As I have the last five years, this year I’m once again producing a holiday card, and offering slightly reduced rates for people who pre-order the cards. This years image, Winter Cathedral, is an image from the Öxnadalur Valley in northern Iceland, and was taken on a cloudy, sub-zero morning this January. This photograph almost takes on the appearance of a drawing, as the snow nearly blends into the tones of the sky, and what rock shows through is almost, but not quite, monochromatic.

The cards (when folded) are 5×7, same size as last year, and blank on the inside. Envelopes included.

Preorder prices (through September 12)
1-9 Cards: $1.75 each
10-24 Cards: $1.50 each
25-49 Cards: $1.35 each
50-99 Cards: $1.25 each
100+ Cards: $1.10 each
500+ Cards: Call for details, you’ll be able to pick your own design.

Shipping within the US is $2.50 for up to 5 cards, $6 for more than 5 cards. (This reflects packaging and postage realities.) Actual-cost for shipping outside the US. Plus CA sales tax if appropriate, of course. To order, drop me an email at joedecker at gmail dotcom.

Six or seven (I honestly forget) of my images from the “Desert Rhythms” series are now appearing at the Squat and Gobble creperie on 16th at Market in San Francisco. If you haven’t seen this amazing abstractions, come take a look, I’m really happy with the way they blend nature photography with nods to abstract expressionism and op art, they taste even more delicious with a crepe and a cuppa.

The show will continue through May.

Following one of the most amazing sunsets I experienced in my days at Petrified Forest, I left Pintado Point, returning to the restored adobe cabin that was my home during my residency, and reflected on the fact that this was my last sunset, and that I’d be returning to California very early the next morning. I couldn’t bring myself to stay inside. I took my gear and wandered across the road to Kachina Point.

Thunderstorms continued to glide across the painted desert, and the late dusk allowed me to skip the Lightning Trigger and to start working what lightning there was left with longer and longer exposures, with wider and wider apertures.

This was my last frame, of thousands, from my residency, and by this frame the light from the sky (as opposed to the lightning was so thin that I had to “bring it up” to see it in a print (or online image) the way my eyes still could that warm, humid, last evening.

I walked back home, packed, and read into the night, and left before sunrise.

The square cropping seems to emphasize a comparison between the purpled lightning stroke in the deep black of the bottom half of the image with the far more diffuse, rich blue barely perceptable in the clouds of the top half of the image. There’s a nod to some of the early abstract painters here, without a doubt, and I’m sure that’s one of the things that appeals to me about this image.

But to me this image will always be a fond and slightly sad farewell to the most transient “home” I’ve ever called “home”, that small mesa-top adobe in Petrified Forest. I’m deeply grateful for the opportunity that residency provided me, and I think the breadth of my Petrified Forest images shows more clearly than I could explain how much of an influence that experience had on my work. And I know that I’ll never be able to entirely disconnect those experiences from this one, simple photograph.

This image was made with the assistance of the National Park Service artist-in-residence program at Petrified Forest National Park.

Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III, Canon EF 24-70L/2.8 @ 70mm, 14.0s, f/13, ISO 100.

As many of you know, I’ve been honored to recieve an artist residency in Greenland this August. As you probably also know, while that covers room and board while I’m there, it doesn’t actually get me to Greenland, nor will it cover a few days extra there to take advantage of the opportunity to do work from Illulisat and possibly on the ice sheet itself. Frankly, I need to raise some cash. So it’s time to clear out the inventory—Everything Must Go!

So, I’m having the equivalent of a garage sale, and if you’re reading this, you’re invited. This sale ends at midnight my time on April 30. I only have one copy of most of the items listed below at the given price, sales are first-come first-served.

All items are as is, but in good or better condition.

Prices do not include taxes, nor shipping from San Jose, California. I’ll wave shipping if you pick it up at my house yourself. Shipping/handling on matted prints is $33 for the regular sized prints, $15 for the 8×12 prints. Framed pieces with glass are not eligible for shipping. S/H for panel pieces will be charged at actual shipping and materials cost.

To order, email me at joedecker@gmail.com. Orders will be taken in the order that the emails are recieved.

Finally, in addition to this sale, in the next few weeks I’ll be starting a Friends of Joe program, keep an eye out for it!

