Morning walk to the double arches

Tijeras Creek trail, December* 2017 copyright Douglas Stockdale

First off, I hope you were not thinking that I was including in my morning walks a visit to McDonald’s, as I have enough troubles with shedding the last few pounds, least I indulge in a quarter-pounder with cheese. Sorry, although I don’t want to offend any Micky-D fans, but for the time being I need to avoid that place like the plague.

So having finished my seven day black & white challenge, back to my normal day time photographic programming.

Visually my challenge for this composition was to simulate the three dimensional space of these progressive arches along this trail. During the walk, the progressive arches were easy to see but then capturing that three dimensional space in a print seemed a bit harder. I hope that the combination of how I tweaked the shadows, both on the ground as well as the foliage, in conjunction with keeping the foreground darker and slightly raising the values of the foliage at the second arch created the necessary visual depth. In this case, I was trying to create this visual effect without masking the second arch and softening the details to simulate a shallow dept of field.

Meanwhile yesterday at the conclusion of my walk I realized that I had worn out my Merrill hiking books. Nevertheless this pair of books has held up for about twenty years, the leather was still relatively waterproof and a decent tread to give me traction on ice and snow. So now I need a new pair for our pending ski trip to Colorado mountains. Any suggestions??

Please join me on Tumblr: @douglasstockdale & Twitter: @Doug_Stockdale, and of course, Instagram @douglasstockdale

* Limited time print offer: a 7 x 7″ black & white print is available for 24 hours after this post for a special price of $150 USD plus shipping. This black & white print size regularly sells for $300 USD. Archival pigment print on Hahnemuhle Photo Rag Matte (305 gsm), paper size is 8-1/2 x 11″, Edition size of 10 and the print will be signed and numbered in pencil. email me: doug@douglasstockdale.com for details.

Cheers!