The Terra Galleria Blog – QT Luong

DAY 4: The previous evening, we saw some Saigon landmarks. In the early morning, we saw a more authentic Saigon by walking in narrow streets, checking out the so-called old Saigon market (a street market), and then the Ben Thanh market before proceeding to the airport.

After landing in Da Nang, the pace changed. We climbed steep stairs on Thuy Son, the largest of the five “Marble Mountains” which consist of five marble hills, each said to represent one of the five elements of the universe. Many sanctuaries dot the hill. We first paid our respects at the Linh Ung pagoda.

After exploring two smaller grottos, we made our way through lush vegetation towards the main cave.

The highlight of the Marble Mountains is the huge Huyen Khong cave, one of the most beautiful Buddhist caves in all of Asia.

We drove to the ancient town of Hoi An, and had a bit of free time to explore the streets before dinner.

Our stay was timed to coincide with the Lantern Festival, when the Old Quarter turns off its street lamps and fluorescent lights, leaving its streets bathed in the warm glow of paper lanterns. After dinner, we walked towards the landmark Japanese Bridge, which was teaming with activity.

We stayed late for night photography until the streets were almost empty.

DAY 5: The next morning, there was a bit of free time before breakfast for checking out the market, just a few blocks from our hotel.

We then headed to My Son to explore the ruins of the vanished Champa Kingdom that ruled over South and Central Vietnam until the 17th century, arriving before all except one tour bus.

Back to Hoi An, we toured a paper lantern and silk workshop where we saw all the stages of silk production, from raising cocoons to embroidery.

After lunchtime, we spent the hottest hours of the day inside for a session where we reviewed images from last night’s session and shared tips to get ready for the next one. We then followed our outstanding local guide Cong for an old quarter town walking tour. We started with the Quan Cong temple.

After another temple visit, we obtained special access to a high vantage point in a private house from which we got a good view of the town’s tile rooftops.

The walking tour concluded inside the Quan Thang house, one of the finest historic houses in town, which is still inhabited.

We then heading towards the riverfront, where we photographed the moon rising at dusk before heading to dinner when it got dark.

Afterwards, we welcomed a second chance to photograph the Lantern Festival activities.

Part 2 of 5: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

Since I am currently in Vietnam for the holidays, that’s as good a time as any to start a series of postings about the 2012 Vietnam photo tour. Those postings will illustrate all the sites that we visited during the tour, using images I took during the tour, with the goal of providing past participants precise location information, and prospective participants a good idea of the locations covered.

Let me start that by thanking our photography participants Alan, Barry, Faye, Kendra, Mark, Ron, Vicci, as well as non-photographers Barbara, Deborah, Guity, Fahemeh, Kim-Quyen, and Sally, for making the tour a success. I enjoyed your company. It was a pleasure to work with such fine photographers and people.

DAY 1: we attended the noon ceremony in the Great Cao Dai Temple (also called Cao Dai Holy See) in Tay Ninh to learn about this home-brewed syncretic religion.

Upon return to Ho Chi Minh City, we visited the atmospheric Jade Emperor Pagoda in late afternoon.

DAY 2: In the morning, we visited the Thien Hau Pagoda in Cholon.

We entered the watery world of the Mekong Delta with a ride on the Mekong from Ben Tre and then on a sampan in a narrow canal of Phoenix Island

On the way, we stopped at a family-run facility where coconut candy is made and wrapped by hand.

The day ended with a sunset over flooded rice fields, and then a river on the way to Can Tho.

DAY 3: We were in position on a bridge before sunrise to capture a distant view of the Cai Rang floating market in Can Tho.

Afterwards, we got in our own boat to explore the floating market from the water, even boarding one of the merchant boats.

We left the boat and we photographed inside the nearby Cai Rang market.

At the highway lunch stop, we sampled some interesting foods were. Upon returning to the Majestic Hotel in Ho Chi Minh City, there was a choice between a technical photography presentation or free time in the afternoon.

In the evening, we took in a panoramic view of Saigon and its notorious traffic from the terrace of the Rex hotel and from the plaza in front of the People’s committee building (former city hall).

Part 1 of 5: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

During the last two weeks of September, many photographers travel to Colorado to catch the fall foliage the state is deservedly known for. They congregate mostly in places such as the San Juan Mountains or Rocky Mountains National Park. I was in Colorado too, however I was looking in other places, part of my quest to photograph each of the National Parks in different seasons.

Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park

On the canyon rim of Black Canyon of the Gunnison, color is mostly provided by scrub and gambal oak, both low growing shrubs. All the trees visible on the rim are conifers, however looking down the canyon revealed a few deciduous trees on the slopes and along the river which formed dots of color. As it dropped in elevation, there was more dense color along the seldom visited East Portal road than anywhere else in the park, including a few sizeable clusters of aspen.

Great Sand Dunes National Park

The Great Sand Dunes themselves are devoid of trees. One of the factors that make those dunes unique is the presence of a creek at their foot. Medano Creek is dry in the fall, but its flow in the spring and summer is enough to sustain a riparian environment with cottonwoods that turn golden in late September.

Mesa Verde National Park

Mesa Verde wasn’t a place I expected to find fall color. I remembered that due to high elevation, the ruins which form the main attraction of the park are surrounded by conifers. However the mesas and gently slopping canyons at lower elevations, from the park entrance to Far View, are covered with shrubs. They unexpectedly turned the whole landscape crimson towards the end of September, almost like Alaska or New England hillsides.

The third objective of my September trip was to create some seasonal images (first was night photography, second was further explorations of Canyonlands). I found it satisfying to make my own discoveries rather than photographing vast expenses of color in places which are well known for them.

Canyonlands National Park is divided into three districts of distinct character by the Green and Colorado rivers: the Island in the Sky, the Needles, the Maze. Even at the most developed district, Island in the Sky, no water is available outside of the visitor center. The most primitive district is the Maze. Since I had not visited it before, one of the main goals of this trip was to remedy this situation, as I endeavor to visit each distinct area of each National Park.

