The Terra Galleria Blog – QT Luong

I’ve updated my page of images of Boston with new images from March 2010.

Boston was the first city in the US that I visited, two decades ago. Back in those days, as a computer scientist, we had frequent collaborations with the MIT where I came to give technical talks. About twenty images on the page date from that period. Last March, I went to Boston again to give talks, but this time, it was artist lectures about my photographic projects at a university and museum.

Although I had arrived late in the evening, and gone to bed well past midnight (body time 3am with the jet lag), on the first morning, I got up at 5am to photograph at sunrise from the harbor, knowing that this may be the last time I would see the sun during my stay. It turned out that the weather forecast was right. New England was battered for days by the worst rain storm of the winter.

The combination of near-freezing temperatures, rain, and high winds made it miserable to walk the streets. It was a fair deal of extra work to keep the lens dry, but the weak link was often the photographer. I’d often had to enter a building to warm up, however, this lead me to find a few interesting spaces, such as the Quincy Market, or Harvard’s Memorial Hall. The reward was that wet streets created reflections, especially at night, that made the images more interesting than they would have been in dry weather.

In the cities, there is always this short window of time, around sunset, when no matter what the weather is, for a brief moment between grey and black, the sky turns to a dark blue, and the ambient light still lights up the cityscape enough for it not be overpowered by the lights. On a rainy day, this will be your best scenic opportunity. Do not miss it !

Guadalupe Mountains National Park offers in a compact size a great variety of scenery and juxtapositions, including the highest mountains in Texas, canyons, desert, and sand dunes. The vegetation range from desert plants, to woodland trees whose color in autumn rival New England. Being among the least visited of the parks in the continental US, the park is mostly free of crowds, except maybe in the main canyon during the peak of fall colors. It is not well known amongst nature photographers offering the opportunity to create relatively fresh images.

There are more iconic or productive spots in the park, however since in the past I have featured only relatively well-known sites, this time I will describe an interesting location that I bet you haven’t visited yet.

Undocumented (the NPS map says to call for directions), unmarked, and out of the way, the Salt Basin Gypsum Sand Dunes are one of only two gypsum dune fields in the US. The other is nearby White Sands National Monument, in New Mexico, which is huge, and sees heavy recreational use. The small size of the island of dunes, surrounded by desert scenery and the backdrop of the massive escarpment of the Guadalupe Mountains, create a very different effect of intimacy and solitude. You will not be bothered by footprints. During my visit, in November, I did not meet another person there. The area has been included within the park boundaries only for a decade.

To get there, drive South on US 62 for 23 miles from the visitor center to Salt Falt. Make a right turn and follow county road 1576 for 16 miles, then make another right turn on the access road, driving towards East for 7.5 miles to a parking area before a the locked gate. Hike about 2.5 miles down the dirt road to the dunes. The driving time from the visitor center is about one hour. In 2000, there were no signs and absolutely no facilities (the closest are in Dell City about 4 miles West from the access road).

The clay that makes up the surface of the access road becomes extremely slippery during rainy weather, and would be unsafe to drive. At 3640 feet, the Salt Basin Dunes are lower in elevation than most of the park. They are warm in winter, and very hot in summer. During the spring, high winds can make the area inhospitable, sometimes even obscuring the road with sands.

You will be West of the Guadalupe Range. To capture the dunes in the foreground, with the impressive reef behind, late afternoon to sunset light is the best. When I was there, wispy clouds on the East catched the colors of sunset, so I used only a wide angle to take in the dunes, mountains, and sky. If the sky is not as spectacular, a longer lens could be used to frame the mountains more tightly.

View all images of Guadalupe Mountains National Park
View all images of Salt Basin Sand Dunes

Remoteness makes Big Basin National Park one of the least visited National Parks. The park lies 325 miles from El Paso, the closest major city. The three roads that lead to the park end there. They do not pass through to another location.

A diverse topography, flora, and fauna surprise the visitor who takes the long trip. Three distinct environments are found in the park. The desert, at the edge of the Chihuahuan, offers more variety of cactus than any other desert in North America. The Chisos Mountains, a compact mountain range that is the southernmost in the US, rise to 8000 feet in the center of the park. The canyons of the Rio Grande River form the border with Mexico. Northern trees (such as Aspen and Maple) mix with southern trees (like Pinyon Pine and Juniper). Blooming flora is found in almost every season.

Driving into the Chisos Basin, you experience in a few miles a change from the hot desert to a cool sub-alpine environment. Consider hiking three trails from the Chisos Basin, the Windows Trail, Lost Mine Trail, and South Rim Trail. On the Window Trail, concentrate on close views of the pools and stream, as the view of the Windows is better from the overlook of the same name. The Lost Mine trail (4.5 miles RT) provides good views with a moderate hiking distance.

The South Rim of the Chisos Mountains offer by far the most spectacular panoramic views in the park. From there, the desert below stretches as far as the eye can see into Mexico. Agaves and cactus on the rim form interesting foregrounds. I prefer to photograph those compositions with a wide angle lens such as a 24mm.

