#eroded pinnacles

This is North Dakota-land! (Black & White, Theodore Roosevelt National Park) by Mark Stevens Via Flickr: After doing some initial work in Capture NX2 for saturation, brightness, contrast and cropping, I performed a conversion in Silver Efex Pro 2 to black & white where I then used some color filters to bring out a much richer tonal contrast for the final image.

Prairie Grasslands Beyond the Badlands of Panorama Point (Badlands National Park) by Mark Stevens Via Flickr: An idea I got from another photographer with a view across some eroded landscape of badlands and prairie grasses that seemed to stretch out to a distant horizon. This is a view looking to the southeast from the main overlook.

Morning Sunlight Casting Shadows Across the Badlands at Panorama Point (Badlands National Park) by Mark Stevens Via Flickr: An idea I got from another photographer while planing a trip to Badlands National Park and the nearby Dakotas area. For this image, I used a tripod to mount my Nikon SLR camera and then used a CamRanger so that I could meter and compose the image captured. I found that and then making manual adjustments to the shutter speed gave me better feedback for an image captured. I later used some CEP filters in Capture NX2 (Low Key, Polarization and Graduated Neutral Density) which seemed to best bring colors. shadows and tones even with the bright sunlight as I faced that morning at this overlook point.

Badlands, Trees, and Prairie at River Bend Overlook (Theodore Roosevelt National Park) by Mark Stevens

The Light of an Afternoon Sun (Black & White, Theodore Roosevelt National Park) by Mark Stevens Via Flickr: A view looking to the northeast at Badlands Overlook. With this image, I decided to make a conversion to black & white in Capture NX2 with some adjustments to color filters to bring out a more richer tonal contrast for the final image.

Focused from Near to Far (Theodore Roosevelt National Park) by Mark Stevens Via Flickr: For this image, I found a point nearby to focus while closing down the aperture on my Nikon SLR camera to capture this view at a stop named Slump Block Pullout. Composing this image was then just a matter of getting down (after walking a few steps back) near some taller grasses. I let the formations then fill the remaining portion of the image with a little bit of blue skies above. My thinking was that slight upward angle and sliver of skies would add a sense of depth for the final image processed.

Big Badlands Overlook and Blue Skies with Clouds (Black & White, Badlands National Park) by Mark Stevens Via Flickr: A conversion to black & white using Silver Efex Pro 2 where I used some color filters to bring out a much richer tonal contrast across the badlands as well as darker skies to contrast the wisps of clouds for the final image.

A Panoramic View of Painted Canyon (Theodore Roosevelt National Park) by Mark Stevens Via Flickr: While walking around the visitor center.