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The Unpainted Desert – Part I

November 21, 2011 by Justin 9 Comments

Fisher Towers Utah

I hope everyone had a great weekend. I’m fired up for this week! We will be spending it looking at the ‘Unpainted Desert’. In the past I have shared many images of the beautiful and colorful desert. This week I want to explore desert imagery created from shape, contrast and tone. I have a little Grand Canyon, Bryce National Park, and a crazy adventure in the middle of nowhere all lined up. We start it off with this image of the Fisher Towers outside of Moab, UT. It was a cold and cloudy morning when I made this image. While I was shooting the opening sequence for my movie Southwestern, I decided to make some still images at the same time. I made the decision to emphasize the clouds and downplay the formations since the clouds were what what made me pull over in the first place. Feel free to watch the movie and checkout how the clouds come to life over a 15 minute time lapse.

All images this week are processed using Sliver Efex Pro II.

Filed Under: Black & White, Moab, Nik Software, Nikon 28-300 VRII, Nikon D700, Series, Software, The Unpainted Desert, Travel, Utah

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iPhone Friday

November 4, 2011 by Justin 6 Comments

Howdy!


First - We have a little bit of housekeeping to dial in. My ‘American Cowboy‘ and ‘Crescent Valley‘ series were featured in this month’s Nik Newsletter. Good thing I’m running on WPEngine because I had about 5000 folks drop by in the last hour to check things out. You can find the newsletter here.

I tell you this because whether you are a photographer or not, you should sign up for it. The newsletter is full of really creative people and the great folks over at Nik do a fantastic job of sharing them with us.

Second – On the Nik Note, I don’t know if you noticed but they have updated Snapseed with a couple new filters. If you haven’t checked it out yet, make sure you do. Spend $4.99 and get the best iOS (phone, iPad, and Mac) photo editing software on the market. You can find my review of it here. It has really changed my approach to the GoLite photo kit. Here are a few images I made using my trusty Lumix LX5 and my Snapseed equipped iPad. Hopefully these photos will encourage you to get a mountain bike and start riding. There is a lot of beauty out there to be seen.

One of my favorite rides in all the world!

Third – I maintain a ‘Behind The Scenes’ gallery over on Google+. You can find it here. If there is a photo you would like to see processed, just leave a comment on one of the images. If it has been processed, I will share the link with you, if not I will try to dial it in this weekend (depending on how many requests I get). Here are a few examples of the behind the scenes photos.




Lastly – I hope you all have a great weekend! Get out and make some art by enjoying this beautiful world! If all goes well, next week I will have a way for you to help people living with Parkinson’s disease so please check back.

An iPhone sunset I shot tonight.

p.s. – A local Colorado photographer dropped by here a couple days back and left a nice comment. I went on to check out his work and found one of the most incredible hot air balloon images I have ever seen. You can find it here. Steve is the real deal and a great photographer.

Filed Under: iPhone Friday, iPhone Photography, Moab, News, Nik Software, Utah

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iPhone Friday

October 14, 2011 by Justin 4 Comments

The site has really been growing. Over 10% in the last month alone. We are sitting at a little under 10,000 visitors a month. We aren’t Facebook (errr….Google+), but we’re getting there. I really want to thank everyone who visits here on a regular basis. Whether you email me, comment, get in touch via the various social outlets, or simply view an image and read the story I want you to know I appreciate it. This is a very fun and positive creative outlet, and based on your comments I think it is a bright spot in your day as well. That being said, I thought I would introduce the 10% of our new readers to iPhone Friday.

I post the iPhone images I made from the week (with a few exceptions) every Friday. I love the iPhone for a lot of reasons (you can read why here), but one of the reasons is that it has slowly started to democratize creativity. You don’t have to have a fancy DSLR to join in the creative discussion. iPhone Friday is a way of reminding myself of that. I hope it serves as a reminder to you as well. I want us to go into the weekend with our collective creative muse stirred and make some magic together. So here are a few images I made with my iPhone while on a mountain biking trip in the Utah desert last weekend.

News: We will begin the “American Cowboy” series on Monday. I hope to provide a candid look at a profession that has been romanticized in pages and pages of Zane Grey novels, but I’m guessing many of us know very little about. It should be a fun and informative week. I also promise a few photos of some very cute cattle dogs. If you want to get a head start, you can catch my first post here.

Filed Under: Colorado, Fruita, iPhone Friday, iPhone Photography, Moab, News, Utah

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The Hills Have Eyes…..

May 18, 2011 by Justin 13 Comments

Cisco Post Office

…and a post office. I have been wanting to find this post office for the last 5 years or so. The town of Cisco, UT sits just outside of Moab and I pass it a couple times a year when I visit for my spring mountain biking. Surprisingly, I hadn’t been able to find it until this year. Why ‘surprisingly’ you ask? Because there are only a handful of 7 buildings in the town. They might be occupied, they might not? It sure feels like someone is watching you. Anyway, I finally found the post office. Set up to make this image. Then my wife noticed a light was on in the shack behind me. It was a dark and gloomy day, so I grabbed a quick shot and got the heck out.

Continue for Capture/Processing Notes…

Filed Under: Black & White, Gitzo Traveler, HDR, Moab, Nik Software, Nikon 17-35 2.8 AFS, Nikon D700, Photomatix, Processing Notes, Travel, Utah

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The Lonely Bunker

April 28, 2011 by Justin 7 Comments

DesertBunker

Another experiment in ‘journey’ trumping ‘destination’. I have passed by this little bunker on the side of the road outside of Moab, UT for about 15 years now. Every time I do, I say to myself, ‘I really want to photograph that’. After 15 years, I finally made it happen. With an entire day to drive from Moab to Bryce Canyon, we had plenty of time to explore what the desert had to offer.

Photo Note: I was traveling pretty light on this trip, and didn’t bring my Nikon 45mm PCE lens with me so I used onOneSoftware’s Focal Point to achieve the blurred focus effect. Works pretty slick, and it’s way cheaper than the lens!

Newsletter: I’m excited to announce our new newsletter. As of now I am planning on sending it out about once a month. It might be less frequently, but no way will it be more frequently. I have been hard at work on a new project that I think is going to be pretty fun. I’m also in the middle of a new site design. Sign up for the newsletter and you will be the first to know when its live. If you don’t see the sign up form below, click here.

Our newsletter is powered by Aweber. You can read their privacy policy here. The newsletter will come out every month or so, and there is no way in heck we will spam you. Guaranteed!

Continue for Capture/Processing Notes…

Filed Under: Americana, Gitzo Traveler, Moab, Nikon 28-300 VRII, Nikon D700, Travel, Utah

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