Magical Mystical TourCheyenne Rouse highlights the American South and Southwest using the wide-angle perspective of the Tamron SP 10-24mm lens. |
Article By Jennifer Gidman Images by Cheyenne L. Rouse |
Whether she’s shooting the lushness of her native Miami, capturing autumn’s hues in Flagstaff, Arizona, or descending into a canyon in the archaeological ruins of Southern Utah, Cheyenne Rouse tries to harness the mystical feelings that emanate from the wonders in front of her camera. “I’m passionate about nature and ancient cultures, especially Southwestern and Western life,” she explains. “I want that passion to come through in my photos.” |
Rendering picture angles approximating 16mm to 37mm in the 35mm format, the Tamron SP 10-24mm wide-angle lens offers a striking perspective that Rouse is unable to get shooting any other way. “For years, I always wanted to go wider,” she says. “That’s why the 10mm focal length is so much fun for me. I’m almost at the point where I don’t like anything that looks ‘normal’ — I want my images either really wide or extremely close-up.” |
Rouse, who took a hiatus from photography after 9/11 (“I realized I was burnt out”), discovered HDR processing shortly after she reentered the imaging world and started shooting digitally in early 2008. “I was floored by the HDR process — it opened up a whole new world for me,” she says. “I thought, ‘This is art.’ When I started using it, I was off the charts with the sliders and colors and making things look otherworldly. Now I process most of my images using HDR just to bring out that extra bit of detail. I also recently started doing post-processing in Lightroom: I set the presets to bump up the color just a little and fine-tune the details so the message I want to convey is apparent.” |
Extra-Wide Imagery |
Although she’s only had the 10-24mm lens since mid-October, Rouse started using it the day she got it and hasn’t put it down since. “The day I got it was the day I went up to Flagstaff to shoot beautiful fall photos,” she says. “I had such a great time taking pictures, especially of the golden aspens.” She followed that trip with a visit to a hot-air balloon festival in Scottsdale, where she used the 10-24 for wide-angle images and her Tamron 18-270mm for detail shots.
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Rouse has already used the lens to put a new spin on places and objects she’s shot before, including in her hometown of Miami. “I love taking pictures of Plymouth Congregational Church in Coconut Grove — it’s so pretty there,” she says. “The sidewalk leading up to the church is all old limestone, which has a terrific texture to it. I’ve never shot it, though, with a wide-angle lens.” |
On a visit to Miami in mid-November, Rouse took a picture of the church at high noon, which she wouldn’t have been able to do at that time of day during the summertime. “At this time of year, with the sun at that slight Southern angle, it worked nicely,” she says. “Plus, I’m all about clouds in my images — I love them. We don’t get that many big, puffy ones this time of year in Miami, so I had to take advantage of this opportunity to get them in the image. I did just a bit of HDR and sharpened it in Lightroom. You can also see the slight vignetting I did to bring the viewer’s eye to the center of the subject.” |
Rouse is an advocate of “respecting the rust,” scouting for oxidized automobiles in her travels through the American Southwest. “People often ask me if I put the cars there myself — but I really just find them!” she laughs. “I spotted this old Buick at an intersection right near a small trading post, but I was able to shoot it to make it appear as if it were in the middle of nowhere. I love how the red patina on the car matches the red rocks so perfectly. I really wanted to make certain features of the car, like the grille, stand out in this shot.” |
Her fascination of ancient cultures (she went back to school for a certificate in American Indian Studies, with a concentration on the Ancient Southwest) led Rouse to search out a coveted photo op in the Four Corners region of Southeastern Utah. “I had dreamt about doing this photo,” she says. “It’s a treacherous trail down into the canyon. Another photographer and I basically got there about 4 in the afternoon, set up our tripods, and went through the night until about 3am.” |
Rouse shot from the same spot for 12 hours, enduring 20-degree temperatures and even mice in the old cave where they were situated — but her efforts paid off. “The really moody shot with the clouds, which I call ‘Mystical Alcove,’ was shot at f/13 for 2 seconds, with an ISO of 200,” she says. “Around 10pm the moon came up and I was able to get the shot entitled ‘Timeless Vision,’ which I shot at f/3.5 for 25 seconds, with an ISO of 1600.” |
Her suggestion for shooting the moonlit skies and star trails above the desert landscape: “Always use a tripod,” she says. “I’ll see people walk up with a handheld camera, and I know they’re not going to get the shot. If you’re going to be in the same spot for a long time, you also need to experiment with every ISO, every white balance setting — I had made such an effort to get down into that canyon that I wasn’t leaving empty-handed!” |
Rouse posts many of her images on her Facebook page, which is gaining momentum as more people see her work. “I get emails and posts where people say, ‘You’ve reignited my fire to pick up my camera and start shooting,’” she says. “It s really humbling and special. If my images can do that, I’ve done my job.” |
To see more of Cheyenne Rouse’s images, go to www.CheyenneRouse.com or follow her on her Facebook page. |
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