In the field and co-existing with other landscape photographers

I suppose this could go in the Landscape Photography section of the forums as well but as long as this Film section is here, somebody (me) ought to use it

I was on an autumn photo trip in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan last October and more specifically on the northern shore of the Keewanaw Peninsula near Eagle Harbor. I was planning on making the end of my day somewhere in the vicinity and just sleep in my truck since there are so many small roadside/coastline parks along the way. My big plan was to scout out the Eagle Harbor lighthouse and find the best possible spot to set up for a low light pre-sunrise shot that included the light of the Eagle Harbor lighthouse. So i spent the evening crawling the rocks and ledges looking for the shot that i eventually took that you see below.

I showed up in the pitch dark and stumbled along the rocks to my planned out spot for the shot, set up and waited. I was able to produce a few of these nice extremely low light shots around 1hr to 50 minutes before the sun was to rise. If anybody has been on a coast line facing east at this time you know the light does some pretty wild things. This orange glow on the horizon was actually just as dark and saturated just as you see here. That is a 100% natural color. It's also roughly a 5 minute exposure with 3 stops of Grad ND filters used. I use rough memory since my old film camera has no data back.

After about 10 minutes went by another photographer showed up, came down to the rocks with me and chatted for a while. He was a good guy. He set up a couple shots in various places around me and then asked if i mind if he goes down below in front of me and set up a couple shots. He said he would only be there for a couple minutes and move on. I'm not a jerk. What am i gonna say? No? Well, i guess he found a shot he really liked lol because he didn't leave till after the sun had risen over the horizon (which by that time roughly 25-30 minutes had elapsed). It was a little frustrating but i'm not a landscape photo nazzi who is going to tell him "No, you cant go down there" or after 5 minutes yell down to him "HEY YOU! Get THE F#@% OUTTA MY WAY!!!" Lol, It is what it is. Did i want him there? Absolutely not but what can you do? I waited for a while and just gave up. I took a few pics with him there in front of me just to salvage the moment, thinking maybe i would break my own rules and edit him out later (because i hate people in my shots! I hate IT!) and eventually broke my equipment down and headed to my truck to go to my next destination in the Munising area.

That shot that i didn't want him in actually turned out to be a really cool shot. Like i said, I really didn't want him there but i think he added a different kind of dynamic to my shot. I got my film back after processing and was pleasantly surprised. It actually turned out to be one of my favorite shots of my trip. And hey, it could have been allot worse! I've been in National Parks where you are 1 of 50 or more photographers running around a supposed "remote" back country area where "nobody goes".

I don't usually name my pics but i call this one "Portrait of a Landscape Photographer"


Shot #1) Kodak Ektar 100, roughly 5 minute exposure with 3 stops of Grad ND filters 60 to 50 minutes before sunrise.
Shot #2) Kodak Ektar 100, roughly 20-30 second exposure with 3 stops of Grad ND filters 20 to 15 minutes before sunrise.

Hey, at least he asked. I don't do much landscape, mostly weddings, and especially when shooting in the city, people in the way is pretty much the norm. I did get a nasty e-mail once from a photographer that I ran in front of at the beach while chasing my daughter (I have my website on my car, and he must have written it down to send me an e-mail accusing me of shutter-sniping)

why I don't shoot sunrises

Both superb, Karl! The exposure on the first one is mind blowing. Did you meter? guess? And the story is great, too:thumbsup:

Cool shots. Who knew film could do that.

Karl you never cease to amaze me, wonderful shots, on the 2nd one I guess you could also do a copy with him cloned out as well.

Wonderful shots, Karl.
Dewitt Jones was describing one of his earlt AM shots where a fisherman showed up. The man apologized but Dewitt said please go ahead. He said the man gave the scene perspective and scale. I think the photographer helps make that shot.

John Landolfi wrote: Both superb, Karl! The exposure on the first one is mind blowing. Did you meter? guess? And the story is great, too:thumbsup:

Thanks John L. and everybody else
I wanted to try for a 4 to 5 minute exposure... I don't have a nice hand held meter so I got online and found other people test results with that film adjusting for reciprocity failure and applied it to my low light shots. With my in-camera meter I would spot meter the horizon at my lowest aperture which happened to be f/3.5 and as I would increase the aperture reading I would watch my shutter reading move. As I reached the point where my in-camera meter would display "bulb" I would continue adding more time to the shutter based on the amount of time that I observed by watching my reading change as I previously stopped down my apertures. Then I would have to calculate for reciprocity failure. I believe roughly for a meter reading of 2.5 minutes I could get a decently exposed image without color shift at roughly 1.5 to 2x that metered exposure. I took 2 shots in this time period. One was around 4 minutes and the other at 5 minutes and the 5 minute shot ended up having the better dynamic range. These are rough estimations going from memory because my camera doesn't have a data back and I don't write notes too often when I'm out so these are round abouts. And since I wanted to try for a 4-5 minute shot, I don't even remember what my aperture was but I can imagine it was a pretty small aperture.
I hope all that made sense lol I'm not the best at explaining things lol
The second shot was easily metered in my camera using aperture priority and I added on an extra 10 seconds for reciprocity failure (meter read it at 20 seconds).

