Favourites from Past Week

I’ve been busy this past week, taking quite a few photographs. I’ve chosen to post a few favourites from the many pictures I took, beginning with this first one, taken in the Tonto National Forest, near Bartlett Lake. It shows the rugged terrain in this desert area about 30 miles from our place in Scottsdale.

This next picture was taken in nearby Cave Creek, a small town bordering Scottsdale to the north. I located this particular area a few years ago and I return from time to time to capture the great sunsets.

The next three photographs were all  taken in front of our house at sunset, a couple of nights ago. Credit for the composition of this photograph goes to the landscaper who put it together. I take some credit for the garden lighting and the photograph, of course.

This  shot was taken looking down the driveway. The Southwest is renowned for its great sunsets and I think this one would score fairly well.

My final and favourite for this sequence of photos is another picture of this same sunset taken from the courtyard in front of the house. I used 2 stacked, neutral density gradient filters to balance the exposure of the foreground and background.  The upper part of the filters is darker than the lower, reducing the amount of light reaching the camera’s sensor from the brighter background. This enables me to increase the exposure of the foreground without over-exposing the sky.

It was a good week for photography. I’m looking forward to another one next week, when I venture north to Utah for some photography at Canyonlands and the Arches National Parks and Monument Valley. I’m hopeful I’ll get some weather and light and of course, some good photographs.