Tag: photography

Be Prepared

Don’t be caught without that one piece of camera gear you need to get the shot.

Often times when out shooting with other photographers I hear them say, “I wish I had brought my grad ND filter.”  Or maybe they didn’t have the lens they needed.  “Where is it?” I ask.  “It’s back in my hotel room,” is their response.  “Why didn’t you bring it with you?”  “I didn’t think I would need it,” or “It’s too heavy.”

Truth to tell, I don’t understand the rationale of selecting the gear you think you might need when going out on a shoot.  Why not take it all?  I suppose if you have 20 lenses (I exaggerate) you can’t take them all with you.  But a normal complement of gear that gives you the flexibility you need isn’t that hard to pack and carry.

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Taking Your Photography to the Next Level

In this post we take a look at photography skills with the aim of helping the interested photographer understand where he is and what needs to be done to advance to the next level.

I read a great series of articles by George Barr on taking the next step in photography.  They were passed along to me by a good friend – Brian Graham.  I have some early thoughts on what Barr proposes.

In his articles he defines six or seven steps for both technical and aesthetic growth in photography.  His articles define each step, discuss ways you can determine what step you’re in and gives ideas on how to advance to the next step.

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Alpenglow

Watch a short video that displays the beautiful alpenglow at Cedar Breaks National Monument in Utah.

Photography is all about light.  In nature photography we study the weather, time of day and time of year to learn all we can about light.  And the more diligently we study light the more it pays off.

One of my favorite types of light is alpenglow.  There is a bit of confusion about what it is.  Many people think it’s the sunlight shining on the mountain peaks during sunset, after the valleys below are in shadow.  And while this is beautiful, that’s not it.

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What Else Things Are

What do your photographs say – about the things you photograph and about you? What do your photographs trigger in your viewers’ minds and imaginations?

Brooks Jensen published a very provocative article in the current issue of Lenswork.  He delves into a topic that I’ve thought about ever since I first picked up a digital camera.  It relates to the question of whether or not it is OK to manipulate photographs.  I’ve always contended that it is not only OK but, at least for the kind of photography I do, it is required.  The photographs I create reflect my interpretation of the natural world around us.  Therefore, their subjects and contents are going to reflect something of me.

Jensen goes several steps farther by identifying three major types of photography – Documentary, Personal Narrative and Imaginative.  Jensen describes Documentary photography as telling “someone else’s story.”  What a great way of describing it.  Clearly, then, in documentary photography, the photographer strives to be as true to the subject as possible and minimize or eliminate his or her own coloration or bias.  The goal is total objectivity.

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Exciting Nighttime Photography in 10 Easy Steps

Here is a simple 10 step process to capture both star trails and nighttime sky photographs at the same time.

Nighttime photography is a lot of fun, gaining greater popularity and attracting more and more photographers.  I’ve been exploring the various techniques and want to share with you the one I like the most.  Now, I don’t pretend to be a master at nighttime photography.  I’ll leave that up to the legends like Wally Pacholka.  But we can still have a lot of fun and come away with some very nice images.

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The Surprises in the Camera

Do we always know what we’re going to get when we press the shutter or are we sometimes in for a pleasant surprise?

“No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader.  No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.”  Robert Frost

In my workshops I talk about feeling a place before you photograph it.  In fact we do an exercise.  When we arrive at the location I ask the participants to leave their cameras in the car for at least fifteen minutes and just quietly wander around the area until it speaks to them.  Only then can they get their cameras and try to capture what they are feeling.

This is a wonderful way of slowing down and getting in touch with the essence of a place.

But I must confess it doesn’t always work that way for me.

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Mastering Light – Color

Explore a key property of light – color – and how to use it in landscape photography.

One of the things that we landscape photographers pay a lot of attention to is light.  In fact, it is my belief that the study of landscape photography is a never ending study of light.  And that’s a good thing because there’s so much to learn.

Now, I must confess – my analytical mind needs to break things down to help my creative mind better recognize and capitalize on great light.  So get ready ‘cause here come a series of blog posts on light.

What Color Is a Cloud?

The first thing I want to look at is Color.  Now, we’re all pretty familiar with red, green and blue, even cyan, magenta and yellow.  I don’t want to talk about color in that way.  We could discuss the color wheel and that would be informative but, well, not all that exciting.  I’d like to kick this off by asking a simple question…

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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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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.

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

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Computer Upgrade

Read about the exciting experience of setting up a new computer.

A little over a week ago my new Dell Inspiron 580 arrived at my doorstep.  My wife and daughter finally convinced me to buy a new one.  I think they were getting tired of me storming around the house all grumpy and such when the old on acted up.  Disclaimer:  Computers act up after years of use not because they wear out but because of all the junk you load on them as time goes by that literally clogs the operating system.  So, with a little persuasion from my girls I gave Dell a call.Inspiron 580

If your one of those that gets into these things, here’s what I ended up with:

  • OS: Windows 7 Home Premium (64 bit)
  • Processor: Intel Core i% CPU 760 @ 2.80 GHz (it’s a 64 bit quad)
  • Memory: 8 GB
  • Internal storage: 1 TB
  • Display adapter: ATI Radeon HD 5450 (supports dual monitors – VGA, DVI and HDMI) with 1 GB memory)

So that’s the starting point.  And from here on it gets more interesting – not exactly the Chinese curse interesting but kinda-sorta.  I got a good deal on the Dell but it as it turns out I wasn’t even close to being done spending money.

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