Driving into the Maze requires a high-clearance, four-wheel drive vehicle. Not any vehicle: most SUVs won’t make it without damage. Local favorites seem to be older Toyota Land Cruisers (with lift and special tires) and Jeep Rubicon/Wranglers. The most remote road-side location in the Maze, the Doll House, requires 9 hours of driving from Moab – only 2 hours less than from Los Angeles to Moab – although it is only 35 miles as the crow flies. There are no roads within the park, nor bridges that directly link the three districts, so you have to go around the park. Once you are inside the park, you have to contend with some extremely difficult four-wheel drive roads, where driving over rocks is barely faster than walking. It’s not a good place for an inexperienced four-wheel drive driver to travel solo. A tow-truck rescue costs thousands of dollars.

Fortunately, there is a shortcut. Instead of riding a bumpy road all day, you can access the Doll House by the river. Floating down the Colorado River down to its confluence with the Green River is fairly popular, however most paddlers prefer to get a ride upstream. Two companies which provide such a service are: Tag (which I used. Cost: $250) and Tex. The boats which pick up padders can also drop off and pick up backpackers.

I did not want to drive to the Canyonlands Visitor visitor center (one hour away) just to get a wilderness permit, but although the rangers at Arches were not aware of that, the owner of Tag told me that I could get one at the headquarters on the outskirts of Moab (2282 Resource Boulevard). After photographing at sunrise in Arches National Park, I got there at opening time (8am), paid the helfty $30 fee, and was on my way. For people with a vehicle, there are only three campsite sites at the Doll House, which are often claimed, but as a backpacker there were little restrictions over where I could sleep.

The ride on the Colorado River from Potash to the Confluence takes only about two hours and half. Besides the interesting river-level views, it is quite a thrill. The specialty boat, propelled by jet, speeds over 30 mph on calm waters. It needs to make sharp turns, not only to follow the meandering river, but also to avoid sand bars, during which it leans dramatically. All the talk on board was about an accident that occurred a week before my trip, when a jet boat struck a sand bar resulting in injuries to eight people, the first accident of that type in Canyonlands.

The boat dropped me off at Spanish Bottom, shortly after the Confluence. The well-established trail to the Doll House is only slightly more than a mile, but it gains a thousand feet of elevation from the river, and I was carrying a fair amount of gear (including two full-size tripods) and a gallon of water. Guides that I met at the Spanish Bottom thought that this not may be enough, and generously left a water jug for me. I eventually didn’t need it, probably because after the breeze from the jetboat speed, the September heat felt so oppressive that instead of hiking the trail to the Doll House in mid-day heat, I took a nap to wait for it to be in the shade.

I arrived at the Doll House in the afternoon. It was beautiful and I appreciated the feeling of isolation, especially at night where no artificial light was visible.

As it reminded me of Chessler Park in the Needles district, with its whimsical brightly colored spires encircling a meadow-like flat, I wished I had more time to explore the area further, in particular the area called the Maze, which gave its name to the whole district. However when I made the booking for my trip with Tag-a-long, there was some miscommunication, as only two people in the company would have been able to arrange my custom itinerary properly. I got to spent only one night there, since there were no pick-ups the next days. Besides wandering the Doll House, I had time only to check out the trail to Behive Arch, the Surprise Valley overlook (first image) and an ancient granary.

I plan to return – maybe even next year – with a proper vehicle.

More images of Canyonlands National Park
More images of Maze District

This is a review of the Nikon 14-24 f/2.8 lens from the point of view of a Canon user. However, Nikon users will find the sections about filters and focus shift of interest as well.

Canon has many great lens offerings, but their area of weakness has long been the wide-angles. Both the two Canon wide angle zooms deliver unimpressive performance unless stopped down at least two stops, and even though the corners are significantly trailing in sharpness compared to central areas.

On the other hand, the Nikkor AF-S 14-24mm f/2.8G ED is considered by many as the best wide-angle zoom ever made. As I was looking for an ultra-wide angle lens that I could use wide open for night photography, I looked at the 14-24. It is an expensive lens (currently $2000 at Amazon), fraught with several drawbacks, but consider that the Canon 14mm/2.8 costs more, and in those comparisons was clearly inferior, and suddenly it becomes a reasonable proposition.

A bulky lens

The 14-24 is quite big and heavy. It weights a bit over two pounds (969g), has a front diameter and length of about 5″. The front element is curved like a fish-eye lens – although this is a rectilinear lens, making it quite exposed, and rendering the use of filters difficult (more on that later). It looks like Nikon set out to design an exceptional wide-angle lens (they succeeded) with a no-compromise design. Canon users will notice that both infinity focus and longest focal length are on the left, whereas on Canon lenses they are on the right. Here a picture of the Canon 16-35 and the Nikon 14-24 side by side. Notice the size difference of the lens caps !

A great optical performer

The good news is that in my own testing, as expected, the 14-24 outperformed the Canon 16-35/f2.8 II. Here is one image example. Canon 16-35 on top, Nikon 14-24 at the bottom, both 16mm, f/2.8. Note better correcting of vignetting with the Nikon.

Here an actual pixels crop from the left end of the skyline. Note how much sharper the Nikon is.

To guard against sample-to-sample variation – always a problem as my previous testing has shown -, I tested two samples of each lens. Needless to say, I kept sample B. Here are the Imatest results (the most reliable way to measure lens performance, see this post for an explanation of numbers and methodology). Note that the results stopped down underestimate the real performance of the 14-24 because I didn’t refocus the lens (more on this later). In each graph, is Canon on top row, Nikon on bottom row (marked as “50mm” by software because no EXIF data is available to the Canon body from the Nikon lens).

