My 2012 Best & Unique Landscape Photographs

2012 was a great year and I hope you all enjoyed it. I had a some photos installed in the McCarren International Airport in Las Vegas, Nevada (Food Court area) and an interpretive night pollution display set up in the newly remodeled visitor center in Death Valley. I’ll be getting married and having my first child in 2013 so I know it will be another great year. Looking forward to seeing all the 2012′s best from Jim Goldstein’s yearly list! I hope your 2013 is as great as you make it!!

A hidden sea arch along California’s Central Coast

Cholla cactus garden illuminated by a spectacular desert sunrise in Joshua Tree National Park. The cholla cactus is famous for it’s dramatic way of catching backlight from the sun for hours after the sun has risen and hours before it sets as well. Don’t get too close or they may stick to you.

Wild yucca bloom in the Mojave Nature Preserve. It’s a beautiful place most photographers skip out on.

Death Valley Northwest Section

Death Valley Coyote Silhouettes

Death Valley Racetrack Backlit Lenticular Cloud

Canyoneering in Death Valley

Watchman Virgin River in the fall at Zion National Park

Fiery sunsest through Elephant Rock Arch at Valley of Fire State Park in Nevada’s Mojave Desert.

Eastern Sierra in Fall

More Eastern Sierra in Fall

El Capitan and the Merced in Fall, Yosemite National Park

Canyoneer makes a 40ft jump in a very remote section of Jump Canyon in Sierra Nevada Foothills of California

One of Zion’s Canyons filled with fall color.

Beautiful lone cottonwood tree on the Virgin River in Zion National Park

Repelling a waterfall in Jump Canyon in the Sierra Nevada Foothills of California.

Canyon Intersection – Zion

Thunderstorm above an arch in Joshua Tree National Park

Sea Arch in Big Sur, California Central Coast

S Curve at Valley of Fire State Park in Nevada.

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Joshua Tree Photo Workshop

Had a chance to look for Joshua Tree’s largest arch in the park, this is not it. I didn’t find yet so I’ll get back there once it’s cooled off a little more.

This is a shot from Saturday’s Meteor Photo Workshop. I didn’t advertise this workshop but just posted a single random post on facebook and picked up 6 students. With the small group it was so much easier to compose around each other. Hit the “Easy Button” !!! Sorry if you missed it, I’ll do another mini workshop somewhere in California and priced affordable for those who’d like an introduction to a unique way of learning creative photography.

Find more info please visit

Composing for the Edges

While composing this photograph I had to imagine the merged files together as one because the 2×6 or 4×6, etc box of the viewfinder didn’t fit the format I was looking for. When we create panoramics we have to use our imagination and establishing the borders or edges of the frame are probably one of the most important parts of doing this. Here I took note on where there were dark areas around the bright waterfall so as the image is viewed there is more of flow downward without distractions along the edges of the frame. Any bright water on the edges would of pulled the eye towards it and disrupted the path and flow of where the water leads the eye through the scene. Here I chose to have an exit at the bottom where the water comes out of the frame. You can compose differently and keep the eye in the frame by keeping the white water away from the edges, this doesn’t necessarily mean you don’t want to have any bright water near the frame just keep conscious thought of where you place it. Conscious thought is what composition is all about. Have you ever felt you placed all elements of frame exactly where they needed to be?

We can create typical images of scenes such as this one but another thing to keep in mind is has it been done this way? If so fine take the picture then move on to the next scene while looking for something different.

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American Galapagos Sunset

American Galapagos Sunset – Channel Island National Park

Okay you got me it’s not the Galapagos Islands (I wish) but we like to refer to California’s Channel Islands as the American Galapagos because of their abundant variety of endemic species and plentiful sea life. It’s most certainly beautiful out there!

You can see the path of wind of in the distance. It’s partial evidence of how these high coastal sea cliffs are shaped.

The Channel Islands are some of the most beautiful islands on the West Coast. If you ever get a chance to see them it’s worth while. The weather is not the same compared to the mainland. You can be covered in fog while everyone is out on the beach back in Los Angeles.

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Concerned About Color Management?

