Old Barn at Sunrise

Old Barn taken on the morning of the next day.  I would like to hear which of the images is preferred by any viewers and why. 

Delapidated Barn - Two different Days

Old dilapidated barn in Pleasant Grove, UT taken during a sleet storm.   Look at the enlarged image and look for the white vertical streaks of falling sleet.    

Final Quaking Aspen Photograph for the Season

One final image of a stand of straight relative smooth Quaking Aspens behind Mount Timpanogas  just before the road was closed for the season.  The road is blocked by gates,  since there is no winter maintenance on the Alpine Loop.  It is inaccessible from November 1st until late May, at least by automobile.

These young trees are straight, tall and smooth unlike other stands made of older trees which are crooked and gnarled.  In this stand, it is the pattern of the vertical trees and not the scar patterns of the bark which are interesting.  I utilized a blue filter to achieve a tonal balance which makes the background dark in this black and white rendering. 

Last of the Yellow Quaking Aspen Leaves

I really love photographs like this.  The image was shot with my 300mm F4 lens of the six top leaves of the small backlit Aspen.  The highlights must not be blown.  I positioned the camera so the the lens was not in direct sunlight and the background was in deep shadows.  I take care to make sure that the red channel is not blown even lowering the exposure in post processing so that the veins in the leaves are visible.

The translucent appearance of the stems as well as the leaves appeals to me.

I look for these scenes.  Often, I decide to use only the 300mm and look settings where this lens will produce this close up effect.

Young Quakies in the Snow

This stand of young Quakies after a late October snow storm.  Notice how the trees are much smoother and straight in this stand.  Soon there will be no winter maintenance on this road so the area will only be accessible on ski's or by snowmobile. 

Stand of Mature Quakies with Background of Young Quakies in Full Color

This is my favorite stand of mature Quakies with the young trees in the background in full fall color.  The sun is high enough and behind the trees so that the background trees are backlit.  I locate my camera putting it behind a large tree to block the direct sunlight from the front of the lens.  There is very little side light so there is very little pesky problem of blown highlights from direct sunlight on white bark.

Dealing with Sunlight White Quaking Aspen Bark Utilizing HDR

In the photograph, I dealt with the sunlight on the white bark of Quaking Aspens using high dynamic range (HDR) imaging.  In this early morning image, seven exposures were captured from -3 to +3 EV, developed in NX2, converted to Jpegs and then imported into Photomatrix Pro.  I developed this image starting with the "natural" preset in PPro to avoid the grunge look.  This scene has close to the 4-5 EV dynamic range.  I generally take a full set of images and then select the set of images where the highlights at the lowest exposure are clearly not blown and the shadows at the other end are not totally black.  I process all the images of the set identically.