Flare resistance of the 14-24 is excellent. Here is an example with the sun in the frame:

Focus shift

Extracting the absolute best performance from the 14-24 is tricky because this lens suffers from “focus shift”, which means that as you stop down the lens, the focus point changes slightly. So if you are going to shoot at f/5.6, you should focus the lens at f/5.6 because if you focus at f/2.8, once you stop down to f/5.6, the lens will be ever slightly out of focus. Focusing at f/5.6 is more difficult than at f/2.8 because the image is dimmer and the DOF is larger (making the in-focus/out-of-focus transition more difficult to see), but at 100% liveview on the 5D mark 3 it is possible – The 5D mark 2 made it even easier. On the other hand, liveview on the D800 leaves much to be desired. From what I’ve seen so far, focus shift is a subtle effect – the shift is even different in the center area and the corners – but one can be readily observed by pixel-peeping or measuring resolution targets. However, I’ve read somewhere the claim that it can cut effective resolution in half in some circumstances. From an optical point of view, it is a quite curious effect, so I may elaborate on it in a future post. Fortunately, I bought the lens primarily for night photography, when I would be using it wide open all the time, so it hasn’t been a real issue for me. I focus the lens at infinity, wide-open, while there is still enough light, and tape the focus ring.

Filters

The 14-24 doesn’t come with filter threads, and the huge curved front element makes it more difficult to use them. However, there are a few solutions developed by ingenious small manufacturers. They are all quite expensive and bulky, but they work.

• Lee filters was the first to introduce a custom holder and filters specifically for this lens, the SW150 Filter Holder Kit based on 150mm square filters. It works fine for density filters (including grads), but doesn’t include a polarizing filter. Several photographers use a square polarizing filter from Cavision which needs custom fitting.
• Lucroit, in collaboration with Hi-Tech, the long-standing Lee competitor, has created a 165mm square filter modular system which can be used on almost any lens. Here’s the Lucroit kit for the 14-24.
• If you want to use circular, screw-on filters (including ND and polarizer), the most compact and least expensive solution is the Fotodiox system. The filter diameter is a large 145mm. It still adds considerable bulk: this will not fit in any camera bag ! Being all metal, it also weights almost a pound, making the 14-24 as heavy as a 70-200/2.8, and equally front-heavy. On the upside, this system provides additional protection for the lens and includes a solid metal screw-on cap. The Fotodiox system isn’t designed for a square filter, but you could hand-hold or tape one in front of it (if you tried to do so on the bare lens, this wouldn’t work as some light would get on the filter from behind because of the petal hood).

You can see below how bulky the Fotodiox system is, and how large a 145mm lens cap is compared to a 82mm lens cap: 82mm isn’t small (complaints were heard when Canon increased the 16-35/2.8 filter size from 77mm), yet it looks puny in comparison.

Using a Nikon G lens on Canon

Canon re-designed their lens mount from scratch in 1987 with the EOS system. As a result, it has two favorable characteristics: the shortest flange focal distance (distance between the mounting metal ring and the image plane) as well as the largest diameter of any of the major SLR systems. This makes it possible to use adapters to mount other brand’s lenses on Canon EOS, while the reverse is not possible.

In older Nikon lenses, the aperture is controlled by a mechanical ring. Inexpensive adapters work well for them. The 14-24 is a “G” lens without an aperture ring. The aperture is set by the camera body through the lens mount, so you need an additional lever to control the aperture, otherwise the lens would stay wide-open. Photographer Mark Welsh designed the first such adapter, which after a few iterations, was eventually manufactured by Novoflex. It is expensive, but it is precision-made, and the fit is perfect. The instructions suggest that you remove the lens weatherproofing ring, but this isn’t necessary. It just makes the operation of the aperture lever smoother. With the lens weatherproofing ring in place, fine control of the lever to 1/3 of stop is still possible, but it requires more force. Here’s a picture of the 12-24 with the adapter:

On a Canon body, you loose autofocus, which in itself is no big deal, but you need to remember to focus the lens. Mark Welsh sells on his site a version of the adapter with a chip that enables AF-confirmation. The problem is that the chip is merely glued to the adapter, and mine fell off (you can still see the glue marks in the picture above). Metering works normally in Aperture Priority and Manual modes, except that maybe because evaluative metering lacks information, it tends to be a bit erratic, resulting in frequent overexposure of up to +1 f-stop – easy enough to correct if you can reshoot. The difference in operation is that when you stop down the lens, it is actually stopped down all the time, whereas a normal lens stops down only at the time of exposure. It’s kind of like having the DOF preview button pressed permanently. Older PC and tilt-shift lenses with no aperture coupling (prior to the Canon TSE lenses for EOS) had to be operated this way. You set the aperture wide-open to compose and get initial focus, then stop down and refine focus and aperture with Live View. That workflow is pretty effective on a tripod, although a bit slow, but doesn’t work well for hand-held shooting. In fact, this workflow may be the best way of extracting maximum resolution from the 14-24 even for Nikon users, because of “focus shift” as described above.

To see some images made with the 14-24 mounted on a Canon EOS 5D mark 3, check my previous blog entry Southwest tour under changing moon phases.

During the two last weeks of September, I took a road trip in the Southwest. One of my goals was to create landscape photographs by night in the National Parks. It was productive, but tiring. In the days of film, sensitivity was too low for stars (unless you wanted trails, which I am not that interested in), so you got to sleep between dusk and dawn. Not anymore with high-ISO abilities of recent digital cameras and lenses, which let you photograph in almost total darkness ! I started my trip under a new moon, and finished it with a full moon. I wanted images where the landforms would be clearly visible, instead of just being silhouettes against the starry sky. This involved a range of strategies depending on the phase of the moon that I’ll illustrate with a dozen of images in chronological order. Let’s take a quick tour of the Southwest National Parks by night.

