Month: July 2011

Lightroom Tutorial – Shooting RAW

Follow along as I show you how to turn an overexposed mistake into a pretty decent sunset photograph.

Last night I ran across an example of why we shoot in RAW (not in the RAW – puhleeeze).

Digital SLR cameras and a few point and shoot camera support the RAW file format for our images.  RAW is essentially what the sensor captured – unprocessed, uncompressed, unadulterated.  It takes a bit to get used to but once you do you’ll not go back to JPEG, the other file format.

One of the benefits of RAW is it gives you a lot more flexibility including recovering from poorly exposed images, especially over exposed.  Now, if you’ve read any of my histogram posts (search this blog for Histograms to find them), you know that the single most important thing to avoid as far as exposure is concerned is highlight clipping.  But with RAW you have a chance to recover an overexposed image and turn it into something very acceptable.  It doesn’t always work but sometimes it does.

big_sur_scouting_110424__A1P2014-1OK, so I was scanning images in Lightroom last night and ran across this one.  It’s washed out except for the foreground and there is a tremendous amount of highlight clipping in the upper right hand corner.  (I wouldn’t blame you if you stopped reading hear and said, “There’s no way he can do anything with that image.  It’s a mess.”  Which it is.  But humor me and read on.)

By the way, you can click on the images to see them in a larger format.

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Vacation Photography – Useful Composition Tips

Here are 10 simple compositional techniques that can quickly improve your photographs.

There are a couple of things that make a great vacation photograph.  Certainly photographing loved ones in exciting and exotic places is one of the most important.  But there is something else that is very powerful and not that hard – Composition.

There are many facets to composition, far more than can be covered in a brief blog posting.  But come along and I’ll share 10 simple compositional techniques with you that will enhance not only your photography on your vacation but throughout the year.

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Orange County Fair Judges Walkthrough

Come on out to the Judges Walkthrough at the Orange County Fair photography competition – Thursday, 7/21 at 8:00.

This year I’ve been honored to be asked to judge the photography competition at the Orange County Fair.  It’s been an amazing experience.  I’m hoping that the experience can be as good for all the people that submitted photographs as it has been for me.  It’s not an easy assignment to sit in judgment of so many fine photographs.  I’m quite sure the other eight judges found the task as difficult as I did.

(Read the first post in this series at

http://ralphnordstromphotography.com/wordpress/journal/orange-county-fair-photography-judging/ )

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The Making of a Photograph – Pond, Owens Valley 2011

Follow along in the making of a photograph as we go from kneeling in the mud to the final print on paper.

It all started with kneeling in the mud.

I was with David Muench, Jerry Dodrill and twelve other eager photographers on a Mountain Light Gallery workshop in May.  We lined up along the bank of the pond just outside Bishop, California and aimed our cameras at magnificent Mt Tom, the dominant peak in the Eastern Sierra crest in this area.

eastern_sierra_110506_IMG_6143

I’d like to take you through the process of making a photograph from the images I captured that morning.

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Vacation Photography – What to Take

Read about the pros and cons of point and shoot and digital SLR cameras.

Good news!  Summer is here!  And we’re thinking “Vacation Time.”  Now, you don’t have to be a professional photographer to figure out that you’re going to take a camera.  So the question becomes, are you going to take your camera that has been sitting around for umpteen  years or use your upcoming vacation as an excuse to buy a new one.  (When it comes to buying camera gear, any excuse will do, at least for some of us.)

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