Mt. Ritter and Banner Peak 2006

In today’s digital photography world it’s possible to feel like the odd man out when we want to keep a natural feel of color to a scene. Keep that sense of being in a scene that really existed by standing in it and thinking it does exist and it isn’t fantasy. Maybe it’s just being old fashioned or sticking to the roots of what inspired us to begin shooting landscape photography. Maybe it was the books we chose to purchase it we were in inspired before the internet craze? Facebook, Flickr or the internet wasn’t the way people found 90% of their inspiration back then as they do nowadays. There has been trends in the cycle of photography some strange and some just evolution. Back in the 80′s and 90′s landscape photographers used something called a tobacco graduated filter, it was a fad that died just like disco. Today we have “The Magenta Cast” and the “Glow Filter” (gaussian blur / Orton Effect), shoot I’m embarrassed to say I have a few of those images!!

Maybe that will be like saying, “I used to wear platforms with live fish in them” ?

Has anyone noticed a change in color of the canyons of the Southwest or am I seeing things? I last visited Antelope Canyon in 2005 and noticed a lack of magenta casts in the photograph during that time period and now it seems that canyon has more of magenta cast in it from most photographs shared on the net from Upper Antelope. Am I out of my mind or this is trend of adding a magenta cast right now?

We have to use photoshop as a tool 99% of the time to make our adjustments but there is a certain amount of discretion that highly varies between photographers. It should vary, we are all different. Many of the newer photographers not knowing how to use it well enough to express their imagination to it’s fullest potential feel limited without the knowledge of how to use it. Others overdue and that’s their intent, either way you can learn to connect with the way you would like to present your artwork or photographs. It just takes a little bit of time and if you’re concerned about color management consider backing off on the magenta a little.

White Balance – Another Approach

This image was taken the previous year at Zion. At this location it can be a little precarious getting down to the water’s edge so the average group will not be found here. It’s a man made waterfall despite it’s realistic look. I’d like to disclose that I cloned out part of a footbridge in the far right hand side.

While I was processing this image, I found there were so many different white balances inside the frame. The blue sky at dawn had it’s own, the alpen glow had it’s own, the peaks were in between the the sky and the fall foliage, plus the waterfall had so much of a blue cast and the shadows in the far right corner were even cooler on the white balance scale. You may often see some guru talking about white balance and if you set it to an exact setting it fixes all your problems, I find that very hard to believe when many scenes have so many different white balances inside them so it helps but it’s not a fix all. A general setting will help but it’s highly likely you will need to make adjustments during your processing or blend multiple RAW files with different WB* settings. For this image I used Nik’s Color Efex Pro (sieren discount code). The brilliance & warmth slider made some of the white balance adjustments pretty easy and I masked them with a brush to keep the parts I wanted and discarded what I didn’t want to use. Also, I used the Remove Color Cast option for the “too blue” waterfall because the selective color adjustment in PS didn’t do enough. Although it still remains cool, it’s personal taste how warm or cool you may want something to be. Tonal Contrast was also used to bring mid tones to only specific areas I wanted them in. I thought I would share a few processing steps some people may have trouble with.

This year there was a log jam from a flood here at this waterfall so I didn’t bother shooting it but found another little piece of Virgin River shoreline with a couple of golden cottonwoods that I hope to share later after I get back from the Joshua Tree Light Painting Workshop this weekend.

*WB abbreviation for white balance.

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Wild Light Fall Color Reflection – Eastern Sierra

Maybe this is my perception but I feel most photographers go nuts over a sunset reflection, if it’s in front of them. Maybe even prefer it over the golden hour when the best light hits the land and creates interesting light and shadows on the subjects that are important in our photographs. Most of the time I think these sunset colored clouds are just background decor to add a little something extra to a scene that doesn’t have the greatest light. Something to just accent an image. Am I the only one that feels this way?

Field notes: Early that morning at North Lake in the Eastern Sierra, as soon as light of dawn revealed there was cloud cover and we could see that the holes in the clouds would likely let some good light through in a few a places. I was with a couple of friends but we all had different agendas, one of them did not want to go into the mess of crowded photographers at the creek outlet of North Lake so he went of into the aspen groves and we never saw him again until we were ready to leave hours later. We had parked on the north side of the lake where it’s a longer walk to the popular spot there. I chatted with a few strangers but kept it short. I took a photo looking towards the White Mountains and figured I’d at least better get into a position where I could at least shoot into multiple directions. There is a creek you must cross or take the long way around, it was at least 32 degrees out and I didn’t want to get my feet wet but I had a change of pants, shoes, and socks in the car if needed. Before I knew it I was crossing the creek to take a couple of different shots in both directions.