I started the project with the Bristlecone Pine trees of Great Basin National Park. Since they are the oldest living things, I liked the idea of photographing them with the ancient light of stars. Great Basin is far from major population centers, so its skies are exceptionally dark. However, I wasn’t off to the best start for this project. As I headed by nightfall up the 1-hour trail to the grove, I was met halfway by a team of filmmakers/photographers who were hiking down. It turned out that they had set time-lapse sequences for a NPS-funded project. They asked me not to disturb them with a headlamp. The trail was dark, since there was no moon. I agreed to come back only in the later part of the night, when their sequences would be finished. I got up before 3am, but it takes a long time to find a subject in the dark, then refine your images. By the time I was done composing this photograph, the sky was already starting to lighten, and the Milky Way was long gone. Since my dark time was so short, instead of deploying my own lights, I used the light of a lantern the team had placed more than a hundred yards away. Canon 5Dmk3, Nikkor 14-24, f/2.8 15s ISO 6400 (more on this lens in the next blog post).

The next night, I resumed photographing Bristlecone Pine trees, but this time in Bryce Canyon National Park. The moonless night is the best for letting the Milky Way and stars shine brightly, but the landscape is usually too dark. However, for this shot, there was a bit of light pollution, from distant artificial light sources, that was enough to cast a bit of light on the canyon. Since this was enough to give a sense of place, I chose to let the tree be seen as silhouette rather than lighting it. Canon 5Dmk3, Nikkor 14-24, f/2.8 30s ISO 6400

In Capitol Reef National Park, I photographed the landmark Castle. The visitor center lights were enough to accent the opposite cliffs, but not the more distant Castle, so I lighted the sizeable rock formation using a very bright (1000+ lumens) LED torch that was held by a tripod and clamp, as I photographed from a point of view hundreds of yards away to create some cross-lighting. Canon 5Dmk3, 24/1.4, f/1.4 20s ISO 3200

Looking up at the depth of the cosmos through Double Arches in Arches National Park was a magic experience. I lit the arch at a much closer distance. I could have easily illuminated it very brightly with the LED torch, but I used instead a 200 lumens camping lantern because it looked more natural to lit it just enough to bring out some detail, but not overwhelm the stars. I adjusted the illumination by varying the position of the lantern until it felt right, rather than relying on unpredictable and difficult-to-reproduce light painting. Canon 5Dmk3, Nikkor 14-24, main frame f/2.8 30s ISO 6400. Although not strictly necessary, I blended it in a secondary frame exposed at 4min ISO 800 to reduce noise in the arch for a higher-quality print

The Maze District of Canyonlands National Parks (more in a future blog post) is one of the most remote areas in the continental US. It gets seriously dark there. The dim light on the rock formations of the Dollhouse is natural. It came from a combination of thin 1st quarter crescent moon, which was appearing for the first time since the beginning of my trip, and residual dusk glow. Canon 5Dmk3, Nikkor 14-24, f/2.8 30s ISO 6400

One day made quite a difference, as the moon was already high in the sky when I photographed Skyline Arch in Arches National Park the next day, shortly after sunset. There was a measure of balance, as it illuminated the whole landscape, but still left many stars visible. During the first quarter, the moon is present only during the first part of the night. This leaves you with options to photograph either a moonlit landscape or a dark landscape with very bright stars, after moonset. Canon 5Dmk3, Nikkor 14-24, f/2.8 30s ISO 6400

After making the previous image, I drove to the Devil’s Garden trailhead. The parking lot is usually full during the day, and the trail packed -as it is only 1.5 miles RT and flat. It was rewarding to see no nobody else there as I hiked to Landscape Arch, the longest natural arch in the world, 290 feet. The day was hot, but the temperature was perfect by night for hiking in T-shirt. I turned of my light to revel in the experience. Although the moon had set, the faint light of the stars was enough to follow the well-maintained wide trail – which felt adventurous to follow in those conditions – and to make out the rock formations. It was too dim to reveal any details in the arch, so I used again the camping lantern to light the span in a subtle way while keeping the Milky Way the brightest object in the photograph. Canon 5Dmk3, Nikkor 14-24, f/2.8 30s ISO 6400 & 4min ISO 800

The next day, I hiked to the False Kiva in Canyonlands National Park, just in time to get there shortly before sunset. A Kiva refers in Hopi to a circular structure built by Pueblo Indians for religious purposes. It is a “False Kiva” because excavation had shown that the structure was used for daily activities rather than rituals. Yet, the extraordinary setting inside an isolated alcove hidden in a cliff confers to the site a spiritual atmosphere. The improbable and adventurous trail leading to the location adds to the mystique. Per NPS directives stating that “Class II site locations may only be disclosed to the public when visitors request the information by site name, photograph or description .. when visitors receive locational information about Class II sites, they must also be instructed in how to behave when visiting the sites”, the location is not publicized, however it is known to many photographers through the work of Tom Till and the description provided by Laurent Martres in “Photographing the Southwest”. A helpful ranger at the Island in the Sky Visitor Center provided me with precise directions from the Alcove Spring trailhead near Upheaval Dome, then wrote my name in a register. After sunset, only few stars where visible when I photographed the False Kiva illuminated by the high moon. Canon 5Dmk3, Nikkor 14-24, f/2.8 15s ISO 400 & 20s ISO 1600

I enjoyed the near-absolute silence and stillness of the sheltered alcove, except when I got out of it to eat my dinner. A few hours later, the moon got lower in the sky and dimmer. Interestingly, although this is not visible to the human eye, just like the sun, its light also became warmer. I chose the moment just before it was going to disappear behind the cliff to create this second image. Like for the first one, it is lit only by the moon. Canon 5Dmk3, Nikkor 14-24, f/2.8 30s ISO 1600

One more hour, and the moon had set. I used my hiking headlamp to illuminate indirectly the scene, by bouncing the light against a side of the alcove. I left the False Kiva around 2.45am. In spite of the dark night, I lost the social trail only a couple of times, as it was well cairned, getting to the car at 3.45am. Canon 5Dmk3, Nikkor 14-24, f/2.8 30s ISO 6400 & 15min ISO 400

