Tyler Westcott's photostream  

This is my third (and final, for those of you who have had enough) of my photographs made on the south side of Mount Rainier this last October. After this photograph, I switched my camera to a longer lens, and did my best to focus in on some of the details of the Nisqually Glacier, but after a length wait the clouds only grew denser and I never got another opportunity that day.

Of the three photographs I produced there that day, this may be my favorite. The clouds broke right over the summit of Mount Rainier, and opened enough over the rest of the mountain to reveal much of the Nisqually Glacier. Being a scene of many white tones - snow, ice, cloud, and fog - a 25A red filter helped to emphasize some of the subtle gradations and, particularly, to separate the summit from the sky.

2011 was a lean year for photographs, but this particular day on Mount Rainier was likely my single-most rewarding and productive day. I made my way back down towards Paradise after this photo was taken, but simply moved on to other rewarding scenes.

Tachihara 4x5 | Caltar 150mm f/5.6 | f/22 | 1/15s | Ilford FP4+ | Tripod | 25A, HC110(h)

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After a relatively long hiatus, I am happy to get back to posting photos online once again. My last project was to bring together twelve photographs for a 2012 Calendar, and while most of them were previously-shared photographs, a couple were share for the first time. This was one of the new photos.

Although newly shared, this photo was taken back in 2009 on my one successful attempt to visit "The Wave" on the border of Utah and Arizona. I have shared other photographs from this fantastic location before, though those other photographs were all color examples. The naturally vivid colors of this amazing landscape are worth emphasizing, but somehow I was drawn to a monochromatic photograph interpretation of the landscape more when I looked at the photos again with a fresh perspective. The unusual geometry of this landscape alone is worthy of attention, and here it does not take a back seat to the colors. By cropping this to exclude the sky there are really no visual cues to make sense of the landscape, and I think I prefer it this way.

A new year of photography lies ahead and, as always, I hope to make the most of the photograph opportunities I can find and create. Happy 2012!

Nikon D90 | Nikon 18-200VR@26mm | f/8 | 1/125s | ISO200 | Tripod

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As with years past I have created a 12 month calendar for the following year. You can see all twelve of the included photos (most of which have been previously posted here) on my personal site, or on facebook at the following links (it's too late at night for me to post all of it again here):

www.tylerwestcott.com/2012Calendar/
www.facebook.com/Tyler.Westcott.Photography

While photographing at Mount Rainier a few weeks ago, I was entirely at the mercy of the weather to determine where I would be pointing my camera. The clouds would not stay clear long enough for me to change lenses or alter the focus, so I prepared the best I could in the fog and simply waited. Once there was an opportunity I made my exposure before cloud closed in around me again. Although I spent far more time simply waiting than actively making photographs, I thoroughly enjoyed my day on the mountain.

I made this photograph with a red 25A filter which increased the contrast between all of the snow and cloud, and the blue sky. I further extended my development time slightly to further enhance the contrast. The net result is a slightly more dramatic tonal separation. While it is easy to overdo this effect and give the appearance of "lunar" landscapes, I think that without it the exposed sky would have blended into that cloud and snow, creating broad and uninteresting regions of gray. Mother Nature deserves credit for the scene itself, but I am happy with how it translated to film.

Tachihara 4x5 | Caltar II-N 150mm f/5.6 | f/16 | 1/60s | Ilford FP4+ | Tripod | 25A, HC110(h)

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I spent quite a long time sitting in one spot at Mount Rainier a few weeks back, just waiting for a view like this to unfold. I made a day trip to the Paradise region of the park, on a day that was mostly foggy and cloudy. After making this photograph, I continued upwards along the trail just enjoying the the hike itself, while hoping for views to open up. As I got higher the cloud really surrounded me, and the trail turned from gravel to snow. It was approaching a full-on white-out when the clouds parted enough ahead of me that Mount Rainier emerged and I very quickly set up my camera to take in what I could. I just happened to be in an ideal spot when it happened, with views up the remarkable Nisqually Glacier all the way to the mountain's summit.

Nature photography is a challenging art form in that so much depends on chance from the perspective of the photographer. Not only did I not know when or if the clouds would break, I didn't know where they might break either. Frankly, I didn't even know where to look for the 14410 foot summit until the clouds parted. I did the best I could to focus the camera and frame a scene and then hope that the clouds would part there. Fortunately, I had some success, but it was a bit frantic in the moments the clouds gave way trying to capture a portion of the scene that worked. In all, I spent about 40 minutes in one spot, and the clouds opened up 3 times, for less than a minute each time. I worked as fast as I could.

The exposure and processing was a bit of a challenge in this photograph. The scene has cloud and fog, snow, and snow in full sun. One intuitively expects each of those elements to appear "white", when the brightness of each actually varied significantly. My hope is that all of those white tones still appear relatively light, but sufficiently differentiated in their own right. Spending time critically evaluating how a scene like this should appear makes me appreciate challenges working in monochrome. In this case aggressive filtration was key to making an image appear intuitive and unmanipulated.

Tachihara 4x5 | Caltar 210mm f/6.1 | f/22 | 1/60s | Ilford FP4+ | Tripod | HC110(h)

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