Whlle the first one is stunning with the vibrant color, I agree with John, the photographer helps make the second photo - his silhouette seems dwarfed by the landscape which helps show the vastness of the land. I don't do landscapes like this, but I've had someone or something intervene and it changes the photo or how you shoot it; but sometimes you can end up with an image you like better than what you started out doing. Incredible work Karl.

icepics wrote: Whlle the first one is stunning with the vibrant color, I agree with John, the photographer helps make the second photo - his silhouette seems dwarfed by the landscape which helps show the vastness of the land. I don't do landscapes like this, but I've had someone or something intervene and it changes the photo or how you shoot it; but sometimes you can end up with an image you like better than what you started out doing. Incredible work Karl.

Thanks! Yeah, I'm glad he sat there for a while although at the time I was waiting for him to move. It was tricky trying to get him to sit still long enough for 30 seconds lol. I think he was in the middle of a long exposure too this is the only one that turned out decent where he actually sat still long enough to get a solid shot where he is not blury.

Awesome story! I also hate people in any of my shots. I am always amazed at people who want to take photos of themselves or some one in front of what would be a great photo.

To each their, I'm just happy I'm not alone.

I remember how excited I was when you could get your film developed and placed on a 'floppy!'

_Colleen_ wrote: Awesome story! I also hate people in any of my shots. I am always amazed at people who want to take photos of themselves or some one in front of what would be a great photo.

To each their, I'm just happy I'm not alone.

I remember how excited I was when you could get your film developed and placed on a 'floppy!'

Thanks Colleen. I'm assuming you've since converted to the dark side? No more film?

After reading all that and looking at your image,
I hardly noticed the "other guy" .... lol.
If you don't like him ..... clone him out.

(Sometimes, not always) I like to include a person
who has stepped into my scene.
It could add a story or give perspective to a landscape;
for instance like this young lady and her dog.
If it weren't for their intrusion I would have deleted this image for sure !

See example:




IMG_9766 © garytrent photography

Karl Wertanen wrote: I suppose this could go in the Landscape Photography section of the forums as well but as long as this Film section is here, somebody (me) ought to use it

I was on an autumn photo trip in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan last October and more specifically on the northern shore of the Keewanaw Peninsula near Eagle Harbor. I was planning on making the end of my day somewhere in the vicinity and just sleep in my truck since there are so many small roadside/coastline parks along the way. My big plan was to scout out the Eagle Harbor lighthouse and find the best possible spot to set up for a low light pre-sunrise shot that included the light of the Eagle Harbor lighthouse. So i spent the evening crawling the rocks and ledges looking for the shot that i eventually took that you see below.

I showed up in the pitch dark and stumbled along the rocks to my planned out spot for the shot, set up and waited. I was able to produce a few of these nice extremely low light shots around 1hr to 50 minutes before the sun was to rise. If anybody has been on a coast line facing east at this time you know the light does some pretty wild things. This orange glow on the horizon was actually just as dark and saturated just as you see here. That is a 100% natural color. It's also roughly a 5 minute exposure with 3 stops of Grad ND filters used. I use rough memory since my old film camera has no data back.

After about 10 minutes went by another photographer showed up, came down to the rocks with me and chatted for a while. He was a good guy. He set up a couple shots in various places around me and then asked if i mind if he goes down below in front of me and set up a couple shots. He said he would only be there for a couple minutes and move on. I'm not a jerk. What am i gonna say? No? Well, i guess he found a shot he really liked lol because he didn't leave till after the sun had risen over the horizon (which by that time roughly 25-30 minutes had elapsed). It was a little frustrating but i'm not a landscape photo nazzi who is going to tell him "No, you cant go down there" or after 5 minutes yell down to him "HEY YOU! Get THE F#@% OUTTA MY WAY!!!" Lol, It is what it is. Did i want him there? Absolutely not but what can you do? I waited for a while and just gave up. I took a few pics with him there in front of me just to salvage the moment, thinking maybe i would break my own rules and edit him out later (because i hate people in my shots! I hate IT!) and eventually broke my equipment down and headed to my truck to go to my next destination in the Munising area.

That shot that i didn't want him in actually turned out to be a really cool shot. Like i said, I really didn't want him there but i think he added a different kind of dynamic to my shot. I got my film back after processing and was pleasantly surprised. It actually turned out to be one of my favorite shots of my trip. And hey, it could have been allot worse! I've been in National Parks where you are 1 of 50 or more photographers running around a supposed "remote" back country area where "nobody goes".

I don't usually name my pics but i call this one "Portrait of a Landscape Photographer"


Shot #1) Kodak Ektar 100, roughly 5 minute exposure with 3 stops of Grad ND filters 60 to 50 minutes before sunrise.
Shot #2) Kodak Ektar 100, roughly 20-30 second exposure with 3 stops of Grad ND filters 20 to 15 minutes before sunrise.

So you took two dynamic pictures, very different, yet the same composition. I think you made out out alright. You need to just get photoshop already

Karl, mate. Just learn photoshop and clone the guy out (if need be).