Glenn Taylor Hits "The Mother Road" - Route 66

Next week I start a new project: 6 Days of Canon 6D Shots from Route 66. Stay tuned for posts here on my blog. For this project, I am borrowing two Canon 6D cameras from BorrowLenses.com.

The project was inspired by my friend Glenn Taylor's images from a trip he took last year. Thank you Glenn for the inspiration.

Here are a few of my favorite Glenn Taylor images from his trip - along with a little write-up.

In February 2012 I went on a photographic journey along Route 66 from Albuquerque to Las Vegas along with Rob Knight and several other of my Atlanta-based photo friends. Rob and Keith Mendel got the basic plan together, we set dates that worked with everyone's schedules and flew out to meet up in Albuquerque.

We spent the first night at the Monterey Motel, a classic Route 66 style roadside motel and they suggested we have breakfast in Old Town, a few blocks away. The breakfast was delicious and we explored the area afterward on foot. Most of it was little shops and restaurants, but we really enjoyed shooting the San felipe de Neri Church right off the square. It was beautiful with the morning light streaming over it and the interior had some interesting statues and textures.

We then hit the road headed toward Holbrook, AZ. Along the way we stopped whenever we saw something interesting. Old bridges from the heyday of the highway’s glory to both handmade and official Route 66 symbols. Later in the day we came across the remains of the Bluewater Motel.

The grunge and classic design of this Bluewater Motel sign really caught my eye. I also loved the complimentary blue and bright yellow colors along with the rust and geometric shapes. You can just imagine how great this sign looked when it was first installed and turned on.

Fast forward . . . The sun was starting to set as we pulled out of the park and we were close to Holbrook and the Wigwam Motel. We made the choice to push on and try to get there before the light was gone and get some photos. We got there just in time to capture some beautiful warm light on these classic cars and unusal little wigwam rooms. We made the decision to come out before dawn the next morning and get some HDR images of this unique location.

The Wigwam Motel office and classic cars at dawn. I shot this as a 5 exposure HDR with my Canon 24-70mm at a medium length. I processed this in Photomatix Pro, finishing it in Lightroom, NIK Color Efex and Photoshop.

Fast forward . . . We stopped in Winslow, AZ. You may recognize it from the famous Eagles' song. The corner is there in Winslow at the main intersection in town. It’s a sight not to be missed.We pushed on toward Flagstaff for lunch making a few stops along the way for abandoned buildings and old roadsigns until we came to Two Guns. There is a lot of history here dating back to the native Americans and on through to Route 66 when it was a tourist stop with a zoo containing mountain lions. Nothing is left now but the old stone structures but they make for some great images.

Left: Standing on the corner in Winslow Arizona. The classic Route 66 emblem in the intersection gives this a lot of interest. I shot this with my 24-70mm and finished it in Lightroom. Right: Stone structures at Two Guns. The textures here make some very textured BW images. I processed these in NIK Siver Efex.

Fast forward . . . We stopped in Williams, AZ to Seligman, AZ.  There we met and spent some time with Angel Delgadillio. His barber shop and his late brother’s roadside stand are not to be missed. They were both instrumental in keeping Route 66 and its history alive, especially in Arizona. You could not meet a nicer person than Angel. If you go make sure you buy a shirt or hat and have him sign it for you. It was the only souvenir I purchased on the entire trip.

Left: Angel’s barbershop is covered in history and business cards from all over the planet from people wjo have visited him and his beloved Seligman, AZ. I shot this with my Canon 35mm prime lens using the natural light from the window. Processed in Lightroom. And you may notice, that’s Angel as a young man straight out of barber school, in the photo on the right hand side of the counter. Right: I took this portrait of Angel with my Canon 70-300mm using the natural light from the window to his left. He posed for as long as we wanted to shoot and then signed autographs for all of us.. He’s an American original and made the trip something sopecial for all of us.

Our next stop was Hackberry, AZ for sunset. Hackberry has a little roadside store and grounds containing a wealth of old cars, gas pumps, signs and general Route 66 goodness. We shot details shots while we waited for the sun to drop, shot the sunset until dark and then headed to nearby Kingman, AZ for the night.

Left: Detail of weathered oil can on an outside rack. I took this with my 35mm prime at f2.8 for a shallow depth of field and finished it in Lightroom with a slight vignette. Right: I like the composition of this old Chevrolet looking across the highway to the mountains and the setting sun. I shot this as a 7 exposure HDR with my Canon 17-40mm at a wide view. I processed this in Photomatix Pro, finishing it in Lightroom and NIK Color Efex.

Detail shots from around the town of Oatman. The bar in the historic hotel has many, many bills covering every wall and ceiling area. The shovel and barbed wire wreath hang on what was once an old pharmacy among other things and was a location for a scene used in the movie “How the West was Won."

Fast forward . . .  We arrived in  Las Vegas to shoot sunset and have an end-of-the-trip dinner at a hip steak place that Rob likes to frequent. A great meal with good friends topped off the end of our journey. It was a quick four days, but we packed in a lot of shooting and some long-lasting memories of the Mother Road.

