Category Archives: HDR

Hi Gang,

Welcome to today’s post.  Today I’m going to address the idea of second chances.  It seems timely given UW-Wisconsin Badger’s recent Big Ten Championship victory over the Michigan State Spartans.  Having lost a nail-biter early in the season in a game Wisco (or Sconi or Whisky or Bucky…) should have won, Wisco had a second chance at redemption on Saturday evening and made the most of it.  Second chances are a gift.  We should never doubt or turn our noses up at second chances.  We are obligated to make the most of them.

Today’s images from Cedar Pass represent second chances.  The first image is a seven frame panorama, when the sky was in early twilight and there was beautiful color, but this image needs to be seen very big to appreciate the detail.  And the light was colorful, but not great for producing some character and separation in the peaks.  Everything blurs together for me.

The next image came after sunrise;  amazing light, great clouds, idiotic composition.  This shot that left me thinking, “What was I thinking?”  I have this land mass jutting in from the lower left, the patch of ugly grass and gravel on the right…there was a reason for this, but it didn’t play out in practice.  Light changing too fast, I wasn’t paying attention to my gut, blah blah blah.  I blew it.  Boy, would I like to get this one back and do it right.

I came back my last morning in the park, not fully committed to shooting in Cedar Pass.  Yes, I have photography commitment issues.   Some photogs shoot to the subject and pray for good light.  I shoot to the light and pray I can find a decent composition, hence my lack of commitment to a location or composition.

So here is a small glimpse into this situation:   Start slowly, sitting in car in parking lot, coffee, potty break in the woods, windy as hell, still dark but not too dark to see the clouds I am dealing with.  I drive over here, over there, look out the window, roll it down, get a stiff wind in my face, roll it back up, turn up the heater, drink coffee, text friends.  Repeat.  Now light starts to arrive.  Slowly at first, but then it accelerates.  With it I accelerate my frantic mental and physical pace to react real-time to the unfolding situation.  Now I’m out of the car, running down this trail.  No good.  Run back to the car which is still running, drive to a different spot I’ve never scouted, run in there.  No good.  Repeat again.  I want redemption.  So, with nothing in hand but my gas station coffee I take off for my last hyper-scout.  I find it.  I sprint back to the car, grab my gear, drop my coffee and head off back to the spot.  I am in a hurry, certain to not miss this second chance.  Light changing quickly, uncertain of what could happen.  I’m hurrying.  I fall down two rock faces, scuff my ass, bruise my ego and curse my age.  I don’t break any equipment.  Miracles.  Never doubt.

And there I sat.  Nothing.  Zip.  Nada.  Ginormous cloud killing sunrise color and light.  But I stayed.  Unwilling to admit defeat for a second time.  I had to wait for 35 minutes after sunrise to get some decent light and color in the western sky, but when it came it was great and I was ready to take advantage of it.  I was so excited after getting the last image that I wanted to run down to State Street in Madison, slug some beers and visit the Parthenon for gyro and fries.  Maybe exchange high fives with some dorky landscape photographers in Cardinal and White hoodies embossed with giant swooping ‘B’ (for Badlands).   But I wasn’t in Madison.  I was in western South Dakota.  I loaded up the car, left the park, got a 20 ounce cup of gas station coffee, chocolate donuts, Ibuprofen and drove 8 hrs back home with a well deserved victory in hand.

AC Johnson Photography, featuring workshop leaders Alec Johnson and Robert Clark, led a wonderful group of participants for 4 amazing and challenging days through a photographic journey of image pre-visualization to final print production.  The setting was the beautiful north shore of Lake Superior, with visits to the shore of Silver Bay, the Beaver River, and Split Rock Lighthouse State Park.

Prior to the workshop, a number of the participants expressed a need to improve their  ability to pre-visualize an image.  In the workshop we did something very unique for workshop setting – we ran scouting exercises.  According to Gary Olejiniak, “The scouting trips were fantastic.   We have been on at least 12 workshops and no one has ever had us scout a location!”  Doug Steger also noted, “The central theme of scouting each shoot was an innovative idea.”  We would lead the students through scouting time, encouraging them to perform “digital sketching.”  The idea was for them to test compositions, anticipate light patterns, and really get dirty with the location before the good light hit.  When they returned for sweet light, they had a good grasp of what and how to shoot the scene.

How they shot was influenced by several factors, including emphasis on HDR, good work with filters, and guidance in solid post-processing techniques.  A number of the students used Singh Ray or Lee Filters, significantly improving the quality of in-camera capture.  If they didn’t own any, we were more than happy to put a filter in their hands and have them play.  The typical reaction was, “WOW!”  There was a discussion of a wide variety of post-processing techniques in the classroom, including use of Adobe Photoshop and Photomatix Pro HDR processing, and the development of Black and White photographs.  Finally, they were given the opportunity to finish off the production process and really give their images the final test – the PRINT.  With the help of my Epson 3800 and a very generous donation of print product from Moab Papers (orchastrated by Robert Clark), we were able to develop some stunning prints.    It wasn’t all work and no play, but I think Nick O. summed it up best.

“I couldn’t have asked for a better workshop.  You blew me away with the gorgeously challenging locations you encouraged us to explore, and the classroom sessions you really showed us how to squeeze the absolute best images from the frames we captured. I’m amazed at what I produced. Thanks so much Alec and Robert, the workshop was a blast and has definitely pushed me and my photography to the next level.”

Great Participants.  Great setting and weather.  Great Photography.  Hard to ask for any more than that.  From me and Robert a heartfelt THANK YOU to all the participants for allowing us to spend a few short days with you on the North Shore of Lake Superior. 

There are some outtakes from the workshop here and you can view the participants’ sample work from the week in this gallery.