11-OCT-2008
Cattle Barn, near Logan, Utah, 2008
Each of four layers I meld together in this image advances my story. I use the pile of manure on the bottom to give the image its odiferous base and symbolize the realities that accompany housing dozens of cattle within a single building. The second layer is a bed of straw that seems to sanitize the manure piled beneath it and at the same time offers an incongruous stage to a rooster visiting three large friends. The third layer features a bovine trio that ignores the rooster and gazes directly at the viewer instead. The fourth and final layer consists of the steel bars that keep everyone in place.
17-SEP-2008
Trout tapestry, Wizard Falls Hatchery, Camp Sherman, Oregon, 2008
This image was difficult to make. I wanted to create a layered tapestry of trout swimming across my frame. However the trout were widely spaced, and the sun was reflecting off the water’s surface, which created both distractions and focusing problems. I solved the spacing problem with help of pbase artist Tim May, who was shooting with me. He had purchased some fish food, and when the first pinch hit the water, the trout flocked towards it en masse. The focusing problem and reflections were linked – my camera liked to focus on the surface reflections, instead of on the trout below them. So I looked for areas where there were fewer reflections on the surface of the water. I was able to find some trout swimming on top of other trout, which created the layered effect I was looking for.
13-MAY-2008
Hawk over Half Dome, Yosemite National Park, California, 2008
I use five layers to give depth perspective and scale to this sweeping vista of one of Yosemite’s most famous sights. By shooting from Stoneman Meadow in the early evening, I am able to contrast the heavily shadowed layers of trees to brightly illuminated layers. A large tree hangs into my frame at left and provides a strong foreground layer. It pulls the eye of the viewer into the image and partially frames the Half Dome, its branches acting as a pointing device. The silhouetted forest on the other side of the meadow offers a second layer – adding a bottom edge to the frame I started earlier with the tree. The hawk, so small in the evening sky, has a layer all to itself. It flies between and above both the forest and the monolith, adding scale and a focal point to the entire scene. It is the also the soaring hawk that gives this picture its freshness and energy. Half Dome itself, made famous in the Yosemite photographs of Ansel Adams and others, is the fourth layer – the most vividly colored and the largest subject in terms of scale. It gives the image its identity and sense of place. The fifth and final layer is the cloud-streaked sky, which creates a delicate, wispy, yet vividly colored background for everything else in the image
15-MAY-2008
Stoneman Meadow, Yosemite National Park, California, 2008
We can layer our images in colors and tones as well as subjects. This is a good example of how color layers and tonal layers can work together to express an idea. The first layer is made up three subjects – the bright green grass of Yosemite’s famous Stoneman Meadow itself, the trees of the same color that stand on top of it, and the overhead leaves that are also bright green. The second layer offers a much darker shade of green – the shadows within the trees make it almost a layer of black, which provides a powerful contrast in both color and tone to the initial bright green layer. The third layer is made up of neutral color and tone – the tallest trees in the image are neither bright nor dark, thus differing strongly from the two previous layers. The fourth and final layer is the background layer. It is not green at all – instead it is a neutral gray cliff, full of soft vertical shadows. When we add the four layers together, we get a varied perspective on the natural world that is very special. It is one of the things that make landscape photography at a place like Yosemite so exciting and fulfilling.
04-APR-2008
On the beach, Cochin, India, 2008
A group of crows devour scraps of food in the foreground layer while a group of Indians relax in the middle ground layer and two fishing boats work in the background layer. When we put the three layers together, we compress the incongruities of an Indian beach scene into an expressive beach scene.
07-JAN-2008
Sleeping rickshaw driver, Chau Doc, Vietnam, 2007
This man's livelihood appears to be draining out of his rickshaw. He sleeps, while his customers are likely seek transport elsewhere. I was tempted to just photograph the driver because he appeared so incongruous, curled up like a baby in the passenger seat. I wanted to say a bit more about him, however, so I created a three-layer image, using my 28mm wideangle lens in a vertical format. I filled the base layer with a glistening puddle, reflecting a world overhead that he does not see. The rickshaw itself makes up my second layer with the driver curled up in a fetal position in the passengers seat. The final layer tells us why he has little business – the street behind him seems to be locked up. A parked motorbike is the only sign of life.
