film, photography

When All Else Fails… Time-lapse It

Landscape photography is the supreme test of the photographer – and often the supreme disappointment.” ~ Ansel Adams

Sometimes you get yourself out of bed at 4:30 AM and drive across town to get set up by 5:30 for a shot you need.

You have shown up, but the right weather hasn’t.

That’s okay… just get creative.

You’re already there… no sense in getting frustrated.

Make something unique and interesting with what you have.

Time-lapse it.

Over the last several months, I’ve been shooting time-lapses in tandem with my stills from all over the world… here are a few I wanted to share.

Some are the direct result of the still image never “showing up”.

~ andrew

Music: Parlours Slowly From The Earth

Take your photography to a new level… check out my new workshop dates:

Grand Teton Photographic Tour/ Workshops 2014

More Destination Photo Tours/ Workshops 2014

If you are interested in licensing any of the images/ video from this post, please visit my stock agency:

Tandem Stills + Motion // andrew r. slaton

If you are interested in purchasing prints from this post, please check my prints for sale, or email me directly for a custom request:

andrew r. slaton // photographer // prints

For assignment work requests, please email me: andrew@andrewslatonphoto.com

Thanks for visiting AndrewSlatonBlog.com!

all images and content © ARS Media, LLC 2014

city, instructional, landscape, photography

The Dynamic Cityscape

Shooting cityscapes is not unlike photographing natural landscapes.

The main difference is that your city landscape has light elements not seen in nature.

This creates incredibly dynamic compositions. But often, you must start a little earlier in the morning, or stay a bit later than you might in the wild.

While on assignment scouting shots for a client in my hometown of Dallas recently, I was reminded of this.

Scouting is key… and don’t be afraid to show up really early, and stay later than you’d want. Dinner may get cold, but the perfect balance in exposure of sky and city lights is a delicate matter.

Happy shooting!

~ andrew

Take your photography to a new level… check out my new workshop dates:

Grand Teton Photographic Tour/ Workshops 2014

More Destination Photo Tours/ Workshops 2014

If you are interested in licensing any of the images/ video from this post, please visit my stock agency:

Tandem Stills + Motion // andrew r. slaton

If you are interested in purchasing prints from this post, please check my prints for sale, or email me directly for a custom request:

andrew r. slaton // photographer // prints

For assignment work requests, please email me: andrew@andrewslatonphoto.com

Thanks for visiting AndrewSlatonBlog.com!

all images and content © ARS Media, LLC 2014

art, photography, random thought, travel

wyoming | elk hunt

i was incredibly excited to be invited on Mike and Ellen’s elk hunt at the end of my trip to wyoming in september.

at that point, Elle had to head home, so i spent the last 10 days mostly by myself in the wild. and of the last 3, my friends were kind enough to host me at hunting camp.

Jim also showed up. he and Mike go way back. and actually, he and i do too… randomly enough.

when i lived in pinedale in 2005, i tried my hand a few other jobs after quitting my job at the newspaper.

in this part of wyoming, everyone knows that able bodied folks can make a VERY good living roughnecking in the oil fields. even i was tempted by the high pay they were offering.

one problem though…. no experience. in steps Jim.

he runs a water well rig, which is very similar to the oil rigs out in the fields. and Jim was looking for a bit of help.

long story short, i apprenticed with Jim for one day. quickly realized i’m not the roughnecking type :)

but Jim was incredibly nice to this city slicker, and i will forever be grateful. he’s a good man.

buster found a good spot for a midday nap.

only the essentials… whiskey, guns….. and a broom?

unfortunately, there was still a fire ban… so we had to use camping ingenuity… thanks to Ellen, we were all warm.

when you’re at camp with Mike and Ellen, you’re not going to go hungry, that’s for sure. breakfast, lunch, and dinner, we ate like kings.

we woke up very early on opening day to get the horses ready…

it was a beautiful morning. but opening day is a tough day to spot animals… lots of other folks out looking for them too…

no luck. we searched all morning only to find that we may want to look for a new spot.

so we decided to take an evening drive down from our camp to scout a new location…

along the way, Jim spotted a few grouse…. mmm. dinner.

tastes like chicken. especially when smothered in bbq sauce…

we found a great spot. but we would need to return the next morning before dawn.

and on the way back… more grouse.

so we went back to our spot early the next morning, before sunrise. it was the day i would have to leave wyoming.

it turned out to be a great location… we saw several good bulls. but one thing that i learned about hunting is that you don’t always get to shoot, even when you see what you’re looking for.

we never got the right looks, or they were never close enough. the last thing a hunter wants is to wound an animal right before nightfall, or spoil the meat with a bad shot.

