When I launched my new website in late November, I moved my blog over there too. In all the commotion of getting that launched, I thought this notice was posted but it was only drafted. I’m sorry to have left anyone in doubt of where I went!

Sorry for the silence, but I’m still out here with lots to say!

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Another old abandoned vehicle in the field. I’m slowly creating a series of them. This one was in the hoppin’ town of Ash Fork, Arizona. It caught my eye as I was driving by on the freeway, and I had to weave through town to relocate it once I got off the freeway! As luck would have it the first time I drove by, the gates were closed to the property. But the second time, a construction guy was there with the gates open and he let me in to capture this one, with a warning about Mojave green rattlesnakes. Yikes! But I stomped into the field, in pursuit of this faded blue gem of a car. It reminded me of one my friend’s Dad had. They might have been ‘tanks’, but these old cars had personality, and all have great stories behind them, no doubt.

The unexpected bonus of seeking out old trucks and cars like this is that you get to meet the locals in the places you find them. All of them ‘characters’ in their own unique way – of course I’m a ‘character’ too, to them – they probably think I’m nuts, runnin’ around photographing old beaters with excitement…but the social exchange makes my life experiences richer…

P.S. I ran this photo through Nik HDR Efex Pro as it’s part of a series I’m working on of old car/truck portraits. I chose the default preset, then adjusted my structure, contrast, saturation, whites, etc. globally. I selected the “Crisp” HDR Method and set the strength to about 45. With the method selector and the strength slider, you can create so many different results.

Don’t forget! – I’m giving a webinar for Nik on November 18th, at 6 PM PST. “HDR Efex Pro: From Realistic to Artistic“. Sign up here!

Several years ago, I was at Olmsted point in Yosemite, and was fascinated with the puzzle-piece-like shapes of glacial ‘polish’ – pieces of stone that had quite literally been polished – worn smooth – by the sliding of a glacier over the top of it. As I stood there, I tried to imagine what it must have been like during the age of glaciers covering that area. It certainly would have been very different from what I was seeing. But here was evidence that they had existed. And then, once they melted, over time, the surface of the granite began to break down, erode away. Yet why were there certain pieces that had not broken down yet? The scientist in me assumes they were harder sections of rock, and haven’t yet yielded to the elements. So they remain, and they stand out as these unusual shapes on the surface of the granite slopes all around Olmsted. I wanted to capture that story.

Yet I didn’t get my hyper-focal setting right, without many distance settings on the lens, and no hyperfocal chart to guide me. The background trees/hillside were not sharp enough. grrr. That always bothered me. And in the many times since I passed through or visited the area, the weather was not right, the time of day wrong, etc. So it was one of those images that just wasn’t coming together!

Finally, I got it right. The light/time of day were the same, even though I was just travelin’ through Yosemite on my way home and hadn’t thought about trying to get there for this image; even the weather/clouds was pretty much the same, and  I had my chance to make the picture again. The photograph I made then is almost identical to the blog post, although I didn’t have a copy of it with me when I made this image. But I could remember the shape of the piece after all this time. We don’t always get a second chance to make a photo, which is why I teach ‘getting it right in the camera the first time’ – but mistakes can happen to anybody. Thankfully,  in “human time” it hadn’t really worn down further since the first attempt.

Image Information:

Canon 1DS Mark III, Canon 24-105mm, f16 at 1/15. Processed in Lightroom and further in Nik’s Viveza 2.

November is my birthday month, as many Facebook friends have just acknowledged – and November’s gemstone is Topaz, which just happens to also be a great collection of plug-ins for processing your images. I use Topaz products regularly in my workflow. I just received word that the folks over at Topaz have just added a gallery of my images using their plug-ins. Thank you, Topaz!

Many of you know that I use and love Nik’s products daily. Yet each plug-in application out there offers something a little different, and as a visual artist, I’m interested in how each of them can add to my process of creating artistic results to my photographs. So today, I played around with Topaz Adjust on this image that I made while in Silverton, Colorado last month.

