Yesterday afternoon (Fri, June 3rd) I left the office for a few hours to check on the Hastings wildland forest fire burning  about 10-15 miles from my home. Continued dry weather and strong winds caused the fire to advance and I sat on a hillside watching some amazing smoke columns form while an aerial assault by planes and helicopters attempted to stave off the leading edges of the blaze. The fire was 600 acres on Monday and was 6000 and growing on Friday. The power of fire moving through a forest is an amazing sight to behold. I was mesmerized between shooting frames. Updates can be found on the InciWeb site.

Aircraft attempt to suppress the Hastings wildland forest fire with retardant substance, near Murphy Dome north of Fairbanks, Alaska.

Hastings wildland forest fire advances on June 3, 2011. The fire is burning north of Chatanika river, outside Fairbanks, moving north and west due to winds. Panorama stitched from 9 vertical frames. Canon 5D Mark II, Canon 100-400mm f/5.6L IS.

100-400mm f/5.6L IS (100mm)

24-105mm f/4L IS (24mm)

70-200mm f/4L IS (200mm)

500mm f/4L IS w/1.4x (700mm)

500mm f/4L IS

500mm f/4L IS

500mm f/4L IS w/1.4x (700mm)

500mm f/4L IS

500mm f/4L IS

100-400mm f/5.6L IS (160mm)

100-400mm f/5.6L IS (260mm)

100-400mm f/5.6L IS (160mm)

Panorama of the Alaska range and prominent peaks. Stitch of four horizontal images. Canon 1D Mark II, 70-200mm f/2.8L IS, (73mm), 1/5 sec @ f/9, ISO 100

If you have ever traveled between Fairbanks and Delta Junction on a clear day, you’ve been under the spell of the Alaska range, which is visible in a spectacular array to the west of the road. Even some of the locals are not sure of the names of the prominent peaks, as their appearance changes considerably depending on your angle of view. This image was taken at a popular turnout situated on a ridge that overlooks the Tanana river, not too far from Delta Junction. If you are anticipating a summer sunrise shot like this one, get accustomed to getting up very early. I took this at 4:40am near the end of July. Figuring out the best angle of light during Alaska’s summer is quite a task of variability depending on the month.

This magical pre-sunrise scene is one I have tried to photograph for a long time. After spending an exhaustively long day in the nearby Copper river, dipnetting and hauling 15 red salmon back to my vehicle with a backpack, I camped at a turnout that overlooks Willow lake (a landscape photographer will always camp by water in anticipation of sky reflections). Willow lake is along the Richardson highway and the view to the east looks into the Wrangell St. Elias National Park, and more notably, Mt Blackburn, which at 16,390 ft is an impressive feature. I woke at 4:45am to an achy body, clear skies, and great anticipation when I saw the sky.

I came across this photo during my archive QC process and reprocessed it with Lightroom 3 and tweaked the white balance to reflect two variations of color tone, one warm and one cool. The look is quite different with just a slight adjustment to the color temperature, or white balance. Color temperature is visually represented in the histogram-see the histogram screen shots for the two respective photos below.

The image is made from a panorama stitch of four horizontal frames. I shot a lot of photos that morning, and this is one of my favorites.

Mount Blackburn 16390 ft., Wrangell mountains, Wrangell St. Elias National Park, Alaska. Canon 1Ds Mark II, 70-200mm f/2.8L IS (105mm), 2 sec @ f/16, ISO 100. (stitch of four horizontal images)

Mount Blackburn 16390 ft., Wrangell mountains, Wrangell St. Elias National Park, Alaska. Canon 1Ds Mark II, 70-200mm f/2.8L IS (105mm), 2 sec @ f/16, ISO 100. (stitch of four horizontal images)

Slightly warmer image as indicated by the histogram. Note the location and relationship between the blue and red channels.

Histogram indicates a slightly cooler tone than the one above. Note the location and relationship between the blue and red channels.

Panorama stitch of three images in Photoshop. Bull moose in velvet antlers walks along a tundra ridge line in the late evening sunshine with the Alaska range mountains in the distance. Canon 1Ds Mark III, Canon 500mm f/4L IS w/1.4x (700mm), 1/250 sec @ f/6.3, ISO 400. I used live view to quickly lock up the mirror and reduce vibration shake since the focal length was quite long.

Alaska’s big landscapes are hard to fit into a 35mm 2:3 ratio format. Sometimes, they beg for a 3:1, or more commonly referred to as a panorama format. I used to use a Fuji 6x17cm film camera especially designed for this, but now I simply blend images with a stitch program. Currently that is Photosphop 5. During my early August trip in Denali National Park, in the last hours while driving out of the park, I spotted this moose walking along the ridge. After a quick stop and rush for the tripod, I threw on my 500mm with a 1.4x converter and shot a sequence of frames, swinging the camera along so I could generate a panorama later. The clouds were quite interesting, along with the manner in which the sunlight was generating great contrast to separate the moose from the background. Here are the three images and the final blended panorama shot.