At Great Sand Dunes National Park, the moon was already half-full. At this point, a night photograph is fairly similar to a full-day photograph, except that stars are sill visible in the sky – I underexposed slightly to retain the sense of darkness. The night before, I had skipped night photography as the sky was totally overcast, so there were no stars to give a sense of night. After sunset, the sky, which had been cloudy, began to clear, so I proceeded to hike up the dunes at 10pm to photograph, enjoying the vastness and solitude. Canon 5Dmk3, 24/1.4, f/2.0 15s ISO 1600

At Grand Canyon National Park, the moon was more than half-full. Although this is great for a stroll, normally this is my least favorite circumstance for night photography, as with a proper exposure, the images look almost like daytime, with only a bit of mystery added. However, the presence of the Desert View Watchtower added interest. As the building was illuminated, it stood out against the darker landscape, its lights actually providing the nocturne impression. At sunset, there was a crowd which shocked me, as it had been a decade and half since I last visited the South Rim. I could not even find a suitable spot to photograph on the rim and had to scramble down the canyon a bit. Everybody had vanished an hour later, by the time the tower stood out the best against the landscape. Canon 5Dmk3, 24 TSE, f/4.0 30s ISO 800

During those two weeks, I photographed at many National Parks locations, some quite obscure, some bustling with visitors by day. Yet, in the later case, the solitude and quiet afforded by the night had restored some of the sense of awe and wonder that I experienced there during my initial visits, some decades ago. I hope to have conveyed a bit of that mystery through those photographs, and I hope that they will inspire you to venture and explore nights in wild places for yourself.

Summer 2012 issue of Black Card Mag (the luxury lifestyle magazine for holders of the exclusive credit cards for the 1%) opened with a 24-page travel feature about the US National Parks. Yellowstone, Olympic, Arches, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Rocky Mountain, Crater Lake, Denali, Glacier, and Everglades are introduced with a brief description, not-to-miss highlight, and places to stay. The article features my images and is complemented by a short profile that you can read below.

Eliot Porter was to color photography what Ansel Adams was to black-and-white. The jacket flap of one his books published in 1970 simply stated “Eliot Porter is recognized as the finest color photographer alive today”. It can be argued that Porter was not only the first color nature photographer, but also the first major artist working in the medium of color photography, a decade before “early colorists” Saul Leiter and Fred Herzog, and more than two decades before William Eggleston.

Eggleston began to experiment with dye-transfer printing in 1973, but Porter had worked in the early 1940s with an even more complicated precursor, the washoff-relief process, which was so obscure that Porter – who was initially a research scientist with a MD degree from Harvard – had to obtain information about it in research papers. Dye transfer allowed a fine control of hue, saturation, and contrast which Porter would use to make highly expressive prints. In those early days, technical challenges of color photography were such that Porter’s photographs were a supreme technical achievement. From an artistic point of view, besides seeing in color, Porter broke away from the sublime emphasized by Ansel Adams expansive romantic views of the landscape, striving instead for intimacy and abstraction, and defining the genre of “intimate landscapes”.

Books of color photography are nowadays omnipresent, but it was not always so. There was a first, and it was Eliot Porter who lead the way in 1962 with In Wildness, the pioneering “coffee table” book. It has since then spawned an entire industry which also includes nature posters and greeting cards. Its success led him to eventually publish more than 25 books. At the time of his death, in 1990, in terms of publications, public and institutional acclaim, influence on other photographers and on the environmental movement, Porter stood apart. Yet, for reasons I am not sure, in the 21st century, Porter’s reputation seems to have faded to the point that none of his books remain in print as of this writing. However In Wildness is coming back soon, and a new catalog from the Getty Museum, Eliot Porter: In the Realm of Nature is announced for this fall. Fortunately, so many of his books were sold that most titles can readily be found on used-books websites at prices that are a bargain.

In Wildness Is the Preservation of the World

In the 1940s, Porter began a personal project to photograph forests, ponds, leaves, and wildflowers in the Eastern woods, introducing a more intimate window on nature, in color and soft hues, in which he looked for the transcendental as he was reading Thoreau at the suggestion of his wife. When David Brower accepted the proposal from Porter to publish the project as his first book, the Sierra Club did not skimp on its production. Raising $40,000 ($300,000 in today’s currency), they printed out a large (10×13) and heavy book – part of the “exhibit format series” which had started with This is American Earth, possibly Ansel Adams most important and famous book. In Wildness consisted of 72 large format color photographs of the New England woods, reproduced as well as they could be at that time, using four-color lithography and a special varnish only on the photo pages which used Kromekote paper. Each of them is cleanly paired with a quotation from Henry David Thoreau – printed on the left opposite page and served by great typography – which matches the image in spirit. First published in 1962, the book was an instant sensation, selling close to 60,000 copies – more than This is American Earth. To understand the magnitude of this success, notice that the cost of the book was $25. This is $188 in 2012 currency. The book revolutionized the publishing industry by setting new standards for designing and printing fine art photography books, and proving that there was a market for them. It earned the Sierra Club an international reputation as a publisher of fine books, and helped expend their audience (for a thorough exposition, see the book chapter The Sierra Club and Coffee Table books). Published in the same year as Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, and delivering a complementary message, the book had a lasting effect on the nascent conservation movement. Besides establishing Porter’s reputation as the pioneer of color photography, and effectively launching his career, the public’s positive response to In Wildness showed him that he could use photography to make people aware of nature’s beauty without compromising his artistic goals. This transformed him into an active conservationist. In Wildness would remain in print for decades. According to the Amnon Carter Museum, more than one million copies were sold. I remember purchasing a used copy in the first month after I moved to Berkeley in 1993, and keeping it at my bedside for weeks, as I found it incredibly inspiring, even with the diminished power of the paperback edition. Porter’s images showed to me that beauty could be found in the most humble scenes, and revealed by a honest representation without excessive effects. I eventually bought a copy of the first hardcover edition, which is more satisfactory with its large size and more vivid reproductions. Yet, there is no doubt that book printing has improved considerably since then. Comparing side by side, the reproduction of the original cover image (“Pool in a Brook, Brook Pond, New Hampshire, October 4, 1953”) looks better in Intimate Landscapes (1979) and Eliot Porter (1987). With that in mind, I had good hopes for the 50th anniversary edition released by Ammo books in Nov 2012, but didn’t purchase a copy after seeing that Michael Johnston and Geoff Wittig gave it a thumbs down: “In comparison with the original first edition, which I have, the reproduction in the reissue looks like bad color Xeroxes”. The link at the top of this entry points to the first 1962 edition, which is somehow difficult to locate amongst all the amazon links for various editions.

