Month: November 2010

Photographing Death Valley

Death Valley is a wonderful location to photograph and here are a few of my favorite places.

Every year I lead a workshop in Death Valley.  We offer personalized instruction and photograph some of the many exciting locations there.  Click here for more information.

death_valley_reflections_2009Now, the only time you want to be in Death Valley is late fall through early spring.  Otherwise it’s just too darn hot.  Personally, I like February.  It’s kind of a quite time and we’ve had some mighty good luck the last couple of years with major rainfall in the weeks leading up to the workshop.  What this has meant for us is some of the playas were flooded.  When that happens you have lakes six inched deep that spread for miles in every direction.  It doesn’t take a lot of rain to flood the playas either.  Generally an inch will do.

There are some locations in Death Valley that I really love and I’d like to share them with you.

Continue reading “Photographing Death Valley”

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Art is Communication

Art is communication and slowing down can help us communicate more effectively.

I love flickr.  It’s arguably the best photo sharing site for photographers.  I get to see some really good, inspiring work from the other photographers I follow.

And, like most photo sharing sites, you can add comments.  When I post photographs I always look forward to receiving feedback and encourage anyone who visits my page on flickr to leave copious comments, both complements and criticisms.   If you haven’t visited yet, here’s the link.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ralphnordstromphotography/

Continue reading “Art is Communication”

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The Making of a Photograph–Watchman Tower

An example of how to process a difficult capture.

I was working on a photograph last night that turned out rather well. It was taken during a recent photography workshop in Zion National Park in Utah. I took the group to the famous bridge to photograph the Virgin River and the Watchman Tower at sunset. It’s a must photograph. It seems every photographer in Zion with a tripod is there. But we also returned for sunrise and had the bridge to ourselves.

There is a time of day when exposure becomes very tricky. This is during twilight when the sun is a little below the horizon so the earth is dark but the sky is very bright. You end up with what I call the “Grand Canyon” histogram – there’s a huge spike at the shadow end and a similar spike at the highlight end with a large gap in between. This is a challenging situation that, if you master, can provide some spectacular images. In this blog I’d like to walk you through the process.

Continue reading “The Making of a Photograph–Watchman Tower”

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Three New Photographs Published

I just published three new photographs on http://RalphNordstromPhotography.com.  They’re from my shoot in Minnesota the first weekend of October with my brother Roger and his friend Travis Novitsky.  There are more to come but here are the first three.

oberg_lake_2010

Oberg Lake

superior_twilight_2010

Superior Twilight

spirit_tree_2010

Spirit Tree

Stay tuned.

Join me on an upcoming workshop.  Click here for more details.

To see more of my photographs click here.

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Napa Windmill




Napa Windmill

Originally uploaded by Ralph Nordstrom

This photo is getting a lot of hits on Flickr and I thought I’d share it with you.

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Inspiring Quotes – Sir Edmund Hillary

I was just an enthusiastic mountaineer of modest abilities who was willing to work quite hard and had the necessary imagination and determination.  I was just an average bloke.  It was the media that tried to transform me into a heroic figure.  But I’ve learned through the years, as long as you don’t believe all that rubbish about yourself, you can’t come to too much harm.

I don’t know if I particularly want to be remembered for anything.  I have enjoyed great satisfaction from my climb of Everest.  But my most worthwhile things have been the building of schools and medical clinics.  That has given me more satisfaction than a footprint on a mountain.

Sir Edmond Hillary, 1st to stand atop Mt Everest along with his Sherpa guide, Tenzing Norgay

As quoted by David Oliver Relin and Greg Mortenson in “Three Cups of Tea”

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Lightroom Tutorial–Color Calibration

Sometimes I create a post just to document and remember a learning process I’ve just gone through.  This is such a time.

I just spent an hour or so recalibrating my laptop monitor.  I calibrated it recently and it didn’t seem to come out right so I decided to recalibrate it again this morning.

Calibrating your monitor is a critical first step in the whole color management process (an area of study that hundreds of pages have been written on and that I won’t go into here – maybe later).

There are two settings you need to set in the calibration software – gamma and color temperature.  I made some guesses as to what these were and guessed wrong.  That’s why things like colors and tonalities didn’t look right.  A little digging into Lightroom help provided the answer (when all else fails, read the documentation – yea, I know).  So here it is.  Hopefully it will save you some time in the future.

Gamma: 2.2
Color Temperature: 6500K

Good luck.

Join me on an upcoming workshop.  Click here for more details.

To see more of my photographs click here.

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Mastering Exposure–Histograms Part 1

Alas, the histogram is misunderstood…, or not understood at all.  I often run into students on photography workshops who say they’ve noticed the histogram but never knew what it was nor paid much attention to it.  But the histogram is one of our most effective tools we have for getting the correct exposure.  And a correct exposure is essential to a compelling photograph.  So, what is a histogram?  Read on as we explore the ins and outs of this powerful tool.

Continue reading “Mastering Exposure–Histograms Part 1”

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A Sad Story

It was a couple of years ago when I was shooting in the Columbia River Gorge up in Oregon when a fellow photographer (a stranger, not a friend) laid this stinging remark on me.  But let me explain.

Continue reading “A Sad Story”

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