Frame 1 of 3 used to stitch the panorama

Frame 2 of 3 used to stitch the panorama

Frame 3 of 3 used to stitch the panorama

Store front window display by ChadMichael Morrisette, utilizing my panorama image as a background.

Every once in a while I get a little feedback from a photo buyer and let me place an emphasis on “once in a while”. Yesterday, I received an e-mail from a designer (ChadMicahel Morrisette) who purchased a photo for use in a store front window display. The photo–a snow covered boreal forest of  birch trees– is of particular interest to me because it was taken from the deck of my house, it was winter, and the subject of trees have always intrigued me. I’ve often thought that if Thomas Pakenham did not already publish his very cool book: “Remarkable Trees of the World“, I’d make that my next personal photo assignment.

Upon reflection, I never imagined while taking the photo, that it would be used as a window display. This is not surprising, but it is a good reminder that when photographing “stock imagery”, it’s a good idea to think broadly about your subject, and photograph it in different ways. In this case I made a panorama image by stitching five frames horizontally. I also photographed it as a single still image as well. The longer format of the two suited the store front wrap.

Snowy birch trees in Fairbanks, Alaska. Panorama stitch from 4 files.

Early in my career I modeled my photographic style and subject material largely from the motif of the Sierra Club calendars and other respectable nature beauty images. This is the style of fine art prints, those pictures that are self sustainable through strong composition and dramatic light and color. They still are my favorite type of image to capture, but stock photography requires a different set of parameters. Generally speaking open space is essential in stock photography, and a more mild or muted color palette is often preferable. This is so because the image itself should compliment and not compete with the copy or add material that is used in conjunction with it. If you look at successful stock photography, specifically background imagery, the image alone is often not striking in and of itself. But it works well with the layout and copy. Pick up your favorite magazine and look at the advertisements within the magazine that use background imagery and you will see what I mean. You will notice very few dramatic, strongly colored images. So when photographing stock it’s something essential to keep in mind.

There is a lot going on in the process of acquiring a photograph but it does one well to think broadly and photograph the scene in a variety of ways, which produces an image more versatile for today’s challenging photography marketplace.

Brown bear catches red salmon, Brooks falls, Katmai National Park, Alaska. Canon 500mm, 1/800 sec @ f/8, ISO 400.

This image of a brown bear catching a red salmon at Brooks falls in Katmai National Park is comprised of three independent images, stitched together to generate a panorama or 3:1 format image. This offers a high resolution file that embodies a wider format more suitable for some reproduction uses, for example, a billboard. In this case, I had the panorama concept in mind, but needed to capture the fish shot first. Once that was successfully completed, I then swung the camera to the right for two successive frames, with enough overlap to offer a reasonable seam. The moving water confuses photoshop’s automatic stitching program, but because of the somewhat blurry nature of the background, one can manually stitch it with very little difficulty. It was taken with a 500mm lens, which is a tight frame but it worked out well given the location of the bear in the distance at the base of the falls.

In keeping with the theme of panoramas, here are a few more scenes from my August trip to Denali Park. They are pretty small in the this blog template, which I’m not too crazy about, so click on the image and it will load a little larger.

Creating panorama images using a digital camera is one example of the diversity available in todays age of digital photography. In the film days I used a medium format 6cm x 17cm film camera (to the tune of about 10K w/lenses) and although it made great images, it was slow and cumbersome. Today however, instead of carrying two different camera types one can use a digital camera to shoot multiple frames and stitch them together with an automated feature in Adobe Photoshop.

While the shooting process is fairly simple, there are a few things to consider from a technical perspective. First of all, a tripod head that rotates is very helpful. I use a ballhead primarily favored for wildlife photography and Really Right Stuff makes one that includes a rotating plate as part of the quick release. It is the PCL version if you look for it on their website. Basically, this gives a pan axis to the top of the ballhead independent of the ballhead base. The handy level bubble on the plate makes it easy to establish a base angle without needing to fuss with the legs to level your camera. While advocating the use of good tripod and head, I have shot a number of panoramas hand held–this is generally done with long lenses. Any slight mismatch of frames can be cropped out later. In addition, shooting vertical is an option, which generates a larger file size and requires more frames to create the 1×3 format. Some other steps to consider…

• Make sure your tripod is stable
• Find your focal and focus points and don’t change them
• Set your camera to manual exposure mode, so all subsequent files have the same exposure value.
• Overlap the images by about 50%, it gives the software enough data to use when analyzing the match between consecutive frames.
• Turn off IS on your lense if your shutter is below 1/30 sec.

I use Lightroom 2 to make the necessary adjustments to the raw files, and there is a handy way to open them in Photoshop. Just go to Photo/Edit in/Merge to panorama in Photoshop. There you will find a few options to select and you can experiment with the perspective issues. I often use auto, but it depends on the focal length.

It can be a challenge to think and visualize in a 1 x 3 panorama ratio when your camera viewfinder is in a 2 x3 ratio, but a little practice and experimenting takes care of that.