I staggered down from the parking lot, set up my tripod up at the edge of the guardrail and waited.With me in the dark was a nice young couple from Minnesota (USA). Twinkies fans, to be exact. And after a short conversation about baseball, they spent about 10 minutes telling me about the previous morning. Fog had filled the canyon for most of the day, following the heavy rain the [...]
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At presentations there is one question that always pops up. “Do you crop your images?” they ask, usually cocking their head to one side like a spaniel. The short answer? Constantly. All the time. At least a couple before breakfast, and that’s on a slow day. The long answer? The question these individuals are really asking is about format. “Do you only shoot the picture if the sum total of [...]
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In my former life I was a middle school science teacher. I’ll never forget the crusty old Vermonter that taught PE and coached basketball at the first school in which I taught. He had a wealth of knowledge and wisdom, which he regularly shared with the new teachers eager to gobble up every little tidbit of pedagogical experience and advice that only comes from 30 years in the trenches. He [...]
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Out along the edges Always where I burn to be The further on the edge The hotter the intensity Highway to the Danger Zone Gonna take you right into the Danger Zone —Kenny Loggins, “Danger Zone,” Top Gun Soundtrack (1986) I bet most of you are wondering what one of the worst songs ever written for one of the worst movies ever made has to do with nature photography. And now I bet some of you are [...]
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Good photographs use light, composition, and mood to trigger an emotional response in viewers. Great photographs also tell a story about their subject, or at least provide enough tantalizing bits to spark the imagination of viewers, letting them create the story on their own. With wildlife subjects, the ”story” you might wish to tell is often associated with an interesting or characteristic behavior that is unique to the animal, and that offers clues [...]
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I’m pleased to announce details for my extremely popular Chesapeake Bay Experience photo workshop, which I will hold this July 27-29. This workshop travels to famous Smith Island in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay for the quintessential Chesapeake photography experience. Only accessible by boat, the small waterman communities on Smith Island retain the spirit and charm of days long past. During this tour, we will take several boat trips to [...]
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After flying into Belize, I grabbed my gear and immediately beelined for the coast. When I arrived, I spent a week living on the beach, carefully hollowing out a palm tree trunk with my multi-tool blade, sculpting the pliant wood until a sleek sea kayak emerged. I used sand—coarse from broken coral—to smooth away any splinters, and lashed several dried palm fronds together to fashion a crude yet effective paddle. A bottle of champagne, a permanent [...]
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I’m pleased to offer for sale two gorgeous new eBooks by my good friends and fellow photographers Richard Bernabe and Joseph Rossbach: South Carolina Wonder and Light by Richard Bernabe takes you on a dazzling visual tour of the Palmetto State. Photographer Richard Bernabe has made his home in South Carolina since 1993 and has covered every corner of the state in pursuit of its wild landscapes and wildlife. From the [...]
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My latest post to the Outdoor Photographer blog, Business vs. Creativity, discusses the pressures of field work and the insatiable Internet demand for epic photographs. The image I use to illustrate the post, featured below, was taken at a place called Stud Horse Point, a few miles outside of Page, Arizona. To me, this bizarre hoodoo looks like a giant alien probe, transmitting back to the home planet: “Earth populated by [...]
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Sometimes I ask myself: why am I a nature photographer? Many of you might think this is an odd question; I know more than a few of you would gladly saw off your own left hand for the chance of being a full-time nature pro (gotta keep your right hand for pressing the shutter button). With the challenges of doing this professionally, however—the busy travel schedule, the pressures of running a business, being constantly in an “eat what I [...]
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6 Comments As I alluded to in the first two posts of the series (“Getting Picky” and “Creative Exposure”) our photographic journeys are very much an evolution, everyone on their own path and pace. Except unlike the slow and steady pace of biological evolution our evolution as photographers is very much like an arc or curve. We tend to progress/evolve very rapidly at the beginning of the journey, and as such the [...]
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Having spent 20 some years in a B&W darkroom before ever shooting a piece of color film, I have different attitude than most color landscape shooters in regard to light; and I’m talking about the golden hour thing. Ultimately, I would say that I put less emphasis on it than others. Of course this statement needs to be qualified. When the golden hour is happening, I’m out there slaving to [...]
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11 Comments If you’ve seen one pine tree you’ve seen them all. That pretty much sums up my shooting preferences in a nutshell. Make no mistake, for me, there is no place like home – deep in the desert. And to be sure, I’m not talkin’ high-desert-slickrock, I’m talkin’ lush-vegetation-Sonoran-Desert. My true love has lush vegetation, an amazing variety of weird shaped cactus, and in a good year during the springtime, is [...]
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6 Comments Some things never change. Back in the film days (just a scant 6 years ago), I carried a 4X5 film camera, and with it, the inherent limitations. When I saw a scene developing, I had a lot to do. I had to set the tripod the proper height, take the 4×5 camera, unfold it, straighten the front and rear standards and assemble it to the tripod. Then I had to take [...]
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