NATURE'S ABSTRACT - COLORADO 2008

This is view of the adobe hills near Montrose, Colorado.

On this trip, I was working with abstract designs and color patterns, and I found this site to be of great interest.

The same exact scene works equally well in black and white.

OLD JUNIPER TRUNKS COLORADO 2010

In this dry west-Colorado climate, you can stumble across a lot of interesting dead wood. This happens to be a couple of old Juniper trunks which have survived for decades. No telling how old the trees were before they died, but they caught my eye and I always have this gut feeling about design & composition.

If it looks good at first glance, chances are there's a good image lurking within the mass of old limbs and dead wood. I had this one figured out before I set up the tripod and camera.

There is one thing about being an artist that some people never get. You must practice and develope a feeling for what might look good and what may not. After a spell, you just listen to your gut. Perhaps the biggest mistake people often make with their photography is including too much in one image. Keep it simple and concentrate on what's in your direct field of vision.

I included a lot in this image, but it hangs together as a lovely abstract. I find it to be visually attractive. I went for maximum detail on this old wood, and I used a setting of about 1/25 at f18. And with a telephoto lens, I was able to set up several paces away from the subject and pull out what I mentally envisioned with the telephoto set at about 135mm. I also toned it just a pinch.

ADOBE HILL NEAR DELTA COLORADO 2010

This area of Colorado near Delta offers the artist all manner of stunning erosional features, and because of the varied shapes and sizes you can work in either color or black and white.

I chose black and white for this image and toned it just slightly. When I used to print from negatives I always used a sepia toner which combined sulfur with the silver and you could vary the degree of toning depending on your on personal feeling at a given time. Since this was a digital image, I worked with the three primary colors and tweaked it just a little bit. It was just enough to give it a feeling of warmth and I personally like that feeling.

The time of day to visit this area is important. You need strong shadows to give the finished image a strong abstract appearance. And I would strongly recommend fall or early spring because it can get unbearably hot during the summer months. About nine to eleven during the morning is my preference because at this time of year, the sun is already pretty low to the horizon. To me, this is one of those little gems which are scattered around Colorado.

Jack Jeffers explores COLORADO NATIONAL MONUMENT 2008

Colorado National Monument is located just a few miles west of Grand Junction and geologically, it is part of the Colorado Plateau.

This is an easy day trip, and I felt that a touch of snow would liven the image up a bit. The red rock against the snow did, indeed, improve the photograph.

This thirty-five mile route through the Monument is always a rare treat, and it reminds me, in many ways, of Canyonlands and Arches National Park near Moab, Utah. A tripod and a polarizing filter are highly recommended.

Before taking a field trip such as this, I always check out the area on Google Earth. By using this program, you can fly through the area and get a pretty good feel for the lay of the land in three dimensions. I strongly recommend it as a time and gas saver on long day trips. .

COTTONWOOD GROVE SW COLORADO 2008

Jack Jeffers - ASPEN GROVE COLORADO 2010

LAST DOLLAR ROAD NEAR THE SAN JUAN RANGE

This view of the aspen grove was made at the nine thousand foot level and all of the elements are in place. You have a nice foreground, middle ground and a striking background of dark blue sky.

The sky at high altitudes is darker than it is at lower levels, but I felt that the sky in this image could use a little extra darkening so on with the polarizer.

Notice the spacing of the dark brown patches of vegetation in the foreground. This adds another little touch to the composition.The finished image is about as close to being a perfect photograph as you can get, and I have always heard the experts say that there is no such thing as a perfect image. Well...that just depends on who is judging the finished image.

When I made the shift from film to digital, the actual process came naturally because I already knew the basics of the medium. What hung me up initially was learning how to use the computer. And then there was the processing program. I struggled with the computer for several months before I was comfortable with it.

I ended up purchasing Microsoft Digital Image 2006, and it was quite easy to walk my way through the various programs. A computer expert in the area recommended it as a great "starter" program. Heck, I am still using it five years later because it has everything I need plus more. It took me less than a day to figure out how to use most the various functions, and my philosophy has always been to keep it simple. And that applies to fine art work as well.

An engineering friend kept telling me how great Photoshop was, and that all the serious photographers used it. So, one day I broke down and dropped a hundred dollar bill on the counter and went home with Photoshop Elements 5. After one solid week of absolute total frustration, I took that program out of my computer and put the Microsoft back in. Enough was enough. I just wanted a simple program that had everything I needed. Nothing fancy!

As for RAW, I use the Nikon Picture Project 1.7. It too, is simple and easy to follow, and there are a few processing tools available for the user on page one. The Nikon program then channels your images directly into the Microsoft program with the conversion to tiff or jpeg already made. The simpler it is, the better I like it, and the results that I have obtained during the past few years vouch for the end results.

My objective was to obtain stock-art quality for the agency that handles my work, and my computer programs meet their quality standards.

I am from the old school, and I like to get the exposures right the first time. So why mess with Mother Nature. I have become a bit spoiled by the simplicity and accessability of the tools on my Microsoft program.cc

FALL COLOR IN THE ADOBE HILLS SW COLORADO

2008

When fall arrives in Montrose, CO, I am always ready to head out to the adobe hills. It offers all manner of photographic posibilities, and I am only two or three miles away by road.

This is a digital image of an old cottonwood tree and the clouds moved in and solved the blank sky problem. All the elements fell into place, and I returned home with some real nice color.

As you progress into my blog, you will discover many more images showing the stunning fall color in the San Juan Range to the south of us, and the Cimarron Range to the east.

Don't forget to left click on the image. It will bring up a larger and sharper one.