I started by thinking about how I felt about the subject. When I was there, I was struck by the many layers of paint were laid down on this ole’ truck over its lifetime, indicating a long life and perhaps different owners. I wanted to bring that out. I also liked the texture of the rust, the stage of decay it was in as I felt that told the story of being abandoned, left to rust through. I wanted to bring that out too. And finally, I was drawn to the neat colors in the paint layers and how they worked together. By adjusting exposure, brightness, details, contrast and saturation in Topaz Adjust, I was able to bring this out to my satisfaction.

You can see the original image below – only the crop and spotting were duplicated between them before processing.

If you want to save $$ on Topaz’ products, enter the code “brendatharp” when checking out to save 15% on your purchase. Your support of this affiliate relationship helps our workshop and newsletter program. Thank you!

Just a quick note to let you all know that I’m on Nik Radio. The folks over at Nik Radio have made it very easy to find my interview: choose an option below to listen at your convenience!

Nik Software Facebook

Nik Software Website

iTunes

Nik Forums

Twitter (will be posted tomorrow morning)

My upcoming webinar for them has been posted on their site now. As many of you know, I’m a big fan of Nik products. The blog image here was processed using HDR Efex Pro, then taken into Color Efex Pro for some tonal contrast adjustment.

P.S. If you want to save money on Nik Software, be sure to use the code BTHARP at checkout and you’ll get a 15% discount.

I made the above picture last Fall in Capitol Reef and had processed it to the point where I thought it looked pretty good – but was never totally happy with the glow off the water. I had figured it was because it was red-colored water from the red sandstone/mud of the area. But recently I revisited this image when putting a program together, and decided to try again. I had been using Nik’s Tonal Contrast filter in Color Efex Pro with good success on other images, so I thought it might help. WOW is all I can say – I was very pleased with the results. You can see the before picture below. Not bad, but now with the help of that filter, I have a bit more punch in the water – punch that I saw with my eyes but wasn’t pulling out of the image. Sure, I probably could have done more with this in Photoshop, but adjustment layers and such, but with just one step, I got really nice results.

This filter is one of those I’ll be showcasing in my Webinar for Nik on November 18th at 6 PM Pacific Time. It should be listed soon). For all you east-coasters reading this, here’s one you don’t have to sneak out of work to watch live! heh-heh. But we felt it would be a great time to do it so more people could watch it.

I’m looking forward to showing everyone examples of how I use some of their products, especially the new HEP (HDR Efex Pro) software. I use there products a lot in my daily image workflow. If you like what you see and want to save $$ on buying their products, use the code BTHARP for a 15% discount. Contact Nik customer support if you want to complete your collection if you’ve already purchased some programs.

Iceland…..ICE-Land….The word conjures up all sorts of image potential for me. And YES, we are again planning to go to Iceland for 2011. We’re heading there July 24-30, 2011, to work with the amazing Focus on Nature (FON) team. Headed by Einar Erlendsson, the founder, this group goes all out to make your Icelandic experience one you will never forget. And I’m there to help you translate what you see into a great photograph. Yes, I haven’t been there before but that doesn’t mean I won’t know how to photograph it when I get there! As a nature photographer, not having been somewhere doesn’t stop me from knowing that I’ll be able to help people make great pictures of the place! Light is light, atmospheric conditions are well, atmospheric, and the principles of photography and creative vision are all the same – it’s just very exciting new territory to apply those ideas to. And with the help of photographically experienced local guides, we’ll be exploring the wild rugged landscape of the coastal, and volcanic regions, as well as the iceberg-choked lagoons, glacier fields, at the right time for great light and drama, as we seek to capture the essence of this dramatic, wild place. As Einar put it in a recent email to me – “Tell them about the energy in the air in Iceland, which charges their mental status like nothing else to great heights.”

It’s true, you know; really fresh air does charge the body/mind/spirit. I experienced it last month while at 9-12,000′ elevations. But in Iceland, you can experience that without being short of breath!

So I truly hope you’ll join me on my workshop in Iceland this year – where together, we can share in the experiences and work together to bring that back in a collection of unforgettable images.  Visit my page on FON’s website: and please note, the date at the top of that workshop description page is incorrect – it’s July 24-30, 2011. I have notified them to correct it.

