Hoover Dam by David Lee
Since I wrote my last column there has been a lot going on photographically. In the middle of July I drove to Colorado Springs for the annual international conference of the William Glasser Institute. On the way there I stopped at the Hoover Dam. I made several stereo photographs including the one here. (Shown in cross-eyed format.)
This type of stereo photograph is called a hyper-stereo because the cameras were more than the distance of our eyes apart. In this case the cameras were about 10 feet apart. This gives the effect of seeing the image as though you were a giant with eyes 10 feet apart. It makes the subject seem miniaturized. The British call this puppet theater. I also made a panoramic image looking down from the dam. I am standing in a concrete box that is set out from the walkway on top of the dam. On the horizon you can see that they are constructing a bridge that will bypass the dam.
From the Hoover Dam I drove a few hours to Zion National Park. This is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been, ranking with Yosemite on my list. The following stereo photograph shows the view looking up the Virgin River at the Narrows.
One is able to hike up the Narrows through the water for some distance depending on how high the water is and how wet one is willing to get. It had rained the previous night, so I was only able to go 150 yards or so until the water was up to my waist (and threatening to get my camera gear wet). I went back a few yards to the last place I could set up the tripod and made this image. I understand that the best time to hike up the Narrows is in the fall before the rains start.
The drive from Zion to Denver was quite beautiful, but I didn’t make any photographs. I did stop in Denver for an hour or so to talk to David Wood, the owner of dr5 chrome, dedicated to making the finest black and white transparencies in the world. With the state of digital photography being what it is, very few people are using black and white film at all, let alone for transparencies. However, there is little doubt that the most impressive monochrome images are on film and viewed with transmitted light. I have them made because the most beautiful stereo images are medium format transparencies and I prefer black and white for most subjects. David Wood is a master at what he does and a really nice guy in addition. He showed me his custom built processor from Italy. It is huge and he had to transport it from New York City to Los Angeles to Denver. He seems intent on staying in Denver.
Proceeding down to Colorado Springs, I met with two good friends from the Glasser Institute who also happen to be excellent photographers. We spent the next two days touring the area and making photographs. We went to the Cave of the Winds, Garden of the Gods, the Manitou Cliff Dwellings, and Seven Falls the first day. The second day we went to Pike’s Peak, stopping along the way. Later in the week during a break in the conference we went to the Air Force Academy. Some of my best photographs of the trip, though, were made at a fountain in Colorado Springs where children were playing in the water.
When I got home it was time to get to work on some other photographic projects. I entered two stereo prints in a group black and white exhibition at the Photographer’s Gallery in Modesto. One is from the Santa Cruz Boardwalk and the other from the Venice Beach Promenade. (Both are shown in cross-eyed format.)
I delivered them on a Thursday, and then continued on to Yosemite where I brought three framed pieces that I was donating to an auction benefiting Yosemite Renaissance, an organization that sponsors an annual juried exhibition of artwork, and Yosemite artists-in-residence. (The two stereo images are shown here in cross-eyed format.)
The next weekend (August 21) I went to Modesto for the opening reception at the Photographer’s Gallery at which I showed many people how to look at and make stereo images.
This weekend I went to the Ansel Adams Gallery in Yosemite for the Yosemite Renaissance auction on Thursday the 28th. My pieces did reasonably well and it didn’t hurt that the auctioneers asked me to give a short explanation of stereo photography and how I had made these particular images. (You can see the results here.) The second stereo image in particular (Half Dome in the Clouds) generated a great deal of interest. After all that, I was stunned when, two days later, the winning bidder called me and asked me how to view the image. It turned out that he had bid on it without seeing it in stereo; only on the discussions he had heard. I told him how to view it, we had a little discussion about stereo in general, and I ended by asking him to call me sometime after he had seen it in stereo. Five minutes later he called me back, with the usual response people have when they see a good stereo image for the first time, “Wow! I had no idea.” Since then we have spoken twice more and he wants to make some stereo images.
The next day I drove over the Tioga Pass, stopping at Siesta Lake. What a beautiful spot, and like most things in Yosemite, different every time you see it. I made a panoramic image using a 5 MP digital camera converted to infrared sensitivity (from the normal visible spectrum). Eighteen shots were made and stitched together (using PTGUI) to form the image you see.
I will be teaching a workshop on making stitched panoramas at the Photographers Gallery on September 19th and 20th. It will consist of a lecture/discussion on Friday evening, a field session on Saturday morning, and conclude with another lecture/discussion Saturday evening.
I continued over the pass, ending at Mono Lake, where I made more stereo and panoramic images until it got dark. Needless to say, the following panorama was the last one I got.