Cards

Cards are available at 20% off listed prices during the sale.

Workshops

Folks interested in my Eastern Sierra workshop who sign up and prepay the entire workshop fee now can enjoy a 10% of the listed $950 tuition. Doesn’t apply (and can’t, I’m afraid) to workshops given through other organizations.

Big Panel: Arctic Alpenglow: 36×18 panel presentation. Black wood sides. Originally $1300, make me an offer.

Framed: Clouds Forming in Alpenglow, 24×14 framed to approx. 32×22, black wood frame, standard glass, $195

Small Beautifully Framed Print: Dawn Migration and Tabular Iceberg, $140

Joe’s Classics

All images 16×11 matted to approx. 23×16, $125
1 copy of 24×16 print matted to 32×24 available for “Side Canyon, Burr Trail”, $155

Signatures of the Sun

All images 16×11 matted to approx. 23×16, editions of 21, $115

Various Eastern Sierra and Mono Lake

All images 16×11 matted to approx. 23×16, $95

The Far North (Iceland and the Arctic)

All images 16×11 matted to approx. 23×16, $95

Odds and Ends

All images 16×11 matted to approx. 23×16, $90

Small Prints

All images 8×12 matted to 12×16, $59

Once again, Pintado Point provides an excellent viewpoint into the dramatic monsoon-season Arizona weather. I really love this image, the lyrical A-b-A-b pattern drawn in rich colors.

A few days ago, I discussed the role of luck in photography, and today I’ll continue that discussion.

One of the first things to notice is that this was taken at 200mm, what you’re looking at here is only a very small fraction of a larger scene. At the time, that larger scene was quite breathtaking, as monsoon-season sunsets often are, as a result, I’ll suggest that this image was not “obvious”, it required being open to what was around me in a very undistracted, “in the moment sort of way.” This can’t happen when you’re having to struggle to think about camera-controls and precise f-stops. One of the reasons I emphasize building “habits” around the technical aspects of photography is precisely this, the less I “think”, the more I “see”. Part of what an outsider might call “luck” of this image was not just that the skies chose this day to provide me this image, but that I noticed that opportunity.

While the pattern of clouds is the primary subject of this image, it’s not a pattern I could have predicted, nor was it a pattern that lasted more than a couple dozen seconds. While it’s easy to imagine that I might want to photograph some particular mountain and that I’d spend a good bit of time arranging to be there in the right light, many of my images, this one included, have to be composed and captured on the fly.

Galen Rowell often talked about the “dynamic landscape”, those amazing natural moments that so often last for only moments. He would point out the importance of being able to work quickly, of “expert systems” of working quickly with your camera to create a good image. And this is part of what some people mistake for luck, too, had I not been aware of this, had I not had my gear at hand, had I not known how to work this scene very quickly, I would have missed the moment.

I don’t mean this as self-congratulatory back-patting, I mean this as advice to those photographers amoung you who read this blog. Learning to use your camera quickly and effectively is an important component of making great images in rapidly changing natural light, and the most interesting photographic situations often involve rapidly changing natural light. Speed is “part of the game”, and a part of the game you ignore at your own peril.

This image was made with the assistance of the National Park Service artist-in-residence program at Petrified Forest National Park.

Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III, Canon EF 70-200L/4 @ 200mm, 1.6s, f/16, ISO 100.

More lightning toward-a-sunset. One of the interesting and rare things here is managing in such a short exposure time to capture two separate strokes of lightning. One could call that luck, but….

“Luck” is a surprisingly common word applied often by non-photographers to other photographer’s images. There is, without a question, an element of luck in many photographs, but when “luck” is used as a dismissive (as it often is), it’s essential to realize to what extent photographers often make their own luck, rather than relying on it.

My awareness of this really increased during my development of my Signatures of the Sun body of work. To begin with, the existence of that body of work could be considered by some to be a lucky accident, in a way, I’ve said at times that it was. But let’s consider the context, I visited a location a couple hours from my home on three different days trying to get a great landscape shot from a specific area, and was stymied each time by weather that changed before I got to the site I wanted to take a photograph of. It was not luck that kept me persisting, it was not luck that, each of those days, kept me photographing despite “not getting what I came for.” It may have been luck that I got strange reflections off the water in a particular stream shot that third day, but it wasn’t luck that I decided to experiment with them, and it wasn’t luck that I decided to process the film anyway, and it wasn’t luck that I recognized that there was something more to be seen in the results. It certainly wasn’t luck that I decided to explore that theme further, leading to one of my most successful images (Burble), and my first gallery show.

