Golden Hour Sky, Goblin Valley, UT

    Many times the monthly Story Behind has a two fold purpose, this month’s Story is no different. Come mid-June VicMom and I will drive back to Yellowstone and this year Grand Teton National Parks to join up with both of our sons and 3 of 5 grandchildren. An AirBnB close to West Yellowstone will serve as a base for 10 days to access both parks sure to yield future Stories Behind. 

    Prior to a June 25th meet-up we will stop along the way at areas of interest. So this month’s image and back story will serve to re-familiarize myself with Goblin Valley State Park in Utah. The Southeastern area of Utah is perhaps the most diverse landscape area I have ever been too. In particular, the southeastern part of Utah is home to the most other worldly and ever-changing landscape I have ever had the good fortune to roam. Back in 2013 traveling with my mentor and good friend Jack Holowitz I found myself in Hanksville, UT for a few days. Jack and I decided we’d forego the only motel in town and stay in Goblin Valley campground in my 2-person tent allowing for quick access to the “Hoodoos” as they are known the next morning. Little did I know that the sky would become the main focus of the next morning’s photograph.

Deardorff morning position, Goblin Valley, UT

    The voice recording I made of this month’s featured image was made @ 7:12 am, about 10 minutes after the above film exposure was made. The arching shaped cloud cover was more overhead of the diagonal row of hoodoos in the foreground. Those clouds seemed to be in just the perfect spot when I made the exposure. Soon those clouds would drift further away and lose their powerful relationship to the foreground as seen in the 7:26 am cell phone shot. The brightness of the upper left side cloud bank seen in the cell phone image would be difficult to deal with during the printing stage of this image. So many variables and unknowns go into landscape photography. In this particular image, making the exposure just as the sun kissed the horizon would pay a number of subtle positives in this image. Had I been writing Back Stories in 2013 I certainly would have stepped to the side to offer a more descriptive cell-phone shot to better show the relationships of the landscape and dramatic sky.       

   The main focus of this image are the shapes seen in the dramatic sky and how they relate to the more subdued shapes in the darker foreground. Accentuating the arched shaped clouds is clearly the focus of this image. To achieve that approach required several “tricks” to accomplish that subliminal relationship between foreground and sky. The beauty of B&W is I can create a departure from reality that is nearly impossible to detect. I elected to use an Orange filter which “blocks” blue light thereby darkening the blue sky. With a darker blue sky the white clouds immediately become brighter and take on greater prominence in the image. The orange filter will also raise the contrast of the shadowed areas, as the shadowed areas are illuminated by blue light and the orange filter effectively lowers the brightness of those areas that are in shadow. Further, less exposure was given to the film moving all tonalities throughout the image darker. Once back in the darkroom that piece of film is given increased film development, which further spreads tonalities apart by raising the the lighter values. To be clear, in B&W film photography less exposed areas (shadows) respond most to “exposure” and much less to chemical development. While the higher values such as the white clouds respond to a much greater degree to increased development. This essentially spreads the tonal relationships further apart then they actually were in reality. It’s the compounding of several tricks that can transform a photograph into the emotion and vision the artist had at the time of exposure. 

    One last critique of components that make up this image, recently I have noticed on social media the power of Photoshop being taken to an extreme at the expense of producing photographs that are not as easy to understand, and therefore become less interesting…for me. The following image is a clear illustration of how much is too much. Even though I have employed the rule of thirds where the sky occupies twice as much area as the foreground the below image almost becomes two separate images. My focus and film technique was always targeted at projecting the shape of the clouds. Therefore by size and relationship to the foreground the sky and clouds should be obvious to the casual viewer, at least that was my goal. The rendering below puts too much emphasis on the brightness of the foreground tonalites…IMHO. Those shapes rather than simply allowing the foreground to provide context and understanding to the dramatic morning sky they subliminally confuse the focus of the image. Further, as I look at the below image, the briter foreground steals away a sense of depth in a 2-dimensional piece of visual art. Remember, Black & White images rely on spatial and tonal contrast relationships rather than actually contrasting colors…and therein lies the magic of B&W. The very first thought I have before even taking the camera out of the pak, how do I create a sense of depth, or a 3rd dimension with my composition and treatment of tonal relationships !

    So many times with art…Less is More…IMHO.

Two Separate Images…IMHO