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| © Tim Fitzharris, www.timfitzharris.com |
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You wait for it all year, those two magic words: summer vacation. How you choose to spend your cherished time off depends on your mood (adventure, relaxation, sightseeing), as much as your budget and how far you want to travel. No matter what the other variables, one thing's certain: You want to come home with fantastic images.
Look no further. We've scoured the country to find five breathtaking landscapes, five fast-paced cities, and five fun-in-the-sun beach towns--all bursting with photo ops. We even walk you through how to get perfect shots at each location. So read on, and then pack your bags for one of these great American photo destinations.
The Dramatic Landscape
Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, UT For expansive landscapes, head to the 1.7 million mostly roadless acres of the rugged and beautiful Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. This remote region in southern Utah contains bold plateaus, multi-hued cliffs, vast canyons, a petrified forest, waterfalls, and 1,000-year-old petroglyphs.
Since getting around by car isn't an option, grab your adventure gear and explore the backcountry by hiking, rock climbing, and bike riding, while discovering striking photo ops along the way.
• Info: Check out www.ut.blm.gov/monument for maps and schedules of the free monthly "walks and talks" led by local naturalists. Go to www.utah.com/hike/grandstaircase for help in planning solo or group hikes.
How To Shoot...
• The sky: Contributing Editor Tim Fitzharris, who took the photos at Grand Staircase shown here, suggests using evaluative metering and stresses the importance of studying your histogram.
"Make adjustments to center the curve," he says. "If the exposure is still outside the sensor range, then start adding split neutral-density filters over the brightest areas of the scene, which are usually in the sky."
Using film? Be safe and bracket exposures using the neutral-density filters.
Fitzharris packs a polarizer along with 1- and 2-stop split ND filters, in addition to a light tripod and lenses ranging from 14mm through 135mm. A cable release is also a must-have.
If the sky is particularly dramatic, make it the main subject in your photo, as Fitzharris did in the photo on the previous spread. This striking image is the result of framing the aptly named Sunset Arch as a secondary subject to the bold sunset radiating from it.
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| © Tim Fitzharris, www.timfitzharris.com |
• Colors and contrasts: The tried-and-true advice of photographing early and late is especially true for capturing exciting landscapes like these. Fitzharris shoots from a half-hour before dawn to 15 minutes after the sun comes up, and resumes a half-hour before sunset until 15 minutes after it goes down. The only time he'll take his camera out in-between is if broken clouds overhead diffuse the light. Otherwise, it's a matter of contending with harsh shadows and blown highlights.
In some cases, dark clouds are a gift: A stormy sky in the distance can add a layer of interest to the scene, and the lighting in the foreground won't be too harsh or flat.
Want richer colors? Time your shooting for just after a rainfall--the water brings out colors in the rocks.
Expect to spend some time editing your images to get exactly the picture you want. For both the photo on the opening spread and the one above, Fitzharris used a sunlight white balance and a low ISO. Then he finessed the saturation, color balance and exposure by making adjustments in Adobe Photoshop CS2.
• Texture and detail: Capturing texture is particularly important in rocky landscapes. In the waterfall image above, Fitzharris' careful placement of the focus field and framing emphasizes the contrast between the smooth water (use a slow shutter speed and a tripod) and detailed texture of the tree.
Side or oblique lighting helps bring out texture--another reason to shoot early and late.
• The full view: When composing a landscape, Fitzharris tries to include six or seven scene planes: the foreground ("get close enough for revealing detail," he says), midground (which may be the same as the main subject plane), background, horizon, cloud, and sky. He stresses the importance of both the horizon and cloud plane to draw the eye through the photo.
4 More Great Dramatic Landscapes
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| © Carl Donohue, www.skolaimages.com |
Badlands National Park, SD Despite its less-than-flattering name, the Badlands are a landscape photographer's paradise. The region is, in effect, an aboveground cave, complete with 244,000 acres of eroded cones, ridges, buttes, gorges, pinnacles, spires, and fossils. Resist the driving loop around the park and get up close on the quarter-mile trail or, better yet, the 5-mile Castle Trail. Thunderstorms are common during the summer, and the sunlight after a rainfall, especially at dawn and dusk, makes for breathtaking shots. Want black-and-white photos? Set your camera to shoot b&w, but capture RAW files--you get a monochrome preview while saving the full image data in the file. That way, you can convert it to b&w the best way--in your image editor, rather than in the camera. (www.nps.gov/badl)
Palo Duro Canyon State Park, TX Called "The Grand Canyon of Texas" for its 120-mile-long canyon, this park is home to wildflowers (pack a macro lens or extension tube for close-ups), juniper trees, wildlife, and a 75-foot-high shale and sandstone pillar called "The Lighthouse." For a great overview, take the three-mile Lighthouse Trail (by foot, bike, or horseback). Even though the park is in the northern part of the state, summer temperatures can still reach the upper 90s, so shoot early and late in the day when the light is also at its best. (www.palodurocanyon.com)
Red River Gorge, KY Part of the Daniel Boone National Forest, the Red River Gorge Geological Area contains more than 100 natural sandstone arches. Steep slopes and cliffs separate a maze of winding ridges and valleys. There are nine official trails--most of these lead to or near an arch, and some are quite steep. To support both your camera and yourself, try a monopod that doubles as a walking stick. (www.fs.fed.us/r8/boone/districts/cumberland/redriver_gorge)
Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, AK This vast and isolated wilderness is extraordinary even in a state brimming with dramatic landscapes. Casual nature lovers need not apply--while there are short, marked day-trails near the visitor's center, the most photographically rewarding trails are multi-day adventures that take you to remote lakes and valleys, gigantic glaciers, abandoned copper mines, and up and around some of the continent's tallest mountains. (www.nps.gov/wrst)
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