Even there, the “luck” of exactly how the patterns would play was not just a matter of luck, it was a matter of persistence, of “farming”. I have nearly fifty frames from the same location and framing as “Descent Into Chaos”, but only one has the most interesting light patterns. Taking those fifty frames, and doing the work to select the right one (which is even harder), were ways of working with the chances of the unknown and stacking the odds in my own favor.

I could say the same of this image. It was luck that I got some information on a good artist residency program in Petrified Forest, but not luck that I was already looking for NPS residencies. It certainly wasn’t just luck that my application was accepted. It wasn’t luck, it was planning that led me to request a monsoon-season residency, I knew I wanted lightning. It was planning, not luck that led me to investigate the Lightning Trigger. It was spending two weeks there (this image was taken near the end of my residency), exploring and experimenting that let me to the locations that I preferred working sunset from. It was experience, using that information along with having learned something about how thundersstorms moved through the park that led me to this particular point that evening, and it was being ready for an opportunity like this day after day after day, that is, it was persistence that got me there on the best evening of the two weeks. Knowing how to use the equipment, knowing its limitations, and being willing to work through hundreds of shots from that evening alone to select the most powerful, that wasn’t luck either.

With any sort of photography you do, don’t give into the impulse to blame an unsuccessful shoot on your lack of “luck.” That will happen, it it’s an easy impulse to give into. Instead, ask yourself how you can improve your odds. Take more shots. Learn to use your equipment so well it becomes second-nature. Learn to understand light. Learn to understand composition. Expose yourself to other phographer’s work. Read. Take workshops. Interact with other folks who do work you admire.

Most of all: Persist, persist, persist. And then edit.. ruthlessly.

This video has a good laugh with the difficulty we foreigners have trouble pronouncing the “just like it’s spelled” name of Eyjafjallajökull, a glacier in the south of Iceland where volcanic activity is currently in the news. While I haven’t photographed the glacier (at least as a primary subject) itself, I have photographed a fair bit along the coast underneath that area, and have often stayed in the town of Hella, which has been serving as an evacuation point during the eruption.

From 0:22 to 0:25 in this video there is an aerial shot near the coast of the affected area. Note that the road is cut in the shot, the affected road is “the Ring Road” or Highway 1, Iceland’s primary “ring around the island” highway. The cut was made intentionally in the last few days in order to prevent the possible destruction of the bridge over Markarfljót (just a little to the left of the cut. It is both unusual and very significant that a good stretch of Highway 1 is impassable at the moment, cutting off the main route between Rejkyavik and the southeast of Iceland, leaving folks in the latter area only the option of going around the island completely to the North to reach Iceland’s largest city.

In that same shot, by the way, you can make out the delightful waterfall Seljalandsfoss, which was the site of one of my more famous photographs, Rainbow Whirlwind, shown to the right.

And the same sort of flows that are endangering the Ring Road are similar to those in 1996 that, left the strange black alluvium I captured in Grasses and Volcanic Alluvium.

Antother lightning image, and one of the few that I was able to capture that included great late light raking across the hills of the Painted Desert. I’m often attracted to scenes with mixed lighting, in this case dark clouds in the background and sunlit hills in the foreground.

In part, that particular combination helps bring the exposure values of the different parts of the scene together, which makes the image easier to capture and work with. Whether we’re talking about slide film or digital capture, or even the capabilities of photographic printing, most photography involves a reduction in the amount of dynamic range of brightness that can be directly conveyed. Techniques such as HDR imaging and graduated ND filters can be seen as ways of compressing dynamic range in a scene into a usable range, but it’s so much easier to create a great result without unsightly artifacts when you work to capture an image that’s already in range.

As with my other daylight lightning images, I used the Lightning Trigger to capture the strike. I got several images of lightning here, but this was one of the nicer strikes, this sort of photography is definitely a case where it’s helpful to take many and edit down to the few, the best.

