City of Rocks Workshop

It's a common adage that in the process of teaching, the teacher learns as much as his or her students. Having just finished a photography workshop at City of Rocks National Reserve and Castle Rocks State Park I'd have to agree. First you have to articulate what it is you know or think you know.  Instead of just doing photography there's a deconstruction of  what that "doing photography" is all about exactly.  And then you have to communicate that information in a way that makes sense and is, hopefully, somewhat entertaining. Thanks to the workshop students for being part of my education and to parks superintendent Wallace Keck, a fine photographer in his own right, for putting it all together.

That icon of photography, Ansel Adams, came up in discussions about purity in photography and Photoshop manipulation. As someone who started photography learning Adam's Zone System, which involves compressing or expanding the tonal range of an image, I understand that Adam's created  his images as opposed to just recording what was there. And we do so today, often using Photoshop, although rarely as artistically as Mr. Adams.

I decided to work a few images up as B&Ws in a tip of the hat to Ansel, a teacher for us all.