This was Superbowl Sunday, the night after our film An American Ascent won some big awards down in San Diego. Andy, Beckey, Stacey and I ducked the crowds and met up with our friends Scott and Alexander for this epic photo session at Sunset Cliffs...
Read MoreAN AMERICAN ASCENT: BEHIND THE SCENES
Legendary NOLS instructor Aaron Devine and “rope gun" Mahdu Chikkaraju setting up a complex anchor system to protect those of us on camera as we flirted with the edge to film an action sequence in Distill Productions' new film An American Ascent which documents Expedition Denali: the first all African American team to take on North America’s highest peak (aka Mount McKinley).
The film will be screened this Saturday at 4pm at the Reading Theatre in San Diego as part of the San Diego Black Film Festival. Here’s a link to more information and the Trailer! If you are down there I’d love to see you at it, and I hope you’ll help spread the word.
-Hudson
An Important Trip to a Special Place
As Stacey and I get ready to board a plane headed west this morning, my thoughts are turning back to 2013. Last year was a rough one not only for my family, but for a number of my close friends' families as well. It was a year that contained a lot of loss in my circle. Last fall, after the passing of my grandfather that summer, we lost a truly inspirational and incredible woman, my Nana Georgia Henry.
Nana lived, loved, laughed and left the world a better place for having walked it. Even in her final hours she showed strength, grace and an innate sense of what was most important. She loved a good adventure and understood my wanderlust like few others that I've known. Her favorite place on earth was the North Shore of Kauai, and since I first stepped foot there nearly 20 years ago, I have shared her deep respect and love for the power of that place.
Today we are honored to join family from as far away as Perth, Australia who are boarding planes bound for Kauai to bring her ashes home. Every trip to Hanalei is special, but this one feels doubly so...
-Hudson
Desert Milky Way
I'm finally getting around to editing some of my recent desert images. This is one that I have been excited to process for weeks now.
The cracked patterns on the surface of the Alvord Desert are captivating. This enormous playa (dry lake bed) stretches East from Steens Mountain. My friends, Rick Lepage, Susan Witcraft, Peter Kinnan, Andy Adkins, Matt Kloskowski and I spent some fun days and nights camping and exploring this crazy landscape.
The patterns of the Alvord have always seemed mysterious and otherworldly to me. To capture this feeling I decided to create a vertical panoramic of the cracks with the milky way above. Thankfully we had a clear moonless night to work with...
To keep the foreground cracks in focus and clean of noise, I created my first image at dusk 2 stops underexposed using a lower ISO, middle aperture, and close focus. Once I had the image of the cracks that I wanted, I tilted my Sachtler head up until only the mountains were at the bottom edge of my frame, focused on infinity, covered my lens and left it waiting for the milky way to line up in my composition. Right before going to sleep I returned and captured the stars at ISO 1600 for 20 seconds at F4.
As usual I developed my RAW files using Adobe Lightroom and then applied the finishing touches to the sky and foreground in onOne's Perfect Effects 9. Using onOne's Perfect Layers 9 I composited the two images into one using the dark outline of Steens Mountain as a natural blending point.
I can't wait to print this big and get it up on the wall.
-hudson
Fall Kisses Oneonta
I had a lovely wet Oregon fall photo shoot in Oneonta Gorge with Hillary Younger and Gary Randall yesterday. The logjam we climbed was huge, the pool we waded deep. Hillary went in over her head, but the gear stayed dry. Good times with wonderful friends...
I've been wanting to create a panoramic merger of the back of Oneonta with the falls...
Read MoreSunrise Over Kilimanjaro
This image is from a climb of Mt. Meru, outside Arusha, Tanzania . I left the saddle camp with my Climbing-Ranger Jafari before 2am to make Rhino Point at 13,000 feet before dawn. (Jafari is a saint and an artist at heart). Rhino Point has an EPIC view into Mt. Meru's massive crater.
As I finished shooting the first light on the crater, the clouds lit up with color around Mt Kilimanjaro across the valley. I pivoted the tripod. Then... serendipity! The rest of my crew came up the trail into my frame. I merely shouted "stop and check out the light on Kilimanjaro!" Then I framed up the image you see above.
I always advocate that people planning a trip to climb Kilimanjaro allot an extra three days to first climb Mt. Meru (15,000 feet) in order to acclimatize. Having climbed them both, I can positively say that Meru was my favorite of the two. There is more wildlife, better views, less regulation, fewer people and much less expense involved. It's a wilder, more scenic mountain in many ways.
I've been slowly auditing my collection of past images. It's fun to look at favorites like this one with a fresh eye. One of the amazing benefits of our digital age is the ability to go back to a RAW image and rework it like a fresh piece of undeveloped film.
-Hudson
Good Friends and Smoke Filled Sunsets
This week those of us in the Northwest have the joy of Hillary Younger visiting from Tasmania. Not only is Hillary a fantastic person who is a blast to hang out with, but she's an amazing photographer. She won grandprize in the photo contest I hosted last year, and her adventuresome work and artistic eye never fail to amaze me.
Hillary asked me to meet her atop Flag Mountain last night for sunset along with the great northwest photographers Gary Randall and Darlisa Black, both of whose work I have long admired. There is nothing I love more than getting out...
Read MoreBristlecones and Stars: A Sense of Space and Time.
High on my list of favorite photographic subjects are the Bristlecone Pine trees high in California’s White Mountains. They are the oldest known living organisms on our planet. At least one tree in this grove is over 5,000 years old. Looking at their twisted windblown shapes, a person can feel their antiquity. Not only are these trees wildly photogenic, but they are also awe inspiring.
Not long ago I had the great fortune to spend a crystal clear night here above 10,000 feet photographing with my friends Yva Momatiuk and John Eastcott. The day we arrived was crystal clear and dull from a photographic standpoint, but there was a new moon forecast and no nearby city lights to interfere with photographing the stars. We wandered location scouting through the grove till sunset, made dinner and waited in camp for total darkness...
Read MoreThirty Six Hours in the Pacific Northwest
A couple of weeks ago I had one of those weekends that remind me why I love living and photographing in the Pacific Northwest.
My wife Stacey and I had planned a backcountry ski trip on Mount Rainier with friends that Sunday. As we headed north Saturday the weather was so perfect that we decided to stop by Sauvie Island on the Columbia river just north of Portland to get a little kiteboarding in.
Arriving at our local kite beach we found a number of our friends pumping up kites, laying out lines and heading out into the river on nice steady winds...
Read MoreThors Well: Cape Perpetua
Yesterday my friend Matt Kloskowski was in town and wanted to have a BIG northwest photo adventure. So Matt, the intrepid Rick Lepage and I started the morning off in wetsuits exploring waterfalls and slot canyons in the Columbia Gorge (stay tuned for that story). After a quick lunch, we grabbed our good friend Brian Matiash and headed southwest to Cape Perpetua on the Central Oregon coast for sunset and high tide at Thor's Well. All four of us have long been excited to photograph this powerful, tide-driven, salt-water fountain.
As Matt sped us over the coast range, the valley sunshine gave way to a fairly steady overcast. Undeterred by this development we arrived at Cape Perpetua about an hour before sunset, parked at the WRONG location and began looking for Thor's Well...
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