Elizabeth Carmel's Landscape Photography Blog

Sierra Wildflowers are in Bloom / High Sierra Expedition

The wildflower bloom here in the Tahoe Sierra is in full swing. Despite the smoke & haze from all the wildfires the wildflowers seem to be doing very well this year. Maybe the hazy skies are prolonging the lives of the fragile blossoms for a little longer, sparing them the worst of the harsh mountain sun. The fire haze has made this a very difficult season for sweeping landscape vistas, but has actually made the macro and detail shots a little easier thanks to the filtered sunlight. This shot of Squaw creek, near Squaw Valley  was taken on a smoky evening when ash was falling from the sky!  I will be working on photographs from other high country locations over the next month.

My major expedition this summer will be a trip for 1 week into the high country of Sequoia near Mt. Whitney. I will have more details on this trip in a future post, but at this time I can share that it will be a fully supported pack mule trip to the very highest reaches of the Sierra, and also include a complete solar charging station for all the photo & computer gear.  A variety of artists will be going, including invited writers & painters from around the country. I was pleased to be invited as the landscape photographer. This will be an unprecedented opportunity for me to work at remote locations and high elevations that are difficult to reach without a supported expedition.

I will be posting more of my wildflower discoveries here as I capture them. Many readers have probably heard about the new 50 megapixel Hasselblad that was introduced - the megapixel arms race continues!

New Tahoe Images / Black & White Portfolio

I was pleased to be able to join David Muench and the participants of the Mountain Light 2007 Lake Tahoe workshop  for an evening session on the east shore of Lake Tahoe last week. David is one of the "grand masters" of landscape photography and a source of inspiration for so many, including me. Photography in June is a very early morning or very late evening affair, so the best evening light was happening after 7:30 p.m. I was able to get a vertical shot  and a horizontal shot  that worked out thanks to some rare clouds that floated in during the day.

I have also started to put together a portfolio of black and white images based on converting the color versions to monochrome in Apple Aperture. I compared the Photoshop B&W conversion image adjustment to the one in Aperture and found that I was able to get better initial results with the aperture workflow, then using photoshop for adjustment layers as needed. I am printing the black and white images on Museo Silver Rag, which gives the images a wonderful warm tone and the luster of photographic paper. I am partial to papers which are a little warmer and not so stark white, so Silver Rag fits that preference well. Here is a link to the new black and white portfolio on my web site.

I tend to get very busy in the summer but stay committed to my blog postings, so please be patient if I do not post for a while, I will be back - just subscribe in an rss  reader and it will be easy to keep track when there are new posts.

Online Postcards

I have been looking for an online service that would allow people to send my images as online postcards, so I was glad to receive an inquiry from a new company called www.novaterragalleria.com requesting that I participate in their online postcard site. Here is a link to the section with some of my images:
http://www.novaterragalleria.com/Index-Galleria.aspx?view=byartist&aid=6_6_2008_bcb3ab05-cb12-4704-96b7-3610f20feecb
It seems like a win-win situation - I get a broader audience and a link to my website, and they get images for their postcard service. I will also putting a link on my website to allow my website visitors to access the postcards.

Pomegranate Greeting Cards / Brilliant Waters 09 Calendar

I have a new series of greeting cards unsing my "Morning Frost" image that have been released by Pomegranate Publishing. The cards say "Season's Greetings" on the inside so they are for the holiday season. They can  be ordered from Pomegranate's website. Seller's Publishing also has printed a 2009 calendar based on my Brilliant Waters book. More information is available at this link. I will be selling the calendars and notecards in our Truckee gallery later this year. The calendar has some new images that will also be in my upcoming book "The Changing Range of Light" which I hope to release later this year.

Upcoming Tahoe Workshop

I will be partnering with the Mountain Light Gallery in Bishop, California to teach a field workshop on Lake Tahoe photography in 2009. You can be notified when the sign ups begin by contacting Mountain Light directly, they are handling all of the sign ups and logistics. It will be in June 2009, when there should still be snow on the high peaks of the surrounding mountains. We will do a combination of field work in some of my favorite Tahoe locations, and some computer workshop time as well. Mountain Light Gallery will also be hosting a show of my work in later 2009, based on my upcoming book "The Changing Range of Light, Portraits of the Sierra Nevada."

Rangefinder Cover Story

I was pleased that one of my images was selected for the cover of this month's RANGEFINDER magazine. Here is a link to a pdf of the article: http://www.rangefindermag.com/magazine/May08/126.pdf

I will soon be announcing some upcoming field workshops and Exhibitions - stay tuned!

Ansel Adams Gallery Blog / Flickr

There was an article on the Ansel Adams gallery on the front page of the New York Times a few days ago. I also discovered the new blog from the gallery staff, which is a great way for photographers to stay in touch with what is happening in Yosemite.

