sunrise – On the road with Jim

A New Day’s Glow at the Granite Dells Picture of the Week - Prescott, Arizona

A subtle sunrise over the Granite Dells in Prescott, Arizona, highlighting lichen-covered rocks resembling toes and victory signs. — A New Day’s Glow at the Granite Dells – A playful sunrise at the Granite Dells, where imagination meets nature. The subtle glow highlights formations that evoke toes and victory signs, making for a captivating morning scene.

As an undergraduate in college, I signed up for a class in art history for three automatic credits. Many students complain that this required course is lame. Still, I must have accidentally learned something when I thought I was napping in the classroom because now and then, I’ll spot something on TV, and I get to turn to Queen Anne and spout some useless trivia to impress her—it doesn’t work, and I get the usual eye-roll. One of the things I wondered about in that class was why were so many of the Greek and Roman era statues damaged. Later, I found out that looters damaged them when they ripped the artwork from their pedestals. But I still wonder, “What happened to Venus de Milo’s arms, and where are those missing hands and feet?”

I may have found a partial answer, and it’s in the final image from our Granite Dells project. On my morning outing, when it wasn’t hot, and I had plenty of water, my brain was operating at its peak as I followed the well-worn trail before dawn. My primary focus was not falling, but that still left time for me to snap photos when I wasn’t moving. One of those shots is A New Day’s Glow at the Granite Dells—this week’s featured image. Like last week’s picture, I later saw things in this image that weren’t there when I was on the trail.

At first glance, the image may look like just another example of weathered granite in the Dells. But on closer inspection, it’s as if the place is a secret stash for all those missing statue appendages I wondered about in college. Along the ridge left of the center, there’s a right foot with two toes jutting into the air, obscured partially by the bush. To the right of the center, there’s a left foot, complete with a visible toenail on the big toe. The more you look, the more toes start appearing throughout the photo. Eureka! It’s like I’ve stumbled upon the lost’ foot locker’ of ancient art—a clandestine graveyard of dismembered statue feet! Perhaps they hide it under a blue tarp during the day; otherwise, it would have been discovered by now.

I’m not alone when I look at the Dells and see things that aren’t there. Another group of visionary men did the same thing over a century ago. They were farmers from Chino Valley and Prescott, looking for reliable water sources to irrigate their expanding agricultural lands. Ignoring the rugged beauty of the Granite Dells, they recognized an opportunity in the flow of Willow Creek and Granite Creek. In 1900, they constructed the first dam, damming Willow Creek and forming what is now known as Willow Lake. A few years later, in 1908, they dammed Granite Creek, creating Watson Lake. These manufactured reservoirs transformed the wasteland into valuable water storage and provided the area with dependable year-round water, fueling growth and prosperity. Today, the lakes and the surrounding Granite Dells continue to be a vital resource, offering a balance between human needs and natural beauty.

Evening sun illuminating the granite domes over Lake Wilson, contrasting the rugged rocks with the serene ripples of water. — Water and Rock: Evening at the Dells – A tranquil evening view of the Granite Dells, where the golden light dances on the domes and the calm waters of Lake Wilson whisper reflections. The balance of serenity and strength is captured in a moment.

This week’s second photo shows Willow Lake waters lapping the Dells’s eastern shore. When the City of Prescott bought the lakes and surrounding land in 1997, they intended to preserve the area as a recreational preserve. And that’s how it worked out. Hikers, rock climbers, and old photographers use the dry sites, while other outdoor types like to get out on the water.

Granite Dells are more than just a collection of impressive rocks. Their charm lies in the subtle details and the stories they seem to tell. From imaginary toes to victory signs, from the gentle embrace of lichen to the lively dance of water plants, every visit unveils a new layer of beauty. We’re glad you joined us on the trails of Granite Dells, and we hope that you didn’t get frightened by the shape-shifting rocks. I have published two larger versions of this week’s image online, should you want to count the little piggies with roast beef. The first is on my Website (Jim’s web page), and the second is on my Fine Art America Page (FAA web page). I think it would be great to hear how many toes you found by leaving your count in the comments section below—of course, any snide remarks are welcome, too. We hope to see you back here next week when we begin a new project to get us through September—usually the last of our hot summer months.

Until next time
jw

Techniques: Playing with Reflections in Water

Capturing reflections in water can transform an ordinary photograph into a visually captivating image, providing a unique perspective and adding a sense of symmetry and depth. Whether it’s the clear reflection of a mountain in a calm lake or the distorted ripples of buildings in a bustling city canal, water reflections can be a photographer’s tool to create a sense of harmony and intrigue.

