Battle Born by RyanBuchanan

+better view on black+ Logan Pass has always been a battleground. Over thousands of years, glaciers have carved out some of the most magnificent mountain peaks in North America. With relentless winters that allow for only a small window for life, survival here is tough. And this year even more so—drought conditions, forest fires, a nearly non-existent water flow, even the flowers were, for the most part, long gone all due to the lack of snowfall this past winter. Even in such harsh conditions, it’s amazing how life still perseveres.

This evening, on our second trip up to Logan Pass, we were rewarded with interesting cloud cover mixed with a smokey haze from the fires—resulting in some interesting light. I’ve always wanted to capture Clements Mountain with it’s unique, castle-like appearance and this was my chance! My daunting search to find a foreground began… I finally came across this lonely patch of flowers that was somehow still in full bloom.

My goal was to create depth in the scene by getting extremely close to the flowers, making them appear as large as possible. I positioned the angle of the camera to where the flowers would lead the eye up through the mid-ground to the mountain. So, with a few passers-by wondering what the hell I was doing with my face and camera buried in this cluster, I took a few series of shots of the foreground at 7 different focal points which I was able to blend in photoshop for sharpness throughout. The light was more intense at this point, allowing me to keep the shutter fast enough to freeze any flower movement. Then I waited a little longer for the right sky light to set in. The clouds made for some great patterns coming out from behind the mountain as the hazy glow intensified. The lens distortion at the top of the frame helped lengthen the mountain and cloud lines.

Thanks for looking and I appreciate your comments.

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The Smoking Room by RyanDyar

Smoke from the surrounding wildfires during my two week trip to Glacier NP made itself VERY well known. All day long it was there like some loud drunk frat-dude saying “look at me! I’m here to screw up your good time, bro!”

Fortunately, we were able to use the smoke to our advantage a few times. The smoke can do interesting things to the atmosphere and light color, so not all hope was lost. The haziness in this particular shot was from the fires hundreds of miles away in Washington state… it made the trip across two states to try to screw up my party, but I think I made it work still. Not the most original image ever taken, and a bit predictable for sure… but whatever, I dig it.

Anyways, one of the tours I’m leading in Norway with my good friends Arild and Stian is almost filled, so if you are interested in that trip, now is the time to check it out! I’m willing to bet this trip to the Arctic will be even more productive than our last. I can’t wait!

Also, I just released a new post-processing instructional video a few days back. It’s packed with some unique techniques and theories about processing you may not find anywhere else. People seem to really be enjoying the videos and have had nothing but great things to say, so I *think* they are helping people… it’s been awesome to see the many before/after shots people have been emailing me. Be sure to check the videos out if you are into that sort of thing. It’s all on my website, as well as more photos, photo tour info, processing instruction via Skype like everyone else is doing, etc, etc.

2015 Tour Schedule
Lofoten Autumn Aurora – With Arild Heitmann
Northern Lights Finale – With Arild Heitmann
Processing Tutorial Videos
Processing Instruction via Skype

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