so we explored a bit… and found a moose family. a cow, calf, and bull popped out of the willows and we had a chance to see them on the move together. a real treat.

seeing the moose family was a nice way to wrap up the morning… but the sun was climbing higher, temperature rising. not a great time for hunting.

so i decided to say my goodbyes and get on the road.

i had a really long drive back. but my route took me back through pinedale, and for one last stop at soda lake.

all images © andrew r. slaton | photographer 2012

art, photography, random thought, travel, writing

wyoming | antelope hunt

** GRAPHIC HUNTING PHOTOS… PLEASE BE ADVISED**

i felt kind of silly writing the above disclaimer… but then i thought about it, and many of the folks that frequent my site are expecting beautiful landscapes, portraits, and *living* wildlife photography.

this post incorporates all of those elements, but it also adds photojournalism. a documentation of what the vast majority of humans throughout the span of time have done in order to survive. with graphic detail.

Elle and i are not big hunters, but we are both meat eaters and have a great respect for the people that go out into the wild to bring meat home for their families.

rarely, in this day and age, do we city-folk ever see the animals that we eat prior to their processing and packaging at our supermarkets. i think it’s good for all of us to experience a hunt. it gives us the opportunity to develop respect for the animals, and a thankfulness for the bounty of food that results. to get our hands dirty.

so here is our first real hunting experience in the sagebrush sea of sublette county, wyoming with our good friends Mike and Ellen.

elle was excited and nervous when we hopped in Ellen’s truck that morning.

Mike and Ellen had already harvested one antelope of their two for the year, so they were just ready to get the meat that they needed for the long wyoming winter.

antelope hunting is unique. there are tens of thousands of high mountain desert acres in wyoming.

antelope roam those plains, sometimes alone, and sometimes in groups.

because of that, it is common for hunters to drive miles of dirt road until they spot a suitable animal. so we drove. looking….

after a while of looking… we spotted a huge, lone male. so Mike set up for the shot.

Elle loaded the 30-06 magazines.

it was a really long shot… probably around 750 yards. needless to say, Mike missed quite a few times.

the one that got away.

more looking….

then, finally… Mike found ‘the one’. it was downhill from us and still a very long shot.

not a clean kill, unfortunately, but Mike eventually got the kill shot…

now it was time to gut the antelope.

just as it sounds, gutting just means to cut out the insides in the field so that the internal organs don’t turn and spoil the rest of the meat.

really sharp knives are helpful…

it can be a messy activity.

all in all, Ellie was not a huge fan of the experience. though she understands hunting for food and respects people’s right and need to do so, she feels it’s not for her.

i, on the other hand, am fully prepared to reap the harvest of wild game… if i need to feed my family… and there are no cows or chickens nearby to ‘hunt’. though generally prefer to shoot animals with my camera.

we live in an interesting time. one in which most of us never see where our food comes from, and many certainly like it that way. ignorance is bliss, right? and so is a fresh steak.

but still, there is something comforting about knowing exactly where your food came from. and wearing the earth and blood to prove it.

i look forward to taking part in many more excursions with my frontier friends… to see how it once was, and still can be.

art, photography, travel

wyoming | our time

thanks to our clients and friends at the goosewing ranch, and our new ranch HAND | photographic business venture, Elle and i spent nearly a month in wyoming this fall.

we headed up a week before we needed to be at the ranch so we could see our friends in pinedale and backpack a few days in the winds.

well, our plans didn’t exactly work out the way we wanted…. but it was some much needed time rejuvenating ourselves in the mountains….

me getting geared up for a day hike…

it’s weird for me to have photos of myself on here now that Elle is shooting too.

she makes fun of me for my new “fanny pack” camera bag, so i decided to pose for her to prove how useful it would be… especially when backpacking!

i do look pretty nerdy though.

the fall colors were just starting to ignite at soda lake and on the trail to little soda.

my girl exploring the light…

the beautiful wind river range in the distance.

we sat for a while and watched a family of bald eagles at little soda. i haven’t seen these guys there since 2005. it was a welcomed sight.

i used to sit and watch them for hours when i lived in pinedale. it brought back good memories to see these majestic creatures again.

we soon decided to do a three day trek into the winds from the new fork trailhead, up new fork lakes to new fork canyon, then up through palmer canyon and back out doubletop.

not a tremendous feat. but for some lowlander city dwellers, an accomplishment for having just driven 22 hours up only one day before.

Elle had been feeling awful that day, but we decided to embark in spite of her worsening condition. and i had already (somehow after only being in hiking country for a little more than 24 hours) developed a few killer blisters on my heels. no problem, i thought. i can ignore them.