Sunset on the Las Vegas strip from the observation deck of the Stratosphere. The magnificent view and a beautiful sky were only hampered by the no-tripod policy. I handheld this with my Canon 85mm prime, opened up and at 800 ISO. I used the continuous mode on the shutter, and steadied myself to try and make sure I got at least one image in the sequence with little to no motion blur.

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Thank you Glenn for a super post!​

Glenn and I will be leading the Atlanta Digital Photo Experience Event next year. Hope you can join the photo fun. Info on my 2014 Workshops page.​

Explore the light,
Rick

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It's free . . . and my most recent interview is in it! The current issue of the "Extraordinary Vision" iPad app: http://bit.ly/ZRmFvf

Also free in this issue: a look at my Kelby Training class on Composition.

Check it out. Sooo cool!

Explore the light,​
Rick

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Guest Blogger Christopher Mitchell Shares an Inspiring Collage - and story

First of all, I want to thank Rick Sammon for taking the time to speak with me at the Photo Pro Expo in Northern Kentucky/Cincinnati Ohio about the story behind this collage. He is one of the best, fun filled, speakers that I have sat down and listened to. It's a great pleasure to participate in the blog series.

The story behind the collage, my wife (Connie) and I have been taking photos of my son and daughter’s soccer teams for years, but 2012 was different than any year before it.  What happened on Oct 6th 2012 challenged us in many ways, bad and good.  That was the day Jacob Amberger was killed in a tragic car accident on his way to the school, to get on the bus, for the semifinal sectionals. 

He had just turned 17 a week prior.  He was a great kid and it hit the soccer community very hard.  My wife and I were half way to the game when we got a text from our son that said, “I’m at the high school cafeteria”, we both had a bad feeling something terrible had happened.  We were about 30 minutes out and my wife started to make some calls to find out what was going on.  Then the worst nightmare was confirmed, one of our soccer players was taken away from us way too soon.  As I drove, every photo that I took of Jacob over the last 2 years started flowing through my mind.  First it was sad, but then I started to think about what I could do to help out the family with this heavy loss.  The ideas just started flowing.

Every year I make a 12” X 36” inch collage of the seniors and this year I wanted to do an HDR background.  On Saturday, August 4th   around noon, we went to the high school soccer field to do some background photos for this year’s collages.  I went to every side of the field and shot many angles, we went home to process the photos in Light room and then in Photoshop to work on the HDR portion of it. And one stood out more than the others.

Info for image above:
HDR Photograph with a Canon 5D mark III
Lens EF 16-35mm F/2.8 L lens
F/2.8
Focal length 16mm
Bracketed 3 stops: 1st 1/2500 2nd 1/8000 3rd 1/640

The images for my HDR image were taken mid-day and the sun was straight above us, but I wanted more of a night look so I edited it to get this look.  At the time I wish I had the lights on, but I learned how to create them later with Photoshop.  Now I had my background, and I only needed the season to start, to get some photos of the seniors in action.

The season started and we shot photo after photo of the boys, I could finally get to work on the senior collages.  We only had 5 seniors this year, not like the 8 the year before, so it wouldn't be as difficult this year.  I found 5 good action photos of the 5 seniors and used refined edge to cut them out, and change some color and lighting in the levels panel, to make them look like they belonged with the background.  It turned out like this.

Above: Original photo before I used the quick selection tool and refine edge. 

Above: The end results of the cut out, by using the mask technique

Here’s the final collage, after I cut out all the seniors from there action shots.

Above: Finished collage of the seniors: I used guides to center the players in the frame

But I wasn’t finished with this collage yet.

Now you get the rest of the story, as we're on our way to the school, Connie text our son, “we’ll get there as fast as we can”, I couldn't get those photos of Jacob out of my head, they just kept repeating.  When Connie and I got to the school everyone was there, it was a challenge not to think of what, how, and why this happened, what we could do or say, how could I help at such an overwhelming time?  We all went to a church and prayed for the team and supported the boys, students kept showing up to share their memories of Jacob and just to be close to his family and friends.  It was the worst day of my life, as I imagine it was for most of the soccer team.  We all commented on how the boys all matured that week and how proud the coaches were of all of them.  I will tell you this, the community really came together and took care of each other that night.

I knew I wanted to do something for Jacob’s family and I figured out why those photos wouldn't stop coming.  The first thing I did was release every photo we had taken of Jacob this year on Facebook so his friends and family could see them and remember how remarkable this young man was.  That night I stayed up until 4:00 am working on the collage and going through a ton of photos.  Jacob was a great kid and his collage should be equally as special.  

After I thought I completed it, I went to Staples to get a quick print (they do great work BTW), we were having some problems with the file, it wouldn't save correctly, but after an hour or so it was finally saved to their system.  While printing the collage, the players’ names on the bottom right were all blurry and that was our first sign that Jacob was watching over us.  Staples reprinted it, and someone touched the collage in the upper right hand corner before it was fully dry.  So Staples printed it a 3rd time, I’m sure Jacob was frustrated by this time that he let it print incorrectly, so Connie, after picking it up, started looking it over and realized that I had forgotten to put the seniors names back on the collage.  