In this week’s second photo—Water and Rock: Evening at the Dells—the reflections in Willow Lake offer a mirror-like portrayal of the rock formations, doubling the visual impact and delivering a parallel world beneath the surface. These reflections emphasize the rock’s unique shapes and capture the colors and textures of the sky and landscape, enhancing the overall composition. Utilizing reflections requires keen observation and sometimes even waiting for the right moment when the wind calms and the water surface becomes still. Consider the angle of the light, the state of the water, and the composition to maximize the reflective effect. By experimenting with different perspectives and settings, reflections in water can become a decisive element in your photographic storytelling, elevating a simple scene into something extraordinary. Despite all that planning, sometimes you have to have dumb luck, as I did with this photo of the Ruby Range and Kluane Lake while on our 2016 Alaska adventure (see it here).

Awakening of the Granite Giants Picture of the Week

Golden morning light illuminating the rugged landscape of Granite Dells, with Glassford Summit in the background. — Awakening of the Granite Giants – A mesmerizing view of the Granite Dells under the soft glow of the morning sun, casting a beautiful light on the weather-worn rocks with Glassford Summit standing majestically in the distance.

My calendar page flipped to August this week, and that means that summer’s half over. In standard years, we would have been inundated with monsoon rains and antsy for the wet season to end. But, in this most unusual year, we’re waiting for the rains to start. We often see afternoon clouds here in Congress, Arizona, but they’ve only been a tease. The new month also means a new photo project, and I decided to stay in the high country—if you consider Prescott the highlands. We will wander the trails in the Granite Dells to capture its natural beauty and fill in my Website portfolio. The exposed cracked and worn boulders are common throughout Arizona, but this patch is the only city park.

The Granite Dells of Prescott, Arizona, is a geological wonder with around 1.4 billion years of history. Their formation began deep beneath the Earth’s surface, where molten magma slowly cooled and crystallized into hard, dense granite. Over hundreds of millions of years, erosion wore away the rock layers above, revealing the granite bedrock. Once exposed to the atmosphere, the granite underwent spheroidal weathering, a process that smoothed its corners and edges into the distinctive, boulder-like shapes we see today. This weathering, coupled with millions of years of further erosion, has sculpted the Granite Dells into their current, stunning form, with the boulders providing unique habitats for diverse flora and fauna.

Close-up study of Common Mullein stalks, brightly lit against a darker, out-of-focus background. — Majesty in the Ordinary – An intimate view of Common Mullein stalks bathed in the golden morning light, their unexpected elegance highlighted against the darker foliage of the Granite Dells.

We will start this month’s photo tour of the Dells with a long shot I took at dawn while hiking the Constellation Trail. At that hour of the morning, I thought I’d have the place to myself, but the parking lot was half full when I arrived, and true to form, I was in everybody’s way as I trudged along with my camera. I was in the middle of the loop when the sun emerged above the cloud layer along the horizon, casting a golden light on the rock formation before me. I can’t begin to tell you how delighted I was to see how it showed off the rounded shape and texture of the granite boulders. The Dells have a sense of anchor in their surroundings with the radio-tower-topped Glassford Summit. I call this week’s image Awakening of the Granite Giants.

We’re so glad that you joined us on the trail this morning. Throughout the rest of the month, we’ll share more images taken on tracks running through Prescott’s most significant city park. And you can count on us to dig up more interesting trivia about the Granite Dells. If you’d like to examine larger versions of Awakening of the Granite Giants, you can visit its page on my Website by following this link (Jim’s Website). You can also pixel peep on my Fine Art America posting by following this link (FAA Post). Be sure to return next week when we present another image of the intriguing Granite Dells.

Till next time
jw

Techniques: Restoring Dark Areas In Back Lit Images

In last week’s session, I showed how I manage shots to prevent blowing out the highlights when shooting in lighting conditions too broad for the camera’s sensor to capture—like the dawn, dusk, or back-lit situations. We concluded that discussion by predicting that the darker areas would be too dark to be pleasing. In this post, I will explain how I balance the exposure in Photoshop so the image looks natural.

Quick Selection Tool - I use this tool in the Tool Palate to select the areas that I want to work. It's the fastest and most accurate selection tool in Photoshop. — Quick Selection Tool – I use this tool in the Tool Palette to select the areas I want to work on. It’s the fastest and most accurate selection tool in Photoshop.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has recently been in the news, with stories ranging from how it helps doctors find cancer in patients earlier to how it will eventually eat our brains—like Zombies. Well, Adobe has an AI-driven tool in Photoshop that enables you to select complex areas of your images. It’s called the Quick Select Tool. It seems to be mainly used to cut models—and their fly-away hair—from one background so they can be pasted into another. I use it to select the dark areas in my landscapes that need lightening. My process involves three steps: Selecting, Refining, and Correcting.