If you want a chuckle at the same time you see bits of beautiful Iceland, check out this fun video: Makes you wonder how they got all those people to do the ‘dance’ – but I know I’ll be dancing with my camera, when I’m in Iceland next year, too! (tip: let it fully load first before watching it for best effect)

Things last a long time in the desert – slowly rusting, weathering under the strong rays of the desert sun. As I drove around in the desert town of Moab, there were so many things abandoned, wearing out. I spotted this truck while looking for a grocery store, and had to ask the owners of the salvage company for the chance to photograph it. I thought it was so serendipitous that the colors of the truck were the same as the colors in the landscape – the red-orange-brown of the rocks behind were a perfect background for the truck’s portrait! I’ve always loved old cars and trucks so it’s great fun to find those with personality.

I used Nik’s HDR Efex Pro to process it, planning that I’d make it a bit surrealistic but not overly so. The cool thing about the Nik software is that you have so many options – both in the presets and in the HDR method choices. And you can even adjust those once selected. I am just beginning to sift through all the variables with this software but I’m lovin’ it. I have posted a few other pictures using this software, if you review the past month’s postings. If you love what you see too, and want to purchase it, save yourself 15% by using BTHARP as the code in checkout.

Late-breaking news! I’ll be doing a webinar on HDR Efex Pro for NIK on November 18th at 6 PM PST. Join us to listen in on how I use it. I’ll be giving tips on how I then take my images further using other Nik products, too. Look for the posting on Nik’s learning calendar soon at  Nik’s website.

Whew – what an intense yet fulfilling past five days I’ve had! I arrived in Bishop on Oct 13th, preparing to teach my Fall colors workshop for Galen Rowell’s Mountain Light Gallery. An early snow had taken some of the leaves down, but there were still so many groves in that yellow-green phase and bright yellow phase that there was more than enough to capture! One morning we went up to North Lake seeking a lovely still reflection in the lake, but it was not to be had that morning. A guy using a 6×17 panoramic camera was giving up, frustrated. We switched to plan B, walking into a grove a blazing yellow aspens and along the shore of the lake, each of us seeking our own photographs that said ‘Autumn’. I went to the shore of the lake, and found this wonderful pattern of gold and blue, created by yellow aspens reflecting in the surface, with blue sky reflecting, too. The wind created loads of ripples on the surface of the water, making a great pattern. But it wasn’t enough to capture just that. I decided to toss a yellow aspen leaf into the mix and capture it as it floated around in differnt positions. It took a lot of images to get a few ‘just right’. This is one of them. I love how the leaf ended up on the blue water mostly – I tried so hard to time it right to have that happen but in the end I think I just got lucky with it. It’s the kind of image that I love to create and it was definitely a successful plan B for everyone – the woods were so pretty in that golden light through the leaves. Many made great images from being willing to look beyond the anticipated photograph!

Fallen Roof Ruin, in the Cedar Mesa Area, Utah

Well, the tach/speedometer were fixed – just a loose connection – but all the bumping on dirt roads seems to have loosened the bulb in their displays – so I have to use my flashlight to check my speed when driving at night!

Headed down to Cedar Mesa to find/photograph Fallen Roof Ruins. I had forgotten my Photographing the Southwest Guide by Laurent Martres, so I ran into the visitor’s center at Arches and scribble down cryptic notes on how to get there – but getting to the trail head wasn’t the hard part – it’s the trail that descends into a wash – and from there becomes bushwhacking and potentially bouldering – recent flash floods left the willows flattened on both sides and in the mud I saw cougar prints – raising the hair on my neck just a little as they were as fresh as the human footprints beside them! I would have photographed them but the light was flat enough they didn’t stand out well in a picture. I ended up having to hurry to get there – the sky was clouding up and even though the forecast had no rain mentioned in it at all for the area, sky said differently. Not the place to be when it does decide to rain, so I only made a few pictures and then hustled out of there. But while I stood there, I marveled at the people that had climbed up here to build this structure, and used it – which meant they climbed up the steep sandstone walls regularly! I did three quick compositions but then packed it in. No rain, after all that, but I’m not going to take my chances when going it alone in there. I can’t wait to get back to do more with it and the other ruins in the same canyon.

Though I made this in color, I decided that it had rich enough contrast in the tones to be a good black and white image. I ran it through Nik’s Silver Efex Pro. I’m enclosing the color version here for reference. I think both work in this case!

Fallen Roof Ruin, in Cedar Mesa Area, Color Version