The South Rim Trail is 13 miles RT, with an elevation gain of 2000 feet. As the light is often quite flat mid-day, I recommend to camp overnight on the top of the rim to catch both the early morning and late evening light. Although you will meet a springs on your way up, it is probably safer to take all the water you need with you. There are some flat spots, well sheltered by pines, close to the rim. On my outing, I did not bring a tent.

The Chisos are much cooler than the surrounding desert, yet during the summer the temperatures are probably too high to enjoy such a long hike, and thunderstorms may present a hazard on the ridge. When I visited in mid-November, the temperatures were perfect. Winter can bring sub-freezing temperatures to the desert and mountains. The desert blooms in spring, but note that from February to July the southern part of trail is usually closed for peregrine falcon breeding season, which would limit your explorations, although the remaining section of the trail will still offer plenty of superb views.

View all images from South Rim of Chisos Mountains
View all images from Big Bend National Park

I’ve posted new images of the towns of Portsmouth, Walpole, and Concord.

Last March, I found myself again in New England. I had originally planned to travel in the mountains to photograph winter scenes.

It turned out to be the warmest March on record. Places that were normally covered in feet of snow were dry. At least a month away from greening up, the landscape looked bleak. Historically, this was a stark time, when people were running out of food and starving. Bare forests and trees do have a stark beauty, especially under cloudy skies, and you’ll see quite a few of those images in this spring’s installments.

As I also needed to create images with more popular appeal, I chose on that trip to concentrate on towns and villages, since they did not look that different from other seasons.

My favorite town to explore in New Hampshire was Portsmouth, which I found to have a lot of character, as well as variety for such a small town. However, I found each New Hampshire town interesting. Even though the purpose of my visit to Walpole – a village far from usual tourist destinations – was to visit Dayton Duncan and Florentine Films, I was quite taken with the harmony and architectural homogeneity of the place. There is something special about places that have been lived in continuously for a long time.

At the edge of the Painted Desert, erosion is washing away soft badlands to expose fossilized remnants of ancients forests. Petrified Forest National Park is the place to see a large concentration of perfectly preserved trunks, turned cell-by-cell to colorful stone. What makes the park unique is that eroded badlands with a variety of textures and shapes surround the petrified wood.

Of all the badlands areas, the most spectacular may be the Blue Mesa, where petrified logs can also be found in abundance. There, a well-marked one-mile trail leads you from the top of the rim into the bottom of a canyon surrounded by eroded cliffs, providing you with a variety of viewpoints over blue, gray and tan-stripped cliffs.

From the top of the mesa, look for abstract images of erosion patterns. As you come down, check the buttes stripped with colors. Inside the canyon, many logs can be found at the base of the washes. In particular, a gully on the west side of the trail features a chute of logs. Although the light is generally better in the afternoon, that particular gully would be lit in the morning. I waited for it to be fully in the shade of late afternoon. In the evening, the bottom of the canyon is in the shade. The Park is day use only with an exception made for backcountry permit holders. Even though, such a permit does not allow you to drive around after park closure. At sunset, you will need to be in your car, heading for the park exit, but if the conditions are right, it is possible to grab an image of the whole canyon with good light before heading out, especially in the shorter days of winter. I’d avoid visiting in summer, as temperatures can be hot.

View more images of Petrified Forest National Park

Thank you for those who voted on yesterday’s polls about the Potato Harbor sunsets. I am with the majority opinion. I prefer the third image because it looks more natural, as the contrast was down to reasonable levels, while the two other images have a “HDR” look. Of those two, I prefer the first one because of the sun light. Those who ventured to guess the processing techniques got it generally right. I used HDR to handle the more extreme contrast of the first image, and worked manually on the last image. In fact the last image could have been captured in a single exposure but with two images I was able to obtain cleaner tones in the darker areas.

In addition to the three sunsets, I have also posted new images from the trip to Santa Cruz Island on Channel Islands National Park.

While Anacapa Island offers the most spectacular viewpoint (Inspiration Point), one can hike all the Anacapa trails in less than one hour, and all the viewpoints are cliff-top. Santa Cruz Island, over 96 square miles in size and California’s largest island, offers ample room to roam, even though the National Park extends only on the westernmost 25% of the island (the rest is owned and managed by the Nature Conservancy). The topography varies from wide beaches to mountain ranges rising above 2000 feet.

The Scorpion campgrounds, nested in a eucalyptus groves situated in a sheltered canyon, offer a pleasant stay on the island. The closest is only half-a-mile from the landing pier, with water available. Unlike the outer islands (Santa Rosa and San Miguel), which are serviced by Island Packers only from late spring, Santa Cruz Island is accessible year round, so one can come there while the grass is still green and the wildflowers in bloom.