Refine Selection Workspace - With this tool, you can nudge and perfect which areas you want to be active within your adjustment layer. — Masking Workspace – With this tool, you can nudge and perfect which areas you want to be active within your adjustment layer.

After doing my color corrections and setting my Black and White points in my workflow, I try to balance my image’s exposure. Using the Quick Select (QS) Tool, I roughly select the area I want to work with, and that’s usually everything below the horizon. At this point, I’m not trying to be precise. After I drag the QS brush over the area I want to modify, I click on the Select and Mask button at the top of the workspace, which opens a Masking Workspace showing the selected areas of the image. I use a red mask set to 40% opacity to see which areas of the image will be affected by the following steps. Within the right panel, there’s a bunch of number settings that I’ve fiddled with over the years before settling on these: Radius=0, Smooth=2, Feather=2.5px, Contrast=25%, and Shift Edge=-2% (be sure to check the tiny little box tabled ‘Remember Settings‘ otherwise you’ll constantly have to reset these values). Using these values, I choose the Brush Edge Tool—the second from the top in the brush palate—and run it along the edge of the selected areas. What the AI does for me is pick out all of the little trees and other objects (like the leaves in the second photo this week) and separate them from the sky—an otherwise impossible task. Once I’m happy with the selection, I click ‘OK,’ the screen returns to the original workspace with the selected area now outlined with ‘dancing ants’—a term used to describe the animated dotted line showing the selection.

The next step is to correct for the darkness, and to do that, I choose a new Exposure layer from the list, which opens with the new mask in place. In the new layer, I use the slider to adjust the area to the lightness that looks good to me—usually between ¼ to a complete stop (.25-1.0), but with the sensor on my Sony camera, I’ve been able to lighten the dark areas by 2½ stops without causing a loss of detail in shadows or other unwanted digital artifacts (such as pixelation or banding).

Remember, by working with layers, you can go back and change your adjustments later. Also, remember to save your work frequently, especially after making significant adjustments.

Mack’s Bar Picture of the Week

Mack's Bar - Something that its patrons may never see is the early morning sun shining on Mack's Bar in Willcox, Arizona. — Mack’s Bar – Something that its patrons may never see is the early morning sun shining on Mack’s Bar in Willcox, Arizona.

“Gee, had I only known …” I don’t know about you, but I’ve uttered that phrase a lot. I shouldn’t be surprised because my mom always told me that I “was a day late and a dollar short.” And, I always thought she called me sun because I was so bright.

This time I whispered the idiom to myself after getting back from our Cochise County trip. As I always do, I began looking for stories that complement my pictures. I found a great story about another Earp shooting. Not Wyatt. That would have been too good. This incident involved the shooting death of Warren Earp—Wyatt’s youngest brother—at 1:30 am July 6^th, 1900, in the Headquarters Saloon.

If you’re not familiar with the controversial Earp brothers (where have you been), they were supposedly the good guys at the OK Corral shootout in 1881—even though they wore the black hats and black dusters. I don’t want to dwell on the Tombstone incident, but the short version is that Wyatt, two of his brothers Virgil and Morgan, and their friend—Doc Holiday went to the corral to disarm four Clanton Gang cowboys. The confrontation erupted in a 30-second gunfight where the Earp’s killed Tom and Frank McLaury and Billy Clanton while Ike Clanton managed to run away. (In this video, Bob Boze Bell—former DJ, artist, and publisher of True West magazine—explains the shootout’s story better. It’s longish but interesting.)

Warren wasn’t in Tombstone at that time because he was too young and lived with his parents in California, but he later got entangled in the subsequent vendetta that lasted another year. By 1900, Warren had settled in Willcox, a mountain range east of Tombstone. He worked as a stage driver for the mail and a Sierra Bonita Ranch hand. It was at the ranch where he and Johnny Boyett became close.

On the fateful night, Warren and Johnny got into a shouting match in the saloon on the northeast corner of Maley Street and Railroad Avenue (diagonally across the street from last week’s train station). As their argument heated, they threatened to kill one another, although neither was armed. Short-tempered Warren and Boyett left the bar separately. Earp wanted to cool off, and Johnny went to get a gun. When Warren returned through the back door, Boyett shot at him four times. He seemingly missed on purpose. Earp taunted the ranch foreman and opened his duster to prove he didn’t have a gun. “Don’t come an inch closer,” Johnny shouted, but Warren continued. Johnny fired another round sending a bullet through Earp’s heart. Warren fell foreword, dead onto the floor. Then things got weird.

