Stone & Light: Photography Gallery of Colorado, Utah, Arizona & Beyond | Loren French

Stone and Light

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 01:24:26 -0400

The desert, rock, light, water.

The photo on this page is the most meaningful image I’ve taken that sums up what this blog is about. Consider the image of the Glen Canyon Dam. A deep unforgiving gorge in sandstone. People have used creation and their ingenuity to create a marvel equally as spectacular, a dam capable of producing clean power for the next 2000 years and managing one of our most important resources, water.

If you have had or ever get the opportunity to spend time on the Colorado Plateau in the summer you learn very quickly that life in the desert equals water. When looking at the beauty of the desert it can be hard comprehend exactly how unforgiving the land is. In a matter of hours a person or animal without water can die, but at the same time a spring feeding a small canyon can create a lush oasis with an eternal life.

Visiting the Colorado Plateau is a reminder that we live on earth in a time period when the planet is interesting. Throughout the Colorado Plateau every dramatic landscape has a story to tell about erosion by wind, flood, ice and flowing water. Had we visited this area early in the planet’s history we would have observed flat land as the erosion would not have had sufficient time to sculpt the landscape. As erosion continues the land slowly becomes flat and featureless.... someday, it will be a smooth again. What does light do when it strikes a smooth sphere? Nothing, no texture, do depth, no shadows, no wild light.

In assembling this collection of images I choose to take a perspective that is often overlooked. Rather than sweep the entire existence of humans under the rug and present the Colorado Plateau in a purely natural way, as it would be if we had never been here, I have chose to present the region as a person would actually experience it. In the early days of shooting images for this book I showed the image of Capitol Reef National Park, Goose Necks Overlook Road to another professional photographer. His immediate response was that although the image was technically very nice in terms of color and clarity, the image was unusable because there was a road in the photo and commented that I should attempt to retake the photo minus the road. After debating the composition of the image for some time he agreed that the road was a dynamic component of the photo and actually added to the composition. Ultimately his comment was based on a difference of perspective, he felt that photography of the landscape should show the land as it would be without humans. I asked if he was taking a photo of a river and it had been dammed by a beaver would he find another spot to photograph the river without the presence of the beaver dam? The answer was most certainly not, a beaver dam in itself would be a worthy subject. Our perspectives differ in that I believe we are also inhabitants of this planet, and a dam built by humans can be equally as elegant a subject as a dam built by a beaver.

Occasionally I have described the Colorado Plateau as the closest you’ll ever get to traveling to another planet. From the towers of red rock to the impossibly blue skies to the deep slot canyons carved by time and water to the arches of stone, there are few places I know of that present as much drama as the Colorado Plateau. Each time I visit the desert I am always amazed by the vastness of this land; every canyon, mesa, river bed and mountain have a new secret to share. A person could explore the Colorado Plateau for a lifetime and only see a fraction.

It is my hope that the viewer of this book may grasp the experience of visiting this incredible desert from hiking in the Virgin River to standing on the North rim of the Grand Canyon, to sitting on the beach by the camp fire at Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. I hope you enjoy the Colorado Plateau and enjoy viewing these images as much as I have enjoyed taking them.

Loren French

Photograhers Notes

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 01:17:23 -0400

A Little About the Photographer

The word photography comes from photo meaning light and graph meaning writing, therefore the word equates to writing with light. Light is the most important aspect of photography, without light there would photograph. I originally named this book "Wild Light" which was named after the wild light I have encountered in the desert.

When I say wild light, I’m referring to the manner in which the lighting conditions can rapidly change. In some cases the window of opportunity to capture a subject with the perfect light comes and goes in seconds, not minutes or hours.

In the fall of 2002 I was traveling though the four-corners area. Early one cloudy morning I drove to a location near Shiprock Peak, south of Shiprock, New Mexico. I setup my equipment and waited, hoping the morning light would illuminate my subject. As the sun began to peek over the horizon it cast a warm pink-orange ray of light on Shiprock Peak only long enough for me to take three photos before the light was gone and the sun was above the low overcast layer.

Had the morning been clear the good light may have lasted 10-20 minutes or more, but without the cloud cover the photo would have had a featureless blue back drop of a clear sky that is not unusual in the desert. On this day I got to have my cake and eat it also. I was blessed with enough good light to take several photos and a cloud cover to add a dynamic and rare backdrop to the photograph.

Events like those that happened at Shiprock Peak have taught me valuable lessons that have repeated themselves over and over. The single most important lesson I’ve learned is to never cancel your photo shoot for something that hasn’t happened. For me getting out of bed in the morning is one of the greatest hurdles to overcome in photographing a location. At 3:15 when the alarm goes off it’s easy to look out the window and say “It’s overcast, no sense in going out this morning.” In actuality, I’ve found some of the most dynamic and striking images during inclement weather. Once I saw the striking images that resulted from photo shoots that would have never happened had I surrendered to my laziness I decided that I would never cancel a trip for weather or any other nonsense factor.

The second important lesson I’ve learned is to not allow your own expectations of a location blind you from capturing the true beauty of the place. Its fine to shoot the photos you think you want and have imagined, but it’s also very important to turn around. Some of the best photos I’ve shot have been the ones I was not in search of.

The third greatest lesson I’ve learned is to be prepared to wait. Every scene has a lighting scenario which will cause it to come alive. It may take all day, or even multiple days to capture the scene in it’s magical state, but if you can find that magical state you will be rewarded with an image that brings the location to life. To illustrate this point compare Antelope Canyon and Marble Canyon. Marble Canyon’s best light is in the early morning just after sunrise. This is because the morning sun is unobstructed and the sun light penetrating the atmosphere at a low angle produces light that is very warm. This warm light brings out the red and orange colors of the desert landscape. When the sun is high in the sky the light is very harsh and unflattering. In contrast, Antelope Canyon’s magical hour is when the sun is at it’s highest point in the sky. Lighting from directly above allows the sunlight to penetrate deep within the canyon and illuminate the detail of the canyon walls.

Push the button! Don’t be thrifty with film. When you’re trying to get that magical shot continue to frequently take pictures as the light changes. Each day is different and it’s impossible to tell when the life of the scene is going to peak. There is nothing worse then hanging around the location for several hours only to miss the shot you were after because you thought it could get better. There are worse things then sifting through 100 images that all have good lighting and composition. On a typical day of shooting I will “push the button” between 350 and 1600 times. That equates to 10-40 rolls of 36 exposure film.

The final important lesson I’ve learned is to use natural light. On many occasions I’ve walked away from a location with 1000 images that I didn’t like because of filters. It was a hard lesson for me to learn, but after shooting tens of thousands of images using filters I have come to the conclusion that the best photographs are produced my waiting for the right natural light. Today the only filters I will use are one and two stop neutral density filters and circular polarizers. My primary use of neutral density is to allow for proper exposure of foreground objects when the sky is significantly brighter such as during sunrise or sunset. A circular polarizer serves as a tool to eliminate glare from airplane windows, water or other objects with a highly reflective surface.

Rugged Beach | Kauai, Hawaii

Wed, 08 Apr 2009 21:38:14 -0400

A rugged stretch of beach east of Poipu Beach on Kauai

While on a recent trip to Kauai I found this neat stretch of beach east of Poipu. Taken with a 7mp HP point and shoot.