The light was good and I was only spending between 30 seconds and a couple of minutes composing scenes, usually I take longer then. There was a sense of rush but I still very calm in between exposures.

This photo does’t really show how crowded it gets in this one spot here at North Lake but I’m sure you could imagine.

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Art Without Photoshop

Do You Really Need Photoshop to Make an Artistic Photograph?

If anyone tells you yes, that’s BULLSHIT!! If the light hits the sensor in an appealing way then you can get away without using photoshop or elements. You will need to convert the RAW image to a jpeg with a basic converter. Many times we will need need photoshop to make local adjustments meaning specific areas of a photograph. But yes there are times when the light is perfectly fine within the frame of what was photographed and if the composition is fine then it just may be artistic enough.

Just to clarify, this is not an anti photoshop blogpost, I wouldn’t own Photoshop CS5, 4, 3, 2 and other versions if I didn’t use them.

Havasu Falls at Dusk, Havasu Canyon, Grand Canyon, Arizona

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My 2010 Best Photographs

2010 was a great year for landscape photography, we experienced a fantastic wildflower bloom in California. Here are a few of my best from the year, I wish I could pull a few more off the hard drive! Have a great year everyone!!

Light painted petroglyphs in the Owens Valley near Bishop, Eastern Sierra

Alpen glow breaks through the clouds in the Eastern Sierra’s North Lake on a cold autumn morning.

Burney Falls in Northern California is constantly fed by a natural spring.

A wild lenticular cloud formation slowly grows and moves across the Northern Mojave Desert.

Early dawn light creeps across the flooded salt flats of Death Valley.

Dangle your toes off of Toroweap’s 3,000 foot cliff overlooking the Colorado River in Grand Canyon National Park.

Wild mountain lillies bloom in an open meadow in Northern California’s Cascade Range.

Tiles of Earth sculpted by wind, water and sand in one of Death Valley’s dune fields.

Pines catching thier first light on old rolling dunes in Lassen Volcanic National Park.

Friends paddle through a Colorado River cave in the Mojave Desert. I really miss this moment.

Wildflowers bloom under Mt Shasta in a wild fire recovery area.

A view through an arch in the Alabama HIlls displays a rainbow against rainy skies.

A nocturnal alignment of earth and space in Joshua Tree National Park.

One of the largest wildflower blooms I have ever seen occured in California’s Central Valley. Only 80 miles from Los Angeles.

You Will Eat Me No More
Death Valley National Park

The Mojave Desert Tortoise is the largest reptile of the Mojave Desert. They walk on ground that can get over a 130 degrees. They avoid the heat in their giant burroughs where it is about 40 degrees cooler and hibernate there durning the winter. They can live for a year without water or maybe even 2 years without water.

In certain areas of the Mojave the average number of tortoises per square mile in the 1920′s was 100, now in the same areas there are less then a dozen per square mile. A host of animals depend on their large burroughs for homes. The Mojave Desert Tortoise is an endangered species because it’s population has dwindled in recent years. In order for it to be removed from the endangered species list it’s population must grow and be sustained for 25 years.

This series is part of a yearly tradition that Jim Goldstein has started where he posts a blog with links to many other yearly collections from other photographers. See them all here http://www.jmg-galleries.com/blog/2011/01/12/best-photos-of-2010/. Here are my 2009′s collection http://stevesieren.wordpress.com/2010/01/09/landscape-photography-my-best-of-2009/

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Santa Monica Mountain Beach Workshop

A few shots from yesterday evening’s workshop down at the beach in Malibu. It was a little cold out and maybe the water was a little warmer then the air and wind but you never seem to notice it when you’re in groove. Like gargoyles on the side of a building cormorants, gulls and pelicans added a little bit of extra detail to the scene and they also held these photographer’s attention a lot longer then I thought they would.

Photography Workshop in Malibu just outside Los Angeles, California

I really enjoy shooting candids while people are so focused on what they are doing. They’re often so still even during a long exposure you might not capture any movement from them.

Ranger Bob photographing a sea arch during the golden hour.

If you are photographing a crowded place it can often be difficult to not included people in the landscape so you might as well try to use them to your advantage. Silhouettes are often a fast shot so you don’t have to worry about movement as much because your exposure is going to be a lot faster.

What do you do with people that won't move out of the way? Shoot them!