On the first day, we hiked the loop along the bluff through Cavern Point to Potato Harbor. If you stay there for sunset, you can conveniently return in the dark through an old road rather than a trail. On the second day, after a sunrise above Scorpion Harbor, we hiked the Scorpion Canyon loop trail let to explore a bit of the island interior.

On the way to the Island, the boat stopped near a school of dozens of dolphins. Although we traveled to the island on a Thursday, the boat was packed. If you want to get away from the busy Southern California mainland to explore a wonderfully peaceful island, plan your trip now.

Here are three sunset images from my recent trip to Santa Cruz Island, the largest of the five islands that make up Channel Islands National Park.

They were taken at Potato Harbor Overlook, which is reached through a 5-mile RT hike that is the most rewarding in the Scorpion Ranch area. The fjord-like Potato Harbor has a more dramatic shape than the over coves I have seen so far in Channel Island.

As I was photographing straight into the sun, it was necessary to control the contrast, otherwise the sky would have been blown out or the seascape totally dark. On my 5×7 camera film camera, I had no choice but to use a graduated neutral density filter. However, for those digital images (Canon 1Ds III), I preferred to blend multiple exposures in order to avoid the darkening of the cliff on the left which would have resulted from using the filter.

The three images were taken from slightly different viewpoints, 15 minutes before sunset, at sunset, and 15 minutes after sunset, respectively.

Which image do you prefer ? (click link for poll)

I used three different techniques to blend the exposures. One of the images was blended using directly Photoshop’s HDR function (except for the water, where this created nasty ghosting artifacts). The two other images were done by superimposing (using layers) a bright image over a dark image, and then adjusting locally the transparency of the bright image. For the first, I selected the brightest areas using a luminosity mask, that I then erased. The advantage of luminosity masks is that they produce continuous, gradual selections that don’t result in visible transitions or halos. For the other image, I worked entirely manually, erasing the upper layer by hand with the eraser tool, with the brush set to hardness 0.

Are you able to tell
which one was processed most automatically (Photoshop HDR) ?
which one was processed less automatically (just the eraser) ?

Mesa Verde National Park includes the best-preserved and most notable Ancient Pueblo cliffs dwellings in the country, which bear witness to the most developed civilization in Ancient America.

Cliff Palace is not only the largest cliff-dwelling in Mesa Verde (and in North America) it is also the one that offers the most varied photographic opportunities.

You can photograph Cliff Palace in the shade (with reflected light) in the morning, but it also receives direct sun in the afternoon. There are great views of Cliff Palace from Mesa Top Loop across the Cliff Canyon (the light if better in the afternoon) and from the top overhang under which it nests. You can include the canyon for context, or focus on the ruins. You can also take a tour for closer views from the approach trail, and from the structure itself.

The only limitation is that the Cliff Palace Loop is closed in winter, during which time no tours are conducted, and you cannot drive to the viewpoint directly above Cliff Palace (although you could hike or ski). Mesa Top Loop does not close.

The densely packed, brightly colored hoodoos in Bryce Amphitheaters are so stunning that missing to make a striking image from any of the overlooks is difficult.

However, if asked about my favorite overlook along the amphitheater, I would easily pick Sunset Point. Despite it’s name, Sunset Point is excellent through the day. Unlike other viewpoints, Sunset Point is situated within the amphitheater, rather than on the rim, therefore it offers you excellent views in more than one direction. The hoodoos are not as dense there than at Inspiration point, but still more dense than from other overlooks, and on the other hand, I prefer their placement along ridges here, esp. looking towards the Queen’s Garden. Last, Sunset Point is the trailhead to the Najavo Trail which lead you to two of best sights within the amphitheater.

Sunrise offers the most dramatic conditions, with warm and low light striking the hoodoos, but do not underestimate the possibilities offered by shooting backlit later in the day, to take advantage of the reflected light, in late afternoon, or even at dusk, where the even light reveals the subtlety of the colors. Winter multiplies the opportunities of contrasting verticality and ridges, blue shadows and red rock.

View all images of Bryce Canyon from Sunset Point
View all images of Bryce Canyon National Park

I’ve posted new images of the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

After last winter’s installments on the Western National Parks, this is the first of several installments about the North East (New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Maine, New York) that will be posted through the spring.

A highlight of the 2009 trip through New Hampshire was the Flume, a narrow granite gorge with 90 feet walls. Since this is a popular attraction, at the height of the fall foliage season, I was concerned that it would be difficult to work with a tripod on the boardwalk. I showed up right at the opening time. It turned out that the day I visited, it rained all the time.

A weatherized camera such as my Canon 1Ds mk3 is relatively trouble-free in wet weather. The challenge in photographing in the rain is to keep your lens front element dry, esp. if you are changing lenses a lot, as I do. A single drop of water will show as a smear in a portion of the image. Although this was a bit of a chore to operate, I was able to work in the pouring rain using a clamp to attach a large unbrella to my tripod. After spending most of the day in the rain, I was quite soaked myself, but It was well worth it. Not only the rain kept the crowds down, but it enhanced the colors of the vegetation, and provided a nice, even light.