Tag: workshop

Eastern Sierra Photographs

I finally got a chance to work on a few more Eastern Sierra workshop photographs from June.  It’s amazing how many things barge to the front of the line.  But I finally got to these.  I hope you enjoy them.

alabama_hills_vignette_2010Alabama Hills Vignette

This one was taken before the workshop started.  It’s just one more wonder to be found in the Alabama Hills.  I get a very quite feeling from this one.

lone_pine_creek_2_2010 Lone Pine Creek 2

One of the exercises we did during the workshop was to photograph the chapter, paragraph and sentence on Lone Pine Creek at Whitney Portal.  This was my sentence photograph.  The water is swirling around the rocks going every which way.  This image captures the whole turbulence of the cascade in this little microcosm.

bristlecone_dusk_2010 Bristlecone Dusk

I keep coming back to this bristlecone pine in the White Mountains.  And each year the interpretation is different.  It was somewhat overcast this year and as night was coming on the clouds created subtle patterns in the sky.  One of the things I like about this tree is how it grows high above Great Basin.  It’s been here for thousands of years.  On this evening it softly glows as the day turns to night – one more time.

half_dome_storm_2010 Half Dome Storm

The Tioga Pass road opened just a few days before we arrived in Lee Vining.  So there was no doubt that we would photograph sunset in Yosemite.  Olmsted Point provides a unique view of Half Dome from the back side.  As luck would have it a storm was rolling across the Sierra and we were there.  I love the power in this photograph.  When I look at the image I can’t help thinking how good it would look in a Southern California arts and crafts style house.

These will be up on my website soon but I wanted to give you a preview.

Join me on an upcoming workshop.

To see more of my photographs click here.

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Photography Tutorial – Getting the Shot

I have what I think is a fun idea that can lead to an interesting discussion.  Let me explain.

I often think of art in general and photography in particular as involving two very important elements – creative vocabulary and interpretive decisions.  Creative vocabulary is the knowledge, skills and techniques we use as artists and just like our verbal vocabulary, we use the ‘words’ in our creative vocabulary to express ourselves.  As we grow as artists our creative vocabulary grows and we are able to more fully and richly communicate our thoughts and feelings.

Interpretive decisions recognizes the fact that each of us has a unique world view and a unique thing to say.  When creating a work of art we make numerous decisions, decisions that shape the way we interpret our subject and thereby communicate what it is we have to say about it.

So, this leads to my fun idea.

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Honesty in Photography

I just read a great email from Brian Peterson, founder of The Perfect Picture School of Photography.  He ran an unscientific opinion pole on whether photographers felt it was OK to dramatically alter photographs in Photoshop.  Now, by ‘dramatically alter,’ Brian means to add major elements to an image that were not present in the original scene or make other major changes that alter the content of the image.

He has a provocative blog post with the title that starts, “Every photograph is a ‘lie,…’,  In it he raises the excellent point that even those photographs that aren’t altered in Photoshop are still an abstraction of reality and thus a ‘lie.’  I recommend you read it.

What were the results of his opinion pole?  Brian reports that 41% of photographers felt that it is OK to dramatically alter images in Photoshop and NOT tell anyone unless asked.  And if asked, some would say, “It’s none of your business.”  The reason photographers felt this way boiled down to two words – Artistic License.

I have my own thoughts on “artistic license” and would like to share them with you.

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Lightroom Tutorial – LR 3

Lightroom 3 came in the mail yesterday (along with CS5) so today I’m trying it out.  There’s not a lot of new functionality like there was when LR2 introduced local adjustments.  But there are some new things I’m really excited about.

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Photography Tutorial – Moving Water

Landscape photographers love to photograph moving water – waterfalls, rapids, even water quietly slipping over a rock.

When photographing moving water the primary exposure consideration is shutter speed.  A very short shutter speed, say 1/500 sec, can produce the ‘ice sculpture’ look’ in which the water is suspended in shiny, crystal clear forms.  This can be very effective and exciting.  As the shutter speed is lengthened, say to 1/15 sec,  the water begins to blur.  First you see little short traces of each of the drops.  Then as the exposure lengthens to a half second or more the traces merge together into the beautiful effects we love.  Really long exposure of 2 or more seconds produce a misty effect in which nearly all texture in the water is replaced with soft clouds of light.

But how do you get the long exposures you need, especially on a bright sunny day.

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Mt Williamson Sunrise


Mt Williamson Sunrise

Originally uploaded by Ralph Nordstrom

Mt Williamson is one of my favorite peaks on the Eastern Sierra crest. At over 14,000 feet is is also one of the highest. This morning I was there in time to enjoy an exhilarating sunrise.

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Mastering Exposure

This article pulls together several articles on exposure and makes them available in one place.

In my photography workshops and one-on-one training I frequently have people ask me if the workshops are suitable for novices.  They go on to explain that they think they have a good eye but are a bit baffled by their camera, especially when it comes modesto exposure.  They just put their camera’s exposure mode dial on the little green rectangle (the fully automated mode) and shoot away. In other words, the camera makes all the decisions regarding exposure – ISO, f/stop and shutter speed.  But the camera’s built in light meter is often fooled and the exposure is off.

Getting the correct exposure is one of the most essential first steps in getting a great photograph.  I see a lot of photographs that have compelling compositions but are poorly exposed and the potential impact is lost.  So for those individuals who are interested in taking a photography workshop but aren’t at least passingly familiar with the operation of their camera with regards to exposure, I have a number of posts dealing with the topic that I refer them to.  I thought I’d pull them all together in a single post to make them easier to find.

 

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