Cody Redmon - Photoblog

Just as studio photographers use soft boxes to produce healthier tones in their images, so too can this technique be applied in landscape photography.  Unlike a studio, however, in nature it requires a bit of luck at both timing and location.  As frail clouds dissipate into non-clouds they can act as a filter for the sun’s rays, similar to the cloth that ‘strobists’ employ in a soft box. That’s the case in this image I captured along a unique stretch of the Grand Loop in Yellowstone a few weeks ago. The varied light upon the cliffs and surrounding trees stands in gentle contrast to the brightly lit foreground.  The wedge of cloud in the background helps draw the eye, but it also completes a tonal range reminiscent of the Zone System which Ansel Adams helped to develop in the early ‘forties. (The link to Ansel is a great media post by the New York Times; click an image…)