Printing the Image - August 2019 Edition

Last Sunday Ann and I decided to revisit some more images from our previous travels in anticipation of our upcoming trip.  I decided to develop from scratch and then print a couple of images from Devil’s Garden, one of my favorite places and one we’ll be returning to on this trip.  Ann was more broad in her thinking and decided to include an image from our Redwoods trip - definitely not a stop we’ve planned for our next adventure.

I started out with a morning image that really gives meaning to the adage “look for the light.”  I’d been photographing in the other direction when I turned around to see where Ann was and what she was photographing.  My skies had been dull and rather boring.  Ann’s skies, well . . .

So I made my way over towards her and tried my best to find an image that took advantage of the skies.  I’d been less than satisfied how the sky and the curved rocks had turned out in Lightroom.  I cannot say the same about Capture One.  I’ve done so little real photography work this year, with everything else on my plate, so working with Capture One feels like I’m starting all over again - but working on this image, and then printing it is a great reminder as to why I changed programs.  The differences are subtle, but they are real.  I have no regrets.  

The next image is a much simpler one, taken about an hour or so later.  It’s a detail shot that is rich with subtle lighting on the rock formations, lovely textures and a splash of color.  Ann and I both were amazed at how the rough textures of the rock came across in the print. 

I’d printed both of the images on a matte paper I’d accidentally ordered and was surprised at the results.  Not only did it hold the fine textures in the sandstone rocks, it held the vibrant colors in the green plant and the morning skies in a way I hadn’t expected.  I suspect we’ll be ordering quite a bit of paper from Red River before we head overseas.  

Ann’s first image came from our side-trip into the Pando Forest to photograph aspens.  That’s one aspect of our trip that we’ll miss - the aspens - at least from the planning perspective.  Hopefully we’ll have a surprise discovery, or the opportunity to photograph other trees as they’re changing.  They should be in the Lamar Valley. 

This image came pretty late in the evening, well after the sun had gone down and as we were preparing to call it a day.

The thing about photographing at the edges of light is that things change so much from the sun-lit hours.  Earlier everything had seemed bright and high-key in color, but as the sun set, the aspen leaves seemed to deepen in color and saturation, as did the green bushes and the tree trunks (how do white tree trunks increase in saturation?  I don’t know, but they do).   Wonderful thing is that the print managed to capture that transition feel from day to night.  

Ann’s next image has a story behind it.  Ann was at her computer on Friday (she works 4 x 10-hour days so has Fridays off) and as I walked from my office past hers to go get some more coffee I looked over at her monitor and stopped in my tracks.  “Hon, I’m going to give you an assignment if you want it.  I want you to convert that image into black and white, and try to make it as visually dramatic as possible.  Don’t worry about trying to make it look realistic.  As I walked by and glanced over, I saw this very dramatic form initially, that then faded away as I looked at the image more.  So work with the image so that the dramatic feeling I initially saw continues as you look at it.”  

Ann decided she liked the assignment and here’s her result.

Strange thing to say, but the print is better than the image is here on screen.  It really is dramatic with that sweep of the rocks on the ground leading to the main central rock figure and there is an amazing texture in the black rock.

Ann’s last image was from our Redwoods NP trip.  She’s worked with this image a couple of times and finally had gotten it to a point where she was pleased with the feel of the snow, the texture in the grasses, and the interplay between the mysterious fog background and the tree branches that extend into the void.  And, of course, the barn in the far right background.

We printed the first image on 8-1/2” x 11” paper, and while it looked good, it lacked something.  So we went up in size to 11” x 17”.  The image is splendid.  Some images need a certain size to be fully appreciated and the larger size did it for this image.  The fog has this mysterious depth I’ve never seen in an ink-jet print - I’d thought that it was something possible only with silver-based photographic paper, resulting from its emulsion depth.  (We later discovered that, if you zoom into the image at 100%, you can see minute streaks of snow falling that are not visible in the print.  I wonder if it’s that combination of grey and microscopic white streaks that give the print a visual depth in the formless fog that I’d never seen before . . . ).  Anyway, the print is stunning!

Ann has already returned to the last two images this week and improved both of them.  She decided that she hadn’t quite made the Snow Canyon image as dramatic as it deserves.  So she wound up emphasizing the lightly sun-lit wall in the distance to the left of the main rock feature, which not only lightens the left side of the frame visually, it also emphasizes the lower left edge of the rock feature.  Ann has improved the image significantly and it is even more dramatic.

With her snow image, she revisited the cropping.  She moved the left edge a bit to the left (brining in part of the image she had previously cropped out).  That gives you the entire felled tree at the bottom left, which helps lead the eye inward.  It also shows a bit of the tree that give some meaning to some of the branches coming in from the upper left.  The new crop gives more visual balance to the image I think.  Again an improvement. 

Proof once more that an image is never really “done.”