The Place No One Knew, Glen Canyon on the Colorado

Unlike his first one, the second book of Eliot Porter was to be part of an environmental campaign – to stop construction of the Glen Canyon Dam. Unlike the gentle woods were Porter spent much of his early years, it depicts the more striking and harsh geology of the Southwest where Porter would live for the second half of his life after his move to Santa Fe. This setting, and the stronger light yields some of Porter’s most colorful and abstracted photographs. The influential conservation photographer Robert Glenn Ketchum considers this work to be the pinnacle of Porter’s career, because “he was free in those canyons to give service to his science and his documentation and still be in abstraction heaven”. The book is all the more precious because it is an eulogy. It came too late to affect public opinion and prevent the flooding, although it did result in federal review of reclamation projects on western rivers and the eventual passage of the Wilderness Act in 1964. Therefore, when looking at the vibrantly colored photographs of gulches, rock walls, and hidden canyons carved by the Colorado and San Juan Rivers, one cannot help remembering that those treasures would never be seen again. The book design – by David Brower himself – and format are identical to In Wildness, making it almost a companion volume. The design used in the Sierra Club Exhibit series has varied over the years, but all the Porter books in the series present images with adequate white margins, consistent placement, and no gutter overlap, although the print quality appears to have degraded over the years. A compelling writer who would often share the circumstances of his photography adventures and educate about their subjects, Porter wrote the text in the opening and concluding pages. He selected the quotations facing the photos from a variety of writers to face the photos instead of just one.

Summer Island: Penobscot country

This is the most personal of all Porter’s books. His father had bought Great Spruce Head Island, accessible by an hour boat ride in the Penobscot Bay of Maine, where “there was nothing anywhere that was unnecessary; nothing; whether the work of man or nature that existed without a purpose”. The summers that he spent there were the source of his love of nature and photography. The book is divided in two equal parts. In the first part, autobiographical texts are mixed with early black and white photographs of Penobscot Bay. The second part, in the spirit of the two first Porter Books, consists of color photographs in Porter’s mature style, mixed with short literary quotations from more than a dozen of authors. Published in 1966, this was the third book by Porter in the Sierra Club Exhibit series. Twenty years later, in 1986, Porter revisted the place closest to his heart by compiling unpublished images into a new book Maine where he lets the photography do all the speaking – there is little text besides a short opening autobiographical essay – in a clean NYGS/Eleanor Caponigro design.

Antarctica

Maine and the Eastern forests were Porter’s first stomping grounds. He then explored extensively the Southwest where he relocated, but his sense of adventure led Porter to expend his horizons to exotic locales as diverse as Baja California, the Galapagos, Africa, Greece, and China, each trip resulting in a book. But none location was as remote as Antarctica, which he visited on two trips in 1974 and 1975. At that time, no commercial trips were available, but Porter had been selected as an artist-in-residence by the National Science Foundation, which provided him transportation and logistics that allowed him to work in a large array of locations for several months. The book consists of an extensive travelogue supported by maps. In between written chapters, there are six photo sections which illustrate diverse aspects of Antarctica, including wildlife as well as landscapes – both ground and aerials – and even historic settlements. Porter was remarkably fit for his age, however he was 74 during those expeditions. Because of the difficult working conditions, he used a 35mm camera for much of this work, which sometimes compromised a bit the quality of reproduction compared with his older books, although in most cases with his later books, the printing was too contrasty.

Birds of North America: A Personal Selection

Porter had been photographing birds since his early years, but in 1939 a publisher rejected his bird book proposal because he thought that color was essential for bird identification. This was the impetus that prompted Porter to take up of the challenge of color photography. To fully appreciate it, remember that Porter was working with a 4×5 camera, a few feet from some birds, and the speed of the initial Kodachrome was a ridiculously low ISO 5. With the support of a Guggenheim grant, using custom lighting equipment and building towers, Porter was able to make color bird pictures which were good enough to be the subject of a solo exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1943. Those are far more interesting than the visual simple contemporary bird photographs with a blurred background captured with AF, super-teles, and fast frame rates, and high ISO. Instead, Porter portrays the birds at close-range, in their natural nesting environment with exquisite colors and textures revealed by great resolution and depth of field. Despite artistic recognition, the book had to wait because of the high cost of color quality color reproduction. It wasn’t until 1972, long after gaining success with his non-bird photographs, that Porter would publish that book about his first photographic love. It consists of a five-chapter narrative about his time in the field as a caring bird photographer, (“the steps necessary to safeguard the welfare and even the lifes of the subjects may take up more time than the photography itself”) mixed with seven groups of full-page photos – 64 in color, 16 in black and white.

Intimate Landscapes

In 1979 the work of Eliot Porter was exhibited in Intimate Landscapes, the first one-person show of color photography at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. This exhibition earned Porter praise as the individual who brought credibility to color photography as a medium of fine art. The image selection defined what is now meant by the term “intimate landscape”: the close-range, quiet compositions of natural elements with muted colors and dense textures, meditative and dense with layered meanings, which were the hallmark of Porter’s work at the exclusion of more expansive and spectacular landscapes. The book is the catalog of this landmark exhibition, well printed (although maybe too muted) and flawlessly designed by Eleanor Morris Caponigro in an understated way which fits perfectly the work. Curator Weston Naef authors one of the first essays on Porter, describing him as “captivated by colors that had not yet been named”. Except for a few, all the images are in vertical orientation, therefore fitting the format of the book well. Unlike others, this book has become collectible, with no reprints available, so there are no inexpensive copies.

