Fine Art Landscape Photography in the South Dakota Badlands
Photograph the surreal landscapes of the South Dakota Badlands with Jason Odell.
2018 marks my 8th consecutive year of leading landscape photography safaris in South Dakota! I hope you’ll join me to explore fine-art landscape photography techniques in an environment that can only be described as surreal. We will explore light, texture and clouds over the tremendous rock formations that have formed from erosion over the last 500,000 years. Continue reading Badlands Landscape Safari 2018→
Join me in South Dakota September 11-16, 2016 for epic landscape photography and instruction.
I’m pleased to announce that I will be returning to Badlands National Park in South Dakota September 11-16, 2016.
This is a small-group (8) photo safari and creative landscape workshop. You’ll get to photograph the amazing scenery while learning the necessary computer skills to transform your images into fine-art quality masterpieces.
Conata Basin, Badlands National Park, South Dakota, USA. 590nm infrared capture.
I captured this image using a Fujifilm X-E1 mirrorless camera that was converted to capture infrared (590nm conversion from Life Pixel Infrared). I liked the combination of textures in the rocks and the deep black sky. I decided to leave the blue tint in the vegetation instead of completely converting the image to monochrome. Had I done that, the vegetation would have disappeared.
As someone who does a lot of outdoor/landscape photography, great locations are important to me. Being in a photogenic location is a wonderful way to experience the outdoors. However, when you photograph a location can be just as important as where you are. The “when” of photography occurs on multiple scales. Within a day, within a year, and even across years. Consider one of my favorite locations to photograph, the South Dakota Badlands.
If you visit the Badlands like most tourists, you’ll arrive at a nice time during the summer after you’ve had your morning coffee. By this time of day, the sun is nearly overhead, and you’ll get photographs like this one:
Door Trail in the Badlands, as most tourists see it… well after sunrise.
Last light in Badlands National Park, South Dakota. Nikon D800e with 70-200mm f/2.8 AFS G VRII Nikkor zoom. 1/8s @f/11, ISO 400 (click to enlarge).
When you shoot landscapes, keep in mind that sometimes the best light happens after the sun has already set. This image was captured about 2 minutes after sunset in Badlands National Park during my photo safari with Deborah Sandidge. High winds made a tripod mandatory, and I used mirror lock-up to prevent softness from mirror-slap. Although the original file wasn’t quite as spectacular, a quick trip to Color Efex Pro 4 brought this image to life.
