Cruising Glacier Bay

Imagine a National Park that has no apparent paved roads; the visitors use the water to see the majesty of the frozen rivers. Most of a day involved cruising by several glacier areas, one more picturesque than the other.

A note on photo composition. Yes, indeed, I have heard of the Rule of Thirds. I can't say I agree with it being a "rule," though; in my Photography Workshop I teach it and the Concept of Thirds. I developed a grid overlay that can show the focal points perfectly, but no rule is better than the eye of the photographer. The reflection of the glacier gently invited me to collect it, to admire it, and to respect it. That is what I tried to do with this image. The power diagonals certainly invite the eye of the viewer to explore.

A note on Photoshop. Yes, I do post process; sometimes heavily and sometimes quite lightly. I know that historically, photographers carried gradient filters for images such as this. In the camera, this image was too light above and too dark below. While the same filter would still work, I have such a filter built right into Photoshop. Using CS2, a full two generations behind the cutting edge, I can do so many things to enhance, to correct, to experiment. I can work hard and I can have fun. And all these efforts are work of the photographer trying to refine the image to become the image he had in his mind.

So, the moral of the dual lesson is simple. Know the rules and know when to break them. Get the image as good as you can in the camera and then do what you must to make it the image you want. If the result is a photograph that please the photographer, it is a success.

We will return to Glacier Bay on the next post and you will meet a Glacier named Marjorie.