Eliot Porter’s Southwest *

Long before bursting on the scene with the color photographs of “In Wildness” in 1962, Porter had become a recognized black and white photographer through a body of work which is now mostly forgotten. His black and white photographs were exhibited at Steiglitz “An American Place” art gallery in 1938 – not an insignificant honor since Ansel Adams and Paul Strand were the only other photographers represented there -, prompting him to leave science and devote himself to photography full-time. In 1980, Janet Russek who Porter had hired to help catalog his photographs, came across boxes of pictures that she did not recognize. There were hundreds of unpublished images taken in New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and Utah from 1939 to 1962. This 1985 book, the only one devoted to Porter’s black and white work, consists of a selection of 90 of those images, covering an unexpectedly large range of subjects.

Eliot Porter

The book was published in 1987 on the occasion of Porter’s first major retrospective at the Amon Carter museum, to which Porter would later bequeath his entire work, which is available to view at the extensive Eliot Porter online collection guide. It opens with a 75-page autobiographical memoir which ranges from his early years, move to Santa Fe, work with the Sierra Club, to his later exotic travels. Porter remembers a pivotal encounter early in his career: “The other photographer turned out to be Ansel Adams, of whom I had never heard… After dinner, I was asked to show my pictures, which I did with a certain amount of self-satisfaction. Ansel Adams looked at them but said nothing, and then showed his. That was a traumatic and embarrassing experience; I saw immediately how vastly superior his photographs were to mine, and how little I know about photography technically, or what its potential was for creative expression … Sensing my embarrassment, Ansel Adams tried to encourage me, suggesting that my photography could be improved by using a larger format camera.” The memoir concludes with an epilogue: “But before all else a work of art is the creation of love. Love for the subject first and for the medium second. Love is the fundamental necessity underlying the need to create, underlying the emotion that gives it form, and from which grows the unfinished product that is presented to the world. Love is the general criterion by which the rare photograph is judged. It must contain it to be not less than the best of which the photographer is capable”. The plate section presents a selection from all his projects, including not only color natural landscapes, but also early black and white work and bird photographs, and later foreign cultural work, which even includes a few portraits. Excellent reproductions and design (also by Eleanor Morris Caponigro) make it the best introduction to Porter’s work.

Nature’s Chaos

When his son gave him James Gleick’s recently published book about chaos theory, Porter felt as if all he intuitively sensed in nature and tried to capture in his photographs, but could not conceptualize scientifically during all his life, was described by complexity sciences and fractal geometry. Science and art, the two strands of his life that had been separated for a long time – despite in background and continued interest – were all of the sudden reconciliated, which brought him much peace. Porter quickly made contact with James Gleick and he validated his intuition as they began to work on this book, his last before he passed away in 1990. Nature’s Chaos was the first book of Eliot Porter that I saw. I bought it during a brief scientific visit to the US in 1991. At that time, as a PhD student in Artificial Intelligence, I was first drawn to the science, but it the photographs that had a lasting impact on me. They opened my eye to the richness, diversity, simplicity and complexity of nature. It remains one of my favorites because the selection of images – almost all previously unpublished – is very cohesive and strong, and as one of the more recent books, it is has some of the best reproductions. “The images selected for this book are mostly details of nature which emphasize how nature’s apparent disorder can be reduced to aesthetically stimulating fragments. Although subjects such as mosses, lichens, or leaves that have just fallen are not orderly at all, when viewed as detailed sections, they become orderly. This process suggests a tension between order and chaos. When I photography, I see the arrangement that looks orderly, but when you consider the subjects as a whole or on a larger scale, they appear disorderly. Only in fragments of the whole is nature’s order apparent.”

The Color of Wildness *

The most comprehensive survey of Porter’s work to date, published in 2001 as a catalog to the centennial exhibition, using the same large trim as In Wildness. Although there are plenty of autobiographical essays in Porter’s books, not too many critical essays were available in previous books. The Color of Wildness include two interesting ones: John Rohrbach addresses Porter’s innovations in photography compared to photographers such as Ansel Adams, while Rebecca Solnit explores its environmental influence. In addition, his son Jonathan memoir discusses Porter’s lifelong love of the natural world, his working methods, and his interests outside of photography. Since this is a relatively recent book, I would have expected excellent reproduction. While most plates are fine, some do suffer from excessive contrast, resulting in blocked shadows. Although Porter used a large format camera, he made small, gem-like dye transfer prints, whose richness is very difficult to reproduce by ink. Maybe the best reproductions so far are in Regarding the Land: Robert Glenn Ketchum and the Legacy of Eliot Porter, which as indicated by the title, is more about RGK than Porter.

I have a half-dozen more books by Eliot Porter on my shelves – of uneven quality I must say – but those are either my favorites (for a variety of reasons), or books that shed a particular light on Porter’s work. Did any other book inspire you ?

Part 3 of 5: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

Big Bend National Park, named after the prominent northward bend in the Rio Grande River, has three distinctive environments: the Chisos Mountains, the desert, and the river. During my previous visit, I spent most of my time in the Chisos Mountains, where the temperatures are much cooler than in the rest of the park. Since this time the desert wasn’t in great shape, I concentrated on the great river.

I returned to the Hot Springs, that I had visited a decade and half ago under overcast skies (this was all I got). Conditions were more promising. As the light of sunset was quickly fading, I scrambled to find a good perspective over the Rio Grande River. The view along the trail to the Hot Springs, at river level, was obscured by vegetation, but I found another steep trail which lead to above the cliffs.

