Photographing Ice Lake

In addition to hiking, my book also includes a photography section for each lake. This provides useful information for both the serious shooter and the casual looking to improve his or her (smartphone) shots. While each chapter is unique, topics include instructional, technical and creative advice. Also discussed are nearby points of interest, strategies for finding the best composition and more.

You might learn something that isn’t obvious too. For instance, notice the distance from the water in the picture below. It’s about a half mile and 500 feet of elevation away. In many spacious basins, it is challenging to explore everywhere in one visit. That’s why tips on where to go help.

Below is partial excerpt for a popular location in the San Juan Mountains. July and August are the perfect times to visit. For an amazing experience, consider personal instruction and guidance by yours truly this year! Find more information about this here.

Ice Lake Basin, Colorado, August

Capturing or witnessing Upper Ice Lake Basin’s signature alpenglow is an exclusive experience available to those willing to spend the night. Golden Horn is the most iconic peak and befittingly shows off the best display of crimson morning light, both before and immediately after sunrise.

During times of peak wildflowers, compositions are plentiful. The most iconic shots feature alpenglow reflections and successful ones accentuate form. Consider shooting at an intimate tarn as opposed to Upper Ice Lake. Sunrise images won’t display the lake’s vivid color, which needs direct midmorning light. Be sure to bracket shots or use a graduated neutral-density filter.

Another alternative is shooting Ice Lake’s hefty outlet stream. Several sections of rippling cascades offer excellent vantage points. These dynamic compositions usually do not include the lake. Use a wide-angle lens and try blending for depth of field.

Perhaps skip the water altogether and fill your foreground with a bouquet of splashy wildflowers. This works best on still mornings and emphasizes spectacle. Whatever you choose, the best plan is staying more than one night to ensure the greatest opportunity for success.

Sunrise is not the only time for mesmerizing photography. Midmornings on partly cloudy days also yield outstanding results. Remember to use a polarizer and shoot when the groundcover is in partial shadow. Even in harsh midday light, the lake photographs well with a smartphone.

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Cell Phone Pics from My Colorado Autumn Trip 2015

Below are five of my favorite cell phone shots from my trip a few weeks ago to central Colorado to photograph fall colors. All pictures were captured with my Samsung Galaxy S6 and have not been edited. Enjoy!

“Road to the Gores” A quiet, peaceful mountain road leads into the Gore Mountains north of Silverthorne.

“Colors of the Fall” Sunrise on a secluded section of the Maroon Bells scenic loop trail.

‘Pure Gold’ I noticed this vibrant, peak stand of aspens on Castle Creek Road outside of Aspen, CO.

Dappled mid morning light on the Maroon Bells amidst overcast skies.

The Hanging Lake Trail outside of Glenwood Springs was a workout delight! Definitely one of the best workout trails I have ever hiked and the payoff at the end was outstanding.

Understanding the Scene – Colorado Fall Foliage Part 2

Yesterday we ended the first part of this post by talking about the exposure values of the left and right hand side of the scene. For this scene, I simply used a .6 graduated neutral density filter and bracketed my exposures. Because the intensity of the light was changing so fast, my camera was having difficulty accurately metering the scene. The meter was constantly jumping around. 

Eventually, I underexposed the scene resulting in a slightly less than ideal exposure for the darkest values of conifers on the right hand side. Fortunately, this wasn’t a major factor. I still was able to retain very good detail and resolution in the darkest parts of the image although ideally, I would have liked to pull an additional + 1/3 stop out of those values.

Processing

I used two different exposures and processed them the same way in Adobe Camera Raw. I ended up using my lightest exposure because remember, I underexposed the scene, so with the bracketing. this exposure ended up being just about correct anyway.

This is the 100% crop of the darkest shadow values within the scene. You can see I've retained the detail in the conifers fairly well with just a slight drop off in light along the very edge of the frame.

When I process multiple raw files, I normally try to keep them as consistent as possible, so I kept the temperature and tone the same for both files here. For this scene, I employed a very cool temperature to help offset the amount of yellow. Following that, I open both images in Photoshop and copy the  dark exposure on top of the correct exposure. I then used a layer mask to blend the exposure, specifically the “hot” aspens on the right side of the frame. Once the blend was completed, I saved the file and started with general contrast adjustments to the entire scene. This was a basic levels adjustment.

For this scene,  I wanted to open up the shadows a bit more to accentuate the reflection of the conifers. I used the shadow/highlights feature to complete that. I normally don’t use this  feature, simply because it can be very destructive and give your images an unwanted “HDR” look where everything gets dimples so to speak. I created a copy of my background layer and then carefully scrutinized the results before moving on.

Once I was satisfied with that, I started working on selectively adjusting the contrast within the scene. The largest area of contrast that needed adjusting was the foreground, which was much too light. Once that was completed, I moved onto the reflection in the lake, specifically in the middle of scene.Following that, I moved onto a few other areas within the scene,  most notably the yellow highlights and dark greens far up on the mountain.

Once I finished the contrast,  I started selectively adjusting the color. The one thing I normally like to do is to pull cyan out of the image. Here, I performed that in the yellows channel. What that did was give the yellows in the aspens just a bit of an orange tinge to them, making them in my opinion,  more appealing. Finally I saved the master image, and reduced and sharpened for the web.

Web Sharpening

This image was fairly tedious to sharpen for the web. The greatest obstacle here was the peak, which almost continually was showing haloing, probably from sharp shadows on its edges. It took several attempts before I was satisfied with my results.  I used several adjustment layers of sharpening, turning them all off for the sky and peak. Generally speaking, foliage doesn’t sharpen well for the web. So be very careful when sharpening items like pine and aspen trees. Less is normally more here. That is pretty much it!  I hope this tutorial is helpful to you and if it is,             please let me know. Also,  feel free to email me if you have any other questions. Have a wonderful weekend.

Michael