Its that time of year when things heat up down here in the Sonoran Desert. The forecast high temperatures are starting to show numbers like 118 degrees F. (Just a note to those not used to such extremes. Here in Phoenix, we don’t really call it hot until it gets over 110 F. However, anything over 115 F gets our attention pretty quick. Forget that “frying eggs on the sidewalk [...]
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Kolmanskop is an abandoned German mining settlement located in Namibia. The town was abandoned in the 1950s, and the desert has been reclaiming it ever since. With its colorful painted walls and sweeping sand dunes engulfing entire rooms, the ghost town is a neat place to shoot, and should be on everyone’s list when touring Namibia. Photographers need a permit to enter the town, which can be obtained in the tourism office in nearby [...]
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cre·a·tiv·i·ty (noun): the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc.; originality, progressiveness, or imagination. Source: Dictionary.com Creativity gets talked about a lot these days. It seems that every photographer (including me) admonishes others to be creative, and we all like to talk about how creative we are—especially when photographing something that has been photographed many times [...]
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I recently got a question from a reader: does it make sense for the aspiring landscape photographer to use a medium format camera system? Back in the old days of film, most serious landscape shooters used medium or large format cameras (the notable exceptions to this were nature generalists who shot a mix of wildlife, macro, and landscape subjects). In fact, medium format wasn’t really all that popular with landscape [...]
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Just a quick announcement: my 2013 workshops are for the most part all filled up. A few weeks ago I decided to add a second Smith Island Photo Workshop from July 26-28. I still have two spots left on this newly announced workshop. The world around Smith Island accelerates, at an increasingly rapid pace, but Smith Island—and Smith Islanders—never seem to change. Severed from the mainland by a ten mile [...]
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I recently returned from a two week scouting trip to Namibia, in preparation for my Wild Namibia 2014 Photo Tour scheduled next year for the last two weeks of May, which I will co-lead with Richard Bernabe (full details will be coming soon). Namibia is an incredibly beautiful country, filled with stunning desert landscapes and fantastic wildlife. Richard and I had a great time exploring and photographing Namibia, and can’t wait to return next [...]
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A couple of days ago I decided to give myself an assignment. I wanted to do some square pictures in black and white. I always use the Liveview display of my camera when doing black and white images. I just change the picture style setting to B&W and by shooting RAW I get a black and white preview on the display but the picture imported into lightroom will be in [...]
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Since Ian is still stuck in the mud next to some feces encrusted waterhole in Africa (I’m not too jealous); and like the waterhole where Ian now semi-permanently resides, this blog has been seemingly deserted by its natural inhabitants leaving only the hardcore (me). Kurt is apparently taking some kind of stacation, whining about a Vermont heat wave (talk about your oxymoron), Alex and his band are probably starring in [...]
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About a week and a half ago I chased a storm through Utah, with pretty miserable results. The prediction had been two days of storm followed by a clear out. The results on the ground varied just a little bit.The weather pattern was the same every day for 5 straight days. Total overcast at sunrise giving way to a mid morning full of promise and puffy clouds, leading the inexperienced [...]
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Thats right, cue the Doors and crank it up loud so you can feel that deep, dramatic bass moving through your insides – thats how Storm Light feels when its happening to you. And there is nothing in the world quite like that feeling. Allow me to set the scene. The storm has been dumping rain on you steadily for the last 3 hours. You’ve found your shot, based on [...]
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11 Comments Ian and I wrapped up our Olympic National Park Workshop a little over a week ago. We had a great group of photographers from around the globe and a lot fun teaching and making images during some less than ideal conditions in the Pacific Northwest. Everyone in the group was super positive, enthusiastic and contributed a great deal to the learning process. As I reflect on the experience and make [...]
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Finally! The wait is (almost) over. Canon has released its long-awaited 200-400mm lens with a built in 1.4x teleconverter. Pre-orders are available at B&H Photo: Canon EF 200-400mm f/4L IS USM Lens with Internal 1.4x Extender. My guess it that it will be awhile before buyers can get their hands on this lens, but hopefully in the coming weeks we’ll start to get some user reviews and reactions. Canon’s press release is below. [...]
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As a landscape photographer, living in the Pacific Northwest is absolutely amazing. It is a great privilege to call a land of such magnificent and diverse beauty my home. This beauty, combined with the fact that there is something interesting to photograph during just about any time of year, is almost entirely why I moved here from the east coast a few years back. Maybe that is all a bit [...]
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The advent of digital photography has come with a number of challenges, both technical and artistic. The technical challenges are mainly related to acquiring proficiency in image processing programs such as Lightroom and Photoshop. The artistic challenges, curiously enough, arise in part from mastery of these technical challenges. Once competency in the digital darkroom is achieved, some difficult questions emerge, such as: How much computer processing is too much? At what point [...]
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