06-SEP-2007
Huangpu traffic, Shanghai, China, 2007
The combined deep sea and river ports of Shanghai became the world's busiest port for cargo tonnage in 2005. These ships ply the Huangpu River, which leads to the Yangtze River. I use only three ships in this image to suggest the continual traffic flow on the river. My long 420mm telephoto flattens the distance between them – they appear about to collide. There are three different kinds of ships and four layers of information in this image – the small ship in the foreground contrasts to the freighter bearing down on it in the second layer, while a ferry boat brings up the rear in the third layer. The fourth and final layer offers a backdrop of Shanghai office buildings in the morning mist.
06-JUL-2007
Cheers, Coors Field, Denver, Colorado, 2007
I wanted to express some of the excitement that runs through a crowd of thousands of baseball fans. My concept is very simple – use three distinct layers to tell the story. I wanted a foreground layer of abstracted energy– arms, heads, and caps thrust skyward. The middle layer was the stadium and the playing field, along with the tiny figures of the baseball players. And the background layer would be the evening sky, a mixture of streaming clouds and a hint of the setting sun. The only difficult part would be obtaining the foreground layer – excitement is usually spontaneous, and the camera must be focused, framed, and ready for that instant. In this case, the problem was solved for me – the crowd was doing the “wave” –a ritualistic form of enthusiastic cheering that begins in one part of the stadium, and eventually circles the entire field. I could see the wave of cheering fans as it rolled towards me, and was easily able to make this photograph as the people just in front of me stood and shouted their support for their team.
04-JUL-2007
Fireworks, Coors Field, Colorado, 2007
Over 50,000 people came to this baseball stadium on July 4th, 2007 to see their home team, the Colorado Rockies, rout the visiting New York Mets 17-7, and also enjoy the traditional Independence Day fireworks display. Photographing explosions in the might sky is never an easy task – particularly with cameras that have a bit of shutter lag. I had to make dozens of images to get just one evocative pattern of sky bursts. I used the “multiple exposure” control on my small wideangle pocket camera to make this shot – I held the shutter-release down as the rocket was fired and the camera continued to make exposures at the rate of twice each second. There are several explosions visible in this single image. They are transparently layered within each other, giving the viewer a vivid impression of the beauty and energy of a fireworks display. The only thing missing is the concussive sound of the multiple explosions – but this picture can readily stir the mind to imagine them. The stadium scoreboard at lower left is topped with the logo of the home team – the Colorado Rockies. It offered me specific context for this image, as well as a stable target for spot-metering my exposure and focusing.
05-JUL-2007
Bridge, Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colorado, 2007
Another form of layering comes into play when the middle-ground subject is transparent. In this case, my subject is the glass-enclosed bridge that connects the original Denver Art Museum with its new wing. I used a screen of trees to create a semi-transparent foreground layer. The transparent bridge in the middle ground contains not only structural beams, but chairs and reflections as well. The darker background layer includes parts of the buildings that comprise Denver’s cultural center. The overall effect is magical – the bridge appears to be floating in space, an ethereal structure held together by the rhythms of its own geometry.
28-APR-2007
Stained glass, former Westward Ho Hotel, Phoenix, Arizona, 2007
A simple image made up of only two layers can be just as expressive as a multi-layered image. My background layer is a stained glass window, featuring a colorful western scene. It is one of several in the lobby of this building, once Arizona’s tallest. Built in 1928, the Westward Ho was one of Phoenix’s first luxury hotels. It shut down in 1979, and now is used as subsidized housing for disabled and senior citizens. The candelabra lamp in my foreground layer has bulbs glowing in only five of its seven sockets, a symbol of the wear and tear that time has brought to this once glorious structure. Yet the vividly colored scene behind it still evokes a moment of the history that once brought tourists to this hotel. Together, the juxtaposed layers tell the story of both the Old West and a famed hotel that has gracefully faded away.
18-FEB-2007
Cemetery, Tecopa, California, 2007
Death Valley’s Black Mountains loom over the lonely cemetery at nearby Tecopa. I structured this landscape as a seven-layer image. The base layer holds the burying ground, with its stark white crosses, a small vase of flowers, and an incongruous empty beer bottle. The cemetery fades into a transitional layer of desert grasses, which in turn gives way to a layer of trees and farmland. The Tecopa wetlands make up the fourth layer, which move us back into the huge valley at the base of the mountains. The mountains lift us up towards the sky in the sixth layer, while the white cloudscape in the final layer echoes the white in the crosses below.