I also finally started uploading images to my Flickr account. If blog readers are interested in being a contact on Flickr, you can access my images & info via the Flickr bar to the left. I have just uploaded some of my poppy images, but will be adding more later. There is a great plug in for Aperture that makes it easy to upload any image via the Export menu.

Traveling Heavy

I have given up on traveling light. I am used to being ridiculed for all my luggage and carry ons, so I don't really care anymore. The Europeans are particularly amused by all the stuff Olof and I lug around. The only restraints we worry about are the 2 checked bag limit of 50 lbs each, and the carry on size restrictions (but not the weight). I have read that some airlines are going to start charging for the 2nd check bag, which is not good news. One of our blog readers recently asked:

Elizabeth, I'm curious -- how do you carry that much expensive gear to a location which is only accessible by air? I don't imagine you can take it all as carry-on. I'd sure hate to get to my destination only to find an empty camera case sliding down the luggage chute. :^( -- Roger

Well, one thing that helps is traveling with our 8 year old daughter, since she comes with an allowance for 2 extra 50 lb checked bags and 2 extra carry ons, which we use up while only including a few pounds of her stuff. I have found that I usually can take all my photo gear when I use the following:

1. Large tripod and ball head packed in a checked suitcase.
2. Carry-on Camera backpack (Lowe Vertex or Tamrac Expedition 8, which is long but not too thick). In the camera backpack I put the H3D body and 2 lenses, and the D3 body and 1 lens. Long but not too thick makes it easier to fit in overhead bins. It will always fit under the seat in a pinch, but will encroach into the adjacent under seat space.
3. Rolling Pelican case Exec Series wheeled camera attache - carries remaining camera lenses, chargers, etc. This comes with a zip off laptop case, so if I get busted for having 3 carry ons I can always zip the laptop bag to the case as I get on the plane, then unzip it to fit in the overhead bin. It fits better in the bin when unzipped & removed from main case, and I usually put it under my seat so I can work on my laptop during a flight.
We also always try to board the plane as soon as possible so all the overhead bin space does not get taken. I would never put my lenses or cameras in checked luggage, even though they are all insured through NANPA. You do not want to get behind us in the security checkpoint line, it is quite a production. I am rarely hassled about the contents of the camera bags, although Mexican authorities have been known to give us extra scrutiny when we come through.

This system works well for domestic air travel. I do run into problems in international flights where they weigh your carry ons. I had to check some lenses once in a hard sided case so I could get on a flight to Italy, and they arrived safely but I was not happy about it. I am not sure what I will do next time I have to fly overseas, I will probably wear a camera vest and stuff alot in there while they are weighing my carry ons.

New Maui Images / Apple Aperture

I have completed a series of 6 images from our recent trip to Maui and have posted those as the first six images in my Hawaii Portfolio.

I used both the H3D and the Nikon D3 on this trip - The Nikon allowed me to capture the very wide angle shots of the Banyan Trees along with some fast shutter speed wave action, so I was pleased I had it along. The Hasselblad worked great for the sunsets and the Rainbow Eucalyptus shots where I could use a tripod and capture alot of detail and color range. I also experimented with some high key imagery in the Eucalyptus forest, and liked the blown out background on one of my images (Rainbow Forest) that gives it a more minimalist / zen feel.

Thanks to the suggestion of my friend Tom Deyerle I decided to try out Apple's Aperture 2.1 - the main reason being that it can read Hasselblad H3D raw files (Lightroom and ACR cannot unless they are converted to DNG files). I really enjoy the Aperture workflow and the file processing tools. I think it does a great job processing H3D raw files, I was able to pull alot of color range out of the H3D files using aperture's tools. There is a bit of a learning curve with such a robust program, but it has a wonderful elegance to it that will appeal to any artist. It also supports plug ins, including one that I am using now to upload a batch of images to Photoshelter.

Back from the Islands / Earth Day Throughts

We had a great trip to Maui and enjoyed meeting up with Randy Braun, Photographer Extraordinaire, a local who showed us some wonderful locations along the Hana Highway. Randy has a great gallery in Makawao, a must see if you visit Maui. I hope to have some new pictures from the trip posted in the next few weeks. We did not do as much snorkeling this trip since the surf was high and made the water a little cloudy, but I did get some nice sunsets and some interesting shots of the "rainbow eucalyptus."

Since Earth Day is tomorrow I added a page to our Carmel Gallery website which outlines some of our "green business" practices. I think two issues of particular interest to photographers are the need to recycle used ink cartridges ( I have been told they contain trace amounts of cyanide and are often disposed of improperly in landfills), and the need to be aware of the woods used in picture frame moulding. I will be posting some information soon on a major new non-profit organization being formed to bring awareness to the problem of printer cartridge disposal and the need for better cartridge recycling programs. My previous posts have highlighted the issue of the use of endangered woods for picture frame moulding. Everyone who buys frames and bulk moulding should be aware of the type of wood used and pressure suppliers to provide non-endangered woods.