#grapevine hills

[thorsenmark]

A Setting of Rocks in the Grapevine Hills of Big Bend National Park by Mark Stevens Via Flickr: When I first came to the setting with the balanced rock, my first inclination had been to focus on those rocks and the portal like view beyond. It was a little while later that I decided to take some steps back for another reason, and I noticed the entire setting of this with different rocks and boulders, colors present, layers in the rocks and some nearby plant vegetation. So I pulled back on the focal point and decided to capture a wider angle of view. As I later worked with Capture NX2, I used some control points and graduated neutral density CEP filters to more balance out the amount of light across the image because of the areas caught in sunlight and others in shadows.

[gabrieleharhoff]

[thorsenmark]

A Changing Look Across the Chihuahuan Desert (Big Bend National Park) by Mark Stevens Via Flickr: This image was about near to far and the different looks across the desert landscape in Big Bend National Park. Nearby where different plantlife with its variety of colors and shapes including creosote bushes. Then are the rock formations and hills of Grapevine Hills (which I was to hike and explore in a few days). And finally off in the distance are mountains peaks of the Chisos Mountains with blue skies and clouds above (which I was to hike and explore for many days on this trip).

[thorsenmark]

Colors Seen at the Balanced Rock (HDR, Big Bend National Park) by Mark Stevens Via Flickr: As I attempted to compose this image, one of the things I noted was what appeared to be a large dynamic range as I metered different objects across this setting. I felt that I might blow some highlights and lose the wisp of clouds off in the distance in the blue skies above while trying to capture that the nearby shadowed areas. One technique I'd read was the use of flash is kind of a fill flash in order to compose an image. I didn't have my flash with me so that wasn't an option. I did have my tripod with me so I set that up to capture five tiff images which I could then import into Aurora HDR. I use that tiff image and brought it into Capture NX2 to process for this final image. What I wanted to compose in the image wasn't just a look with the balanced rock. I wanted to capture that look beyond as if portal view to more hoodoo-like spires and mountains far off in the distance. The idea was the near with a portal looking to the far.

[spacettf]

Eclipse-Orama by Dan Barr Via Flickr: A panorama from Sundays Blood Moon Lunar Eclipse

[tracesoftexas]

Everywhere, all over Texas, sunlight pouring down, the world gilded, rioting in pastels and primaries such that it appears that the brilliant center of the day is right here and upon us, and the sky and everything we ever wanted ---  every coincidence, every fate, every whim, every invocation at which each shaft of sunlight hints ---- for each of these we are sanctified, witnesses to that which we love at the heart of creation. So look at us! See how we move in deserts and dying towns alike, prospecting in gardens of possibility and belief, movements consecrating the landscape, fingertips touching. We run in the arroyos of each other's lives, knowing the secret impulses, withholding judgment, blessing. We are all, in every corner, reforesting, planting new worlds.

----- I wrote this in Big Bend while pondering this vista: http://tracesoftexas.smugmug.com/Images-of-Texas/Traces-of-Texas/i-7KrKvLw/A