As I’ve mentioned in other articles, best practice with the Lightning Trigger involves exposure times of about 1/4 second, with much faster exposures that tends to be a fair bit of time. Here we have a partially sunlit image, which suggests, because of the Sunny f/16 rule, an exposure time of more like 1/100th of a second in my normal working conditions (aperture priority, ISO 100, f/16.) ISO 50 is available on my camera but not helpful here because of its reduced dynamic range, so I extended the exposure time by use of a filter (the polarizer probably bought me two stops or so) and by stopping down to f/20. The latter probably came along with a negligible cost to sharpness do to diffraction, but careful post-processing produces a very nice result indeed. Even with these changes this image was a little overexposed right out of the camera, but (with the exception of the lightnings strike) wasn’t blown out, so a more correct rendering was easily recovered during post-processing. Another way to have solved this problem might have been to use an ND filter instead of stopping down further.

This image was made with the assistance of the National Park Service artist-in-residence program at Petrified Forest National Park.

Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III, Canon EF 24-70L/2.8 @ 48mm, 1/4s, f/20, ISO 100, circular polarizer.

It is difficult—and undesirable— to forget the rich groundwork of non-photographic art that came before me, and for that matter before color photography. This particular evening’s sunset recalled for me the magical light Albert Bierstadt captured so well in his famous paintings of Yosemite and Hetch Hetchy valleys.

There’s nothing particularly clever here in terms of photographic technique. I did go to some effort to avoid putting the sun into the sky (and went to a great deal of trouble to prevent lens flare, the lens hood just wasn’t cutting it). The sun is a significant part of the composition here even though it’s not shown (which suggests that I need to add an article to my “Tuesday Composition” series on the subject of off-screen compositional elements.)

A moderate amount of dodging up of the foreground and darkening of some lighter parts of the sky were used to establish better tonal relationships.

This image was made with the assistance of the National Park Service artist-in-residence program at Petrified Forest National Park.

Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III, Canon EF 24-70L/2.8 @ 32mm, 4s, f/16, ISO 100.

Landscape photography, much like many other forms of “found” photography, is at least as much an exercise in exclusion as inclusion. I work to not only to choreograph interesting and evocative elements into something more, I also work to exclude the inevitable numbers of elements that are part of the same landscape but which would distract or detract from the final image.

In many cases, the most interesting parts of a beautiful moment are only small fragments of a scene, as was the case here. A normal lens perspective and a vertical composition allowed me to pare down a really evocative sunrise into a few elements–Mt. Pilot at the horizon, a handful of strokes of virga seemingly eminating from it, and an eye-like swirl of sunset-colored clouds swirling from those brushstrokes. While the landscape surrounding this image was lovely, focusing down onto the very best parts of the image allowed me to create a stronger, more evocative photograph.

This image was made with the assistance of the National Park Service artist-in-residence program at Petrified Forest National Park.

Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III, Canon EF 24-70L/2.8 @ 45mm, 2s, f/16, ISO 100.

The Blue Mesa area of Petrified Forest National Park is a delight, featuring a good (now paved) trail through the badlands to the north, and views to the west and east. I was able to wander (thanks to the additional access allowed by my residency) to the northeast corner one cloudy afternoon and watch the storms pass over the badlands below, and spent a lot of time trying to extract sections of the (particularly a section of very pale green badlands) into pleasing, scaleless abstractions.

This image was made with the assistance of the National Park Service artist-in-residence program at Petrified Forest National Park.

Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III, Canon EF 70-200L/4 @ 168mm, 1/20s, f/14, ISO 100.

A quiet meditation on curves, and color contrast. There isn’t much of a subject in the traditional sense here, the virga connects the shapes of the sky with the shape of the badlands below.

There was absolutely no need for as small an aperture as f/18 here, a tiny but unforced error, diffraction probably robbed a tiny bit of sharpness from the very largest prints as a result, a type of “loss” that I often am forced into my the need for greater depth of field, and hardly objectionable, simply unnecessary here. I expect the mistake here was one of haste and excitement. Good habits usually help me prevent this sort of mistake, but mistakes can happen in moments of excitement.

This image was made with the assistance of the National Park Service artist-in-residence program at Petrified Forest National Park.

Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III, Canon EF 70-200L/4 @ 145mm, 1/30s, f/18, ISO 100.