Photographing the Same Subject Over and Over

I frequently take and post images of the eastern side of the Chiricahua mountains as seen from around the Painted Pony Resort outside Rodeo New Mexico.  I have so many images of the same subject that a slideshow entitled "The Many Faces of the Chiricahua Mountains" was created.  The goals in constantly photographing Portal Peak and the eastern Chiricahuas are to create the perfect image as well as photo-document the changes in the landscape that create different moods I experience when observing the mountain range over time.  But what constitutes a perfect image of the Chiricahua mountains?  

From my perspective, several factors are important.  The first is scale.  Scale in this case refers to the physical distance encompassed in the image.  The landscape image below spans 5.75 miles in length, Cave Creek Canyon south to Sulphur Canyon, and 4000' in height, the floor of the San Simon valley to the top of the 8000' Portal Peak.  Since most cameras do not capture scale without forcing the subject into the background my landscape images require construction in a post production process.  A good image editor is required to piece together segments of the landscape taken closeup into a final product that recreates what I see with my eye, is pleasing to view, and encompasses the whole scene.  Since I shoot hand held with an inexpensive point and shoot camera this takes composing the final image in my mind and then collecting the individual elements for later construction.

The second factor is lighting.  Early morning just at sunrise is always the most productive time to capture images of the eastern flanks of the Chiricahua mountains.  The long light of the rising sun creates a series of colors, some lasting only a moment, across the flank of the mountains.  Starting in the reds the colors move in shorter and shorter wavelengths through the blues until the reflected colors begin to wash out.  

The third is color.  This is of course related to the lighting.  But in some cases, especially when clouds are present over the mountains and the shadows stark a presentation in black and white is more striking and evokes stronger emotions so I choose to desaturate the image after increasing contrast to to further enhance the elements of light and shadow.  

Finally depth.  A number of tools are available to enhance depth in a photograph and perhaps the most common is depth of field.  I have chased after techniques that enhance depth in 2 dimensional images to create a more realistic 3 dimensional image in the belief that good depth enhances the viewers experience. The image below shows good depth with dark clouds creating shadow over the ridges in the background while the foreground ridge line is complete sunlight.  This contrast in shadow naturally enhances the appearance of depth in the image making the almost 6 miles of ridge line stand out and away from the shadowed background.  This difference in shadowing was the result of the partial cloud cover present at that time and in combination with an old photographic technique developed in Germany in the 1930's, further enhances the depth.  Unsharp masking creates an apparent increase in resolution and is a useful tool for creating an image with increased depth helping the foreground ridge line jump out of the image. 

These are all easy to apply tools that anyone can implement to create images that capture the imagination and convey the emotions generated when viewing the scene.

Almost perfect, click on the image to see a larger version or follow this link.

Addendum:
More work with the original panoramic image data set has resulted in this new image.  Spanning further south and north, both Portal Peak and Darnell Peak are visible and the scene shifts from just Portal Peak to the whole east flank of the Chiricahua mountains. 

Creating Depth in Photographs

I'm not a professional photographer, just a guy in the desert with an inexpensive automatic digital camera asking the question "how do people see"?  While the physiological process of vision is fairly well understood, the analysis and interpretation of visual information seems less well defined.  There appears to be variability in the cognitive processes used by humans in interpreting a visual image and one way to qualitatively understand this process is through photography.  In other words "what makes a pleasing image"?  In trying to understand "how people see" a number of techniques have been employed from low level aerial photography to change perspective, in combination with tilt-shift to draw attention to specific elements in a photograph, to multi-image aerial panoramas to provide the viewer with a "big picture" view of the landscape from a different perspective.  But one of the more challenging approaches is the creation of depth in a 2D photograph.  There are a number of approaches to creating depth in a photograph but the most satisfying approach I have found is in-camera layering.  Briefly, a scene is divided into a number of layers then observing differences in contrast, texture, color, and focus between the layers then composing the scene to maximize the differences to make an image.  By maximizing these layer differences it is possible to impart to the viewer a sense of depth in a 2 dimensional photograph without resorting to anaglyphs.  Below are several examples of successfully layered images.  In these images one or more components appear to stand out as a result in differences contrast, texture, color, or focus (depth of field).  It is important to point out all these images were all photographed in the auto mode so depth of field manipulations were not used.

Peloncillo Mountains outcrop

The image above (click to enlarge) is a 4 image panorama taken on a sunny day.  Although similar in color, the outcrop in the foreground is differentiated from the valley floor by differences in texture.  While it is differentiated by color from the Chiricahua mountains in the background resulting in the appearance of an outcrop of rock that appears to float on the background.

Hill in Animas Valley in southern New Mexico

This image is a low level aerial photograph with a tilt-shift effect added.  While employing an overall difference in perspective, in this case differences in contrast between the layers (shadow along the ridge top in comparison to the background desert floor) creates an edge resulting in increased depth.  This effect is enhanced by the tilt-shit which draws the viewer towards the area of increased depth which helps the viewer interpret increased depth in the photograph overall.

Low level aerial view of the Big Hatchet mountains

This image, also a low level aerial photograph of the landscape, relies on layered differences in color to enhance depth.  The foreground layer is brown while the background layer, with Big Hatchet Peak, is blue in color.  This layered color difference helps the foreground peak stand out against the background again resulting in increased depth.

Headstone in Jhus canyon

This final image, of a headstone in the Chiricahua mountains, uses color and texture differences to impart a sense of depth to the image.  The flat smooth brown headstone is contrasted against a background of shrubs and grass which differ in both color and texture again imparting a sense of depth to the image. 

This technique works at any scale from small to large landscapes, and is just a matter of composition.

While a number of different post production processing techniques may be used on a photograph, generally on a slight decrease in input levels and a slight increase in contrast suffice to bring out the layered depth in a composition.