Pop goes the Polarizer

If you encounter me in the field, you’ll likely find the lens of my camera uncovered by any filter. UV filters just add a layer of unneeded glass, warming filters have limited use, colored filters, in the rare times I’d want them can be emulated in Lightroom, as can split neutral densities (under most circumstances anyway). The one filter I do carry, though use only under certain circumstances, is a polarizer.

And the images above are why. I made these a couple of years back on a very gray autumn day on Alaska’s north slope. Not the best light for landscapes, but really nice for details. I found this patch of flooded tundra as the group I was guiding and I were hiking down a bluff above the Arctic Ocean looking for wildlife. I was wearing a pair of polarized sunglasses (mostly to protect my eyes from the relentless, chill, wind) and noticed when I cocked my head to the side that these grasses just lit up with color. I set up the tripod, twisted my polarizing filter onto the lens and started making images. 

Both of the images above have the polarizer, but it has been turned 90 degrees, engaging the polarization for the second image. Striking difference isn’t it?The first thing you see is that the colors erupt, but the water darkens also as the reflections of the gray clouds are cut out. The images goes from dark and grayish, to flashes of color on a dark background. Night and Day.

While indispensable under some circumstances, polarizing filters should be used with caution. It is easy to over-use them. They have a tendency to unnaturally darken skies, and create strange gradations in wide-angle shots. But when used correctly it’s like turning on the color.

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