Laura A Knauth's photostream  

I decided to process another round of photos from my trip to Death Valley last spring. This is one of the four larger peaks of the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes. The larger dunes are tricky because they are a magnet for hikers and usually are covered with footprints. This dune was the one further away from the parking lot and had a nice ridge for catching sunset rays.

I found the dunes to be a very challenging location - seemed to me an exercise in extreme opportunistic photography. The truly beautiful lighting around sunrise and sunset doesn't last very long; by the time you see how the sunlight will play off of the terrain, you inevitably realize your intended comps have footprints in the way, and it is difficult to move quickly from dune to dune to try again. (Quite a workout!) In the end, I found the most success staying planted in a reasonably promising location and making the most of it, even if my initial comp didn't work. I didn't expect so many fluffy clouds for a desert scene, but there they are. ;p

Happy New Year everyone!

Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes
Death Valley National Park, California

Canon 50d
Canon 18-200mm Lens, 20m
f/13, 1/80s, ISO 100
Probably a B+W Circular Polarizer

A peak at the Moon Bridge through layers of fall branches in the Portland Japanese Garden.

It's not a winter photo, but Merry Christmas!

Canon 50d
Canon 18-200mm Lens, 40mm
f/13, 0.8s, ISO 100, EB -0.3
Probably had the B+W Circular Polarizer

One foggy morning at the Cedar Creek Grist Mill in Washington.

The bottom left corner is a bit of a cheat; there's actually a bridge railing running across that part of the original image which I replaced with a flipped version of the river bank to the right (cropped out). Doh! Should've leaned over the railing and taken a coverage shot so I could stitch the proper panorama. I always seem to want to tweak my compositions after I've seen them on a bigger screen. ;p

Canon 50d
Tokina 11-16mm Lens, 11mm
f/13, 25s, ISO 100
B+W 6 stop ND Filter

By some miracle, the editors of Digital Photo selected my photo of Steptoe Butte in Palouse, Washington (Curve of the Earth) for their September cover. Yay! I just saw the issue in Barnes & Noble. What a huge surprise. I'm so grateful.

This is certainly encouragement to keep posting to Flickr. So nice to know an image can still be noticed after the first couple days of posting.

Cheers!
-Laura

I have no idea what this is, but it was on a trail leading away from Palouse Falls towards the buttes overlooking the river. I had wanted to experiment with my fish eye lens taking a picture of both the falls and river from a lower vantage point than usual, but the 'trail' I was trying to follow led me astray & I wound up on this flat area without a view of either the iconic falls or the river - doh!

Oh well - This striking mountain/hill caught my eye, especially with the sunset colors lighting up the sky behind it, so I tried to make the most of the location. If I had more time, it would have been fun to explore this strange formation - looked like some sort of ancient monument. ;p

Palouse Falls State Park, WA

Canon 50d
Rokinon Fish Eye Lens 8mm
f/11 (This is a manual-only lens, but I'm pretty sure I left it on f/11), 1/4s, ISO 100