The parking lot had signs warning of frequent car break-ins, due to the proximity of Mexico – just across the River. I nevertheless set up my camera for a timelapse sequence, then left it there all night, figuring out that nobody would come upon the bluff at that time.

In the morning, after photographing sunrise near the Chisos, I came back to retrieve my camera around 7am. The early morning backlight gave the scene a different character.

At the Boquillas Overlook, I saw how easy it is to cross the border between Mexico and the US, which is marked by the river. The Rio Grande is the fifth longest river in the US, but you would not know it is a great river from looking at it here, as it meanders placidly amongst willows. You had just to wade for about 50 yards with the water at less than waist level.

The border officially closed after the 9/11 attacks, nevertheless Mexican nationals from the Boquillas village frequently took quick trips to this side, possibly to maintain the self-service vending spots. Note that although the border itself is porous, all the highways leading from Big Bend National Park are interrupted by checkpoints.

Most trailheads had honor system stands with hand crafted wares sold (at a pretty uniform price) to benefit schoolchildren of Boquillas: bracelets, scorpions made of metal wire, sticks made of cactus wood, and stones.

I walked into the Boquillas Canyon. A man stood on the other side of the river, and would sing you a Mexican serenade for a tip collected by his acolyte using a small boat. I declined to be serenaded, but instead promised to buy some souvenirs for my kids. The temperature was well over 100 F. I drove to the Chisos mountains to cool down, then headed towards Santa Elena Canyon through the Ross Maxwell drive.

I had planned some night photography at the Santa Elena Canyon, but shortly after I arrived, a violent thunderstorm broke out. I waited it out in the car as thunder rumbled at 30 second intervals. By the time the storm was weakening, the road through which I came had become flooded. In the pitch dark night, I chose prudence by staying at the trailhead rather than attempting to drive to the official campground.

In the morning, I found out that Terlinga Creek was overflowing. Since the banks appeared to be full of quick sand and I was by myself with nobody around, I did not try to cross. Instead, I photographed the sunrise over Santa Elena Canyon across the creek. The seemingly modest river had carved a narrow gorge 1,500 feet deep into sheer cliffs.

As I was packing, a ranger drove by. He was surprised that I had made it there. After I told him that I had arrived before the storm, he informed me that the floodwaters were now quite high, and suggested that I abandon my vehicle and get a ride back in his truck. This wasn’t exactly my plan. Instead, I insisted on trying to get back by driving the rental car. I put my camera gear and electronics into his truck, in case the car would get flooded. It didn’t, and I made it back to Castolon while the ranger closed the gates behind us. I found a hose near the Castolon historic store to get rid of the mud stuck to the car, then headed to El Paso airport and home.

More images of Big Bend National Park
More images of Rio Grande River

Part 5 of 5: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

I saw a few cactus blooms from the trail in Guadalupe National Park. Although they were less than a hundred yards away, it took me more than 15 minutes to reach them, because of thorny plants covering the slope. Returning with plenty of scratches, I decided that I’d put more effort into photographing desert plants in Carslbad Caverns, and especially Big Bend. Little did I know that my search for the desert flower would be fruitless, as the desert turned out to be deeply damaged.

Like most, during my two previous visits to Carlsbad Caverns, I had spent almost all of my time inside the cave, as there is so much to see under the ground, while the gently undulating terrain above the ground did not look remarkable at first glance. This time, I was going to have a closer look, since this was an aspect of the park that I thought was overlooked.

While driving the entrance road, even without stopping – there are few pull-outs -, I noticed the slopes of Walnut Canyon looked quite dead. On the first short hike I took, I realized that most of the terrain had burned.

Despite appearances, desert vegetation provide a lot of fuel. I learned later that the fire took place just one year earlier, in June 2011, and that it had burned 30,000 acres, more than the total area of some National Parks.

By coincidence, on that evening, another wildfire raged in the state. Although it blazed in an opposite corner of the state, the smoke obscured the sky, creating an eerie glow long before sunset time.

However, amongst the devastation, life was coming back quickly, in the form of new spring blooms from annuals.

The next day, was a new beginning, as the air was crystal clear. I eventually found some pockets of vegetation that had been spared by the fire. I then drove towards Big Bend, where I had high hopes for photographing desert vegetation, but my rental car began to make strange noises. I insisted on having it replaced, as I didn’t want a break-down in the remote Big Bend. It took me an entire half-day, so I arrived there only the following day.

Big Bend is one of the most diverse deserts in North America, at the convergence of the Great Basin Desert and the Chihuahuan Desert. Late May is normally a good time to see cactus blooms, which emerge only in the warmer months.

However, the desert just didn’t have its usual beauty. I looked for a nice agave to use as a foreground the next sunrise, but to my surprise couldn’t find any. Most yuccas were yellowed. At first, I didn’t make photographs, but then I felt I had to bear witness to all the different moods of nature, regardless of how un-attractive they are.

While looking for cactus blooms, I saw mostly dessicated plants. I assumed that the area must be suffering a prolonged drought, since those desert species are supremely hardy. The nearly indestructible plants such as creosote bush, lechuguilla, and cactus, were succumbing in large numbers.

The rangers confirmed to me that during 2011, only 2.5 inches of rain fell, less than a fifth of normal precipitation. Although less severe, the drought has continued through 2012. It has also contributed to the fire that devastated Carlsbad Caverns, by increasing the amount of dry timber.

Although I remembered clusters of dense and colored blooms all over the place from my 1997 visit, this year it took me a long time just to find a cactus with two meager blooms. If you are planning a spring trip to Big Bend, be sure to inquire about conditions. I don’t know if the Big Bend desert will eventually recover, but from what I’ve seen, I think that scars are going to remain for a long time, especially since vegetation mortality often leads to increased erosion and soil loss. Are we seeing there yet another manifestation of climate change ?

Part 4 of 5: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5