Between the 1:00 am shooting, and sunrise, Earp’s body was dragged to the cemetery and buried in an unmarked grave. Meanwhile, the Sheriff arrested Johnny. Then he got the local judge out of bed. They held a trial, where the witnesses testified. Finally, the judge determined the shooting was justified and freed Johnny Boyett. The incident was closed and sealed forever.

There is a tantalizing clue, however. In the 1930s, a reporter interviewed a woman living in Prescott’s Pioneer Home. Her name was Mary Cummings—she was also called Kate Elder, but she was best known as Big Nose Kate. She worked as a prostitute in Tombstone and was Doc Holiday’s common-law wife. During that interview, she recounted her memories of the Earp brothers and said Warren’s death “… was the result of an altercation between two individuals involved in an unnatural male relationship.”

How does this week’s picture fit into this story? It doesn’t. The Headquarter Saloon burned to the ground sometime after the shooting, but the builders used the foundations to rebuild an identical structure. It’s repurposed now—ironically as a wine-tasting room. While I was shooting in Willcox, I didn’t feel it worthy because it has a tacky sign painted on the white stucco. This week’s photo—Mack’s Bar—is also on Maley Street, a block west of where our story took place. So, it’s a bar, it’s on the same street, and that’s as close as I got.

You can see a larger version of Mack’s Bar on its Web Page by clicking here. Next week, I have another picture from Willcox, and maybe I can find a story that goes with it.

Until next time — jw

Tucson Mountains Sunrise Picture of the Week

I woke up in a very chipper mood this morning. When I put on my jeans, they were so loose that I had to tighten my belt a notch to make things better. My morning routine is to check my vitals before making coffee, and my blood pressure was perfect today. There’s been a great weight lifted off my shoulders, and let me tell you what I think it is. First of all, I finally finished the wood project that’s kept me busy all summer—I’ll show you on Wednesday—and secondly, summer’s finally over—well I hope it is.

Over the past couple of days, clouds have filled the Congress skies, and it sprinkled Friday evening. That’s the first precipitation in months. This morning, our new wall thermometer got below 40º for the first time, and I got to put on one of my bulky sweaters. It keeps getting better—today’s forecast is for snow in the mountains. Yep, straight from summer to winter. Today, the world is better.

My mood is so good; I don’t have any snarky stories about Queen Anne, so let’s go back down to Tucson and see where we stopped for our second November image. Last week, we visited the overlook at the top of Gates Pass before dawn. Believe it or not, I wasn’t the only photographer there. A handful of guys were hanging out with their tripods set up for a sunrise shot when I got there. I’m not usually late to one of these parties, and when I saw what they were getting ready to shoot, I wasn’t impressed—it was more of a sundown kind of shot. After snapping a few other scenes, I hopped in the truck and headed down the road stopping again at the bottom of the pass.

Tucson Mountain Sunrise - The morning sun shines on top of the Tucson Mountains. — Tucson Mountain Sunrise – The morning sun shines on top of the Tucson Mountains.

In this week’s featured image—that I call Tucson Mountain Sunrise—we’re looking back at the overlook. It’s the flat area between the two forward peaks at the bottom of the sunlight. Behind that, you might recognize Bushmaster Peak from last week’s image. Actually, all of it is Bushmaster Peak, but I really liked the western side’s gnarly part. It has the most character. For scale, I found a couple of young saguaros and placed them in the foreground—that means that I was wandering around in the dark, rocky, snake-infested desert to get this shot just for you.

How could you ruin a beautifully quiet moment like this? Well, let me tell you how. Just as I finished my shot and began walking back to R-chee, a guy who was parked nearby in a black late-model Chevy pick-up fired it up, and the distinct sound of a V8 with open headers reverberated throughout the canyon. Now, I enjoy loud race cars as much as anybody, but it has to be in the right context. As this gentleman drove east through the pass, it was obvious that he wasn’t racing—he was making noise just for the sake of noise. Fortunately, after the summit, he rode the brakes downhill, and the bird songs once again filled the morning air.

You can see a larger version of Tucson Mountain Sunrise on its Web Page by clicking here. Next week, we’ll make a morning stop in Saguaro National Park for another photograph in our story.

