranch. The second or third or forth time you visit you are more familiar with the views and you find yourself setting up various pictures. Or standing in one place like the photo below and waiting till just the right moment to take the picture.

Light and Shadow by J. Binford-Bell

The clouds were adding extra dimensions to the view especially when they cast shadows over one ridge or bank of trees or another. Photographers already get to play with the framing of the photo with zoom lenses or switching to another lens. And their are filters. I broke my polarizing filter the second picture I took yesterday and so switched to a warm filter I had and love the results. Not that back in the dry darkroom of my computer I could not change anything I wanted. Like the picture below?

Fire by J. Binford-Bell

 I have been trying to take the definitive picture of a forest devastated by fire for some years now. Yesterday the thunderclouds jumped in with an assist. If you have lived in a forest for any length of time you will know there is always a doubt when the fire danger is high as to whether it is smoke or a cloud. This was a cloud but I was able to play with the colors and make it look like smoke especially as a back drop to the blackened spars of an old fire on the Val Vidal. So this may be the picture. Not that I will stop trying to top it.

Post Card from Not Kansas

Clouds change the atmosphere and ergo the photograph. As does the time of day and the shadows cast. And your mood when you post process also effects the results. Loved the post card look of the photo above and may do the same thing with the photo below.

Gully Waiting for Rain

I found myself depressed by the drought in an area which can be so beautiful in a wet year. I found myself opting for old fashioned treatments of the subjects as if I could push the drought into history and wake up tomorrow to rain and lush grass. I am sure the buffalo below wishes the same. No doubt the VPR feeds their charges. He looks motley only because it is shedding season and a bit disgruntled because we and he never found the females of the herd.

Buffalo looking for something to eat