Assignments: November 2011

This Article Features Photo Zoom

1) Photographer: Janell N. Cotterman Location: Crater Lake National Park, Oregon Equipment: Canon EOS 40D, Canon EF-S 10-22mm ƒ/3.5-4.5 USM, circular polarizing filter, Rocketfish carbon-fiber tripod This image was taken while snowshoeing at Crater Lake in January. The morning was cold, with ice covering the trees, and as we snowshoed around the rim, we came to a clearing. I saw the fan-like clouds and the fog rolling over the mountains, and it was beautiful. It’s a spectacular and peaceful place to be in the winter, and every view is breathtaking and awe-inspiring. As of June 1, there still was some 115 inches of snow.

The Black And White Assignment was one of the most popular that we’ve run, and it attracted some of the best photography. In a previous issue, I published some of the best from that gallery, but due to the limits of space, I wasn’t able to publish as many as I would have liked. In this issue, you can see some of the other highlights from that gallery.

There’s much more to a good black-and-white image than just converting a good color shot. In the August issue of Outdoor Photographer, there were several articles that went into detail about making compelling black-and-whites. Each of the images here are examples of highly graphic black-and-white images. There’s a simplicity of form and shape that makes each image jump off the page.

Go to the Assignments section of the OP website to see more galleries, comment on images and submit your own photographs. I’ll be looking for the best submissions to publish in the magazine, and if you have a suggestion for a good Assignments topic, please send it to me at [email protected]
—Christopher Robinson, Editor

2)
Photographer: Ahmed Mohammed Al-Touqi
Location: Al-Hashman Sands, Oman
Equipment: Canon EOS 5D, Canon EF 17-40mm ƒ/4.0 L USM, Manfrotto tripod

I took this photo on my first visit to the Al-Hashman Sands, which is part of the vast desert of the Empty Quarter in Oman. It was the end of September 2010, and I was lucky that the weather wasn’t too hot. The sands are famous for big, beautiful dunes compared to the other less-impressive sand areas in the country. Getting to Al-Hashman Sands wasn’t difficult in a 4×4. This is a very empty landscape, and nothing lives there except a few species that have adapted to the extreme conditions. The distinct shapes make for very graphic images when the light is right.

3)
Photographer: Jay W. Smith
Location: Oxbow Bend, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming
Equipment: Nikon N90S, Fujichrome Velvia film, Manfrotto tripod

This photograph was taken at Oxbow Bend early one October morning in 1996. I had been introduced to the photographic magic of Oxbow Bend the previous summer when attending one of the Great American Photography Workshops, and knew then that I wanted to return to Grand Teton National Park in the fall. On the morning I took this image, the sky was partly cloudy and the air was still. I captured the photo just as the morning sun was peeking through the clouds, brilliantly illuminating the face of Mount Moran.