Until next time — jw

Sunrise on Track Picture of the Week

There are only a half-dozen places Queen Anne, and I frequent in our home town of Congress. There’s Nichol’s West—our favorite local restaurant, the Post Office, the clinic, the Kwikie Mart, and the Dollar Store. Oh, I forgot the dump. For anything else, we have to drive into town or—shudder—the big city. Half of those in-town destinations are on the west side of the railroad crossing, which never has a train—most of the time.

I wrote in a newsletter about our train when we first moved here. This section of track is called the Pea Vine Grade that follows Highway 60 out of Sun City till Wickenburg then continues north to Prescott and Ash Fork. The name is descriptive of the twists along the route.

The tracks aren’t busy like the southern route in Yuma, or the north through Flagstaff. This route isn’t bustling and only has four to six passing trains each day. They’re not on any schedule that I can discern and you don’t hear them go by as much as you feel their bass vibrations, especially the ones coming up the grade. The five engines work hard dragging loaded freight cars up the hill, while the ones headed south sound like a wooden roll-a-coaster as they effortlessly roll downhill. Their horns only blare in Wickenburg and the Congress crossings. That’s too far away to hear from the house unless we’re sitting on the back porch and there’s a north breeze coming off the mountains, but even that’s so faint that it’s like a scene from a Steinbeck novel.

Sunrise on Track – Dawn breaks with a red sky over the railroad tracks heading north from Congress Junction.

This week’s featured image turned out completely different from how I originally visualized it. I wanted to capture this shot with a train in it. The tracks come into Congress Junction from Hillside through the valley between the Date Creek Range and the Weaver Mountains. On most mornings, there’s an early southbound train. We’ve seen it while we’re out for our morning walks. To further set the scene, the Date Creek Range foothills at the crossing are prettiest at sunrise. The rest of the day, they’re flat and dull. So that’s what I had in my mind when I drove there in the dark.

I previously scouted out a lovely spot overlooking the tracks, and I set up my camera and waited for the characters to arrive. As the eastern sky got brighter, the clouds overhead turned red, and I thought, “Ooo shiny.” I fired off a couple of frames. As I waited, the fast-moving clouds moved east and began to block the sunrise removing any drama from my scene. Besides, no trains showed up. Disappointed, I packed up and drove around town looking for other subjects to shoot.

When I got home and reviewed my images, this was the shot that impressed me the most. Even without a train, the tracks are a leading line that moves your eye to the foothills. The light bouncing from the clouds tints the scene pink, and that light softly brings out the mountain’s cone shape. There is a feeling of tranquility in this shot. It’s a moment of quiet and calm.

You can see a larger version of Sunrise on Track on its Web Page by clicking here. I hope you enjoy viewing this week’s post and next week; we’ll show another featured image from Congress.

Until next time — jw

Chevy Skull Picture of the Week

I began writing a post for this week’s picture, and I started to wonder how cow skulls (horns) and car hoods became a thing. It seemed to originate in Texas. My earliest recollection of the meme was a red ’59 Caddy convertible with a longhorn hood ornament—or maybe that was JR’s car on Dallas. As a car guy, I never understood why you’d tacky up a perfectly good car with bovine parts. I guess it symbolized decadent wealth—that you had so much money; you could thumb your nose at decorum. A new money thing.

Then the genre moved to New Mexico, and the horns became a whole skull. Often the cow’s head is hand painted or jewel encrusted. The cars changed too. They were no longer shiny new Cadillacs, but heaps from the fifties with rust and dull patina. The whole car-cow thing transitioned from tackiness to art.

Chevy Skull – A cow skull decorates the hood of a 40’s era Chevy Truck and whispers tales of cattle ranching during the Second World War in Seligman.

While I was photographing in Seligman, I saw this Chevy truck with a cow skull on the hood, I didn’t bat an eye and thought to myself, “This seems perfectly normal.” Now that I look at this week’s image, I don’t think the skull is even mounted—it’s just sitting there as decoration. It’s interesting that each object in the photograph would tell a story of their own, but combined; they conjure up an entirely different tale. I imagine a narrative of round-ups, chuck wagons, miles of open range, and nights under the stars. I imagine a story about a rancher growing beef during the Second World War and how hard his life was.

Sometimes when I walk away from shooting an image like this, I have a hunch that it’s a good shot and I can’t wait to see it on paper. This one, however, didn’t stand out in my memory. It wasn’t until I saw it on my computer screen that I considered it a keeper. For me, it’s not really about the skull as much as how the sunrise falls on the truck’s grill. The head balances the dark area in the composition. I named this image Chevy Skull.

You can see a larger version of Chevy Skull on its Web Page by clicking here. I hope you enjoy viewing this week’s post and come back next week when we’ll show another featured image from Seligman and Route 66.

Until next time — jw