Connie called me at home and let me know the news, so I fixed it and it was ready to be printed the following day.  The next morning, when Connie went to drop it off, their printer was down; she called me and let me know that if they couldn't print it in Harrison they would go to Colerain to get it printed.  

Well, Staples got the printer to come online and they printed it for the 4th time.  We thought it was finished, but Jacob had one more thing up his sleeve (he was always quite the jokester), somehow out of all the names on the team list, there was one misspelled, his brother Jason's in the lower right hand corner.  I cut and pasted the names directly off of our website with all of the boy's albums, so how could this happen?  

I think a very special young man, up in heaven, is the only one who knows the answer to that one.  Connie has always believed in angels, and I think the entire team has their own special angel watching over them now.  They did finally win the final game of the sectionals a week later…for Jacob.  So that’s the story behind the collage and how it was made, and here’s the final product, even though it looks like each image of Jacob is from the same game, they are all from separate games and at the  time I didn't even realize I was picking images that look like they were in sequence.

 “What is a photo worth today? Absolutely nothing… but tomorrow it starts creating value that eventually becomes priceless.”  (Christopher Mitchell)

Here are both photos at Smugmug at a larger size.

I need to give a shout out to Smugmug and Bay Photo, they together donated 45-6” x 18” collages to the coaches and to Jacob teammates.

Hope you enjoy the story and my work on this collage

Contact info:

Christopher Mitchell
Blog
Website
Google+

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Explore the light,​
Rick

Guest Blogger Tom Barnwell Shares His Awesome Fire Mist Photograph - and an explaination

Equipment: Canon 7D, 300mm f/2.8+2.0x rented from Borrowlenses.com, Gitzo 2541 Tripod w/Kirk Ballhead + Wimberly Sidekick. Exposure: 1/2500 sec., f/5.6, ISO 100.

First, I'd like to thank Rick for giving me the opportunity to be a guest blogger. So . . . thank you, Rick!

I've made several trips to Bosque del Apache NWR, most recently in 2011 and 2012 with Rick Sammon and Juan Pons. I've found one of Rick's Sammonisms  – light illuminates, shadows define – to be particularly effective for capturing the essence of Bosque. 

Some of my favorite images have been defined by shadows - they are silhouettes of Sandhill Cranes and Snow Geese.  In particular, one image captured cranes lingering in the "Fire Mist" just as geese departed en masse for the nearby corn fields.

In 2011, we arrived at Bosque del Apache NWR in New Mexico long before dawn after a strong cold front had passed through.  There was 6" of snow on the ground and it was -3°F, ideal conditions to create the "Fire Mist."  We set up just north of the "Flight Deck" at a break in the vegetation along the edge of the pond. 

Just as the sun rose, the Sandhill Cranes in the foreground were lingering in the mist when the Snow Geese decided to depart en masse. I was able to capture three images of the "blast-off" before the geese were gone.  After capture, the RAW image color temperature was adjusted to reflect actual conditions and the image was cropped to remove Snow Geese that were partly out of the frame around the edges, but that was all the processing required.

I submitted the image to the refuge and it is being used as the cover for their forthcoming Comprehensive Conservation Plan and Environmental Assessment.  They also posted the image on Facebook to illustrate the conditions that create the "Fire Mist."  Apparently, they often get questions along the lines of "Where/how do I photograph the steam/fog/hot springs?"  They explained: The "steam/fog" seen forming above wetlands is not actually the result of liquid water boiling to gas form (there are no hot springs here); but rather is a process of condensation as water vapor in the air directly above lake surfaces is cooled by the low temperature of the surface water. The effect is usually most pronounced in winter months following cold clear nights. Water just below the surface remains warmer so that vapor still forms above the lake; but the chilled surface causes the vapor to condense into a misty layer of "steam/fog."

Other opportunities exist for shooting silhouettes at Bosque.  Another of my favorites, the following  images were captured at the Crane Ponds along NM Hwy 1 just as the sun was setting over the western mountains.  It was overcast and the underside of the clouds was reflected in the surface of the pool.  The cranes were just settling in for the night and I composed an image of this back-lit scene.

Exposure: 1/160 sec at f/5.6.

As a final example, I captured this image as the cranes were flying into the Crane Ponds.

Exposure:  1/200 sec at f/5.6. Equipment as above except using a 400mm F4.0 DO lens borrowed from Canon Professional Services.

The key to a successful shot is to have a recognizable outline to work with.  In these cases the silhouette of cranes and geese are readily identifiable. In many cases, a successful silhouette can be made with no exposure compensation if the light is a majority of the frame, but it's best to check the image and compensate as required. I'm constantly checking my histogram, especially when shooting at sunrise and sunset.

I hope you can make it to Bosque del Apache someday - and I hope you catch the "fire mist."

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