New Year’s Resolution – Sharper Images?

“How do I get sharper images?” A question I’m constantly asked. There is a lot that goes into getting a sharper images, especially of a moving subject. You will find right here on the site videos on proper handholding and panning, and they are essential. But what’s even more important is once you have these techniques down so well they are second nature, that you practice them ever day! That’s right, practice every day. You don’t have to put much time into it, just a few minutes but that’s enough to make a difference in your photography. When it comes my favorite subject for practicing, gulls like this Laughing Gull are it. They have erratic flight paths which keep your reactions sharp. Shooting with a simple rig, D4 / 300f4AFS, simply going out and making a few clicks is all it takes to keeping sharp on panning (get the pun?). Don’t have gulls in your backyard? How about a dog, cars driving by, bicycles on a run, kids avoiding homework? There are plenty of moving targets that you can train on for a couple of minutes of keeping the technique fluid is all it takes!

Workshop Sign Up – Receive Print – Last Day!

I have a few sheets of paper left, a bunch of prints have gone out. Last Chance – this year!

Star Trails – Alabama Hills, CA Feb 15-17
Photoshop for Shooters – Mammoth Lakes, CA April 27-28
Mono Lake – Mammoth Lakes, CA May 17-19
Short Lens Course – Mammoth Lakes, CA 22-23 June
Photo Bi$ – Mammoth Lakes, CA 13-14 July
Photoshop for Shooters – Mammoth Lakes, CA 28-29 Sept
Mono Lake – Mammoth Lakes, CA 19-20 Oct
Short Lens Course – Mammoth Lakes, CA 2-3 November

There are all based in the beautiful Eastern Sierras, a region John Muir called the Range of light. A photographers paradise, it’s here waiting for you and your passion!

Sharon & I wanted to make signing up a little more special so for those who sign up for one of these workshops before 31 Dec, 2012 will receive a 22×17 autographed print of their choice (an image you find on either of my two websites that I’ve taken). Now, you can keep the print or give it to someone as a gift this Christmas. To sign up, give Sharon a call (9-5PST M-F) @ 760.924.8632 or 661.204.1506. Looking forward to shooting with you!

Here’s a couple of love notes from our recent Mono Lake & Photo Bi$ Class

The Sierra’s are an awesome location to photograph, having your insight from a photographic and historic perspective adds imensly to enhancing the experience. This was the best workshop I have attended. The kick off dinner at Giovanni’s really helped set the stage and alowed folks to meet. Focusing on shooting only helped us grow a bit at each shoot, I know I did. I really liked the diversity of the locations as it forced us to adapt. shooting Mono Lake three times really helped me. i know I said after the first sunrise that I had a hard time photographing Mono Lake but, the sunset was much better and I like the images from Sunrise better too. I like how you don’t setup a shot for everyone and we all shoot the same think. Rather, you expect and encourage us to make our images our own, very cool.
Tom Walker

fantastic Mono Lake workshop. I like your style of teaching and active critique in the field. I’ll be back!
Barney Koszalka

Wanted to thank you both again for a great weekend at your photo biz class.
Good news, I’ve been shooting a touring horse show that’s starting out in San Diego as the design firm that I work for is branding the show and we are using my images to create the show collateral. Yesterday our client emailed saying that they have the cover of Horseman’s News magazine. So while I haven’t sent a text photo package out yet, and my client paid for the cover I still wanted to share with you that one of my images will be on the cover of the December issue of Horseman’s News.
I’m putting what I learned to use, the first thing I did was research the magazine and I found out that they are the largest equine publication on the West Coast, printing 25,000 copies a month. Based on those numbers I was able to negotiate a nice usage fee with my client. Thanks for sharing all of your insight in the biz class and giving us the tools of the trade.
Ryan Skinner

It was an absolute pleasure to spend time with you and Moose, and to learn so much. Oh my gosh, that business class has absolutely changed how I look at everything. The night the class ended, I started a complete re-write of my 1500 word article (desperately needed), have started shooting new pictures for it and am looking for an avenue to publish it.
I am looking at where photos are used everywhere…I had kind of looked at that before, but now I am looking harder than ever, which is opening up my mind to more ideas and possibilities. I just can’t express enough how great that class was and how thankful I am that I was able to attend.
Kristina Jacob

Share the Season – Whata Week!

The past few days has seen some GREAT images posted to the Share the Season photo contest (Grand prize Brand New Nikon D600). The international scope of the contest is just so cool! Here’s some highlights and their story. Enjoy!

My friend and I wanted to go out to Black Butte Ranch here in Central Oregon and ride the Christmas Wagon all the while photographing the spectacular wintry scenery and probably capturing that one shot that makes it all worthwhile. However, upon arriving in a blizzard and riding during that blizzard, we couldn’t keep the camera’s steady enough to get a good picture. We decided to park down the road and try to capture the next group coming through. Wading through about 18 inches of snow we arrived at the spot just in time. I wanted to convey a sense of motion along with the blowing snow so I set my D7000 to 1/80 second at F 4.5 and my 18-200mm Nikon to 31mm. The folks on board were singing Christmas Carols and waving to us as we shot away. Couldn’t have been any better!

And sometimes it’s own little cristmas ornaments. Nikon D7000, 105mm macro, 1/250s, f/3.2 ISO 100

The first day of Winter 2012 came in with a mighty roar (via “Winter Storm Draco”) at the St. Joseph Lighthouse in Benton Harbor, Michigan. The winds reached 60-70mph gusts on Lake Michigan, with waves 22ft in height. After spending time out here, my face was nicely exfoliated from the flying beach sand.

Canon EOS 7D, f/8, 1/800 sec, ISO 640, Canon 70-200 lens at 200mm, handheld (it was too crazy to even use a tripod – I had to squat down into a spot in the dune and brace myself against a small tree)

I finished shoveling fresh fluffy snow and just stood in the yard enjoying the calm. Decided to grab the camera and take a few shots. I was focusing in on the Black Capped Chickadee when the Downy Woodpecker just popped into the frame. Amazing. I had to post this here. They were sharing the fresh suet my wife had put out earlier. Canon S3 IS. 44mm, f3.5, 1/500, fill flash.

My Christmas present this year was a Canon 5D Mark ii. As I was playing with the new camera, I caught a cute picture of my son admiring the Christmas tree. Taken on Christmas Day, with a 200mm F/2.8, ISO 160 at 1/5 sec. in Minnesota.

How do I Expose for Snow Revisited

A great question of late from readers has been, “How do you (as in Moose) expose for snow?” Of course living in snow, I have a number of off the cuff answers, but I’ll move past those and get to the heart of the question as I look at it. What color is snow? Unless a Moose or dog has passed by, it’s white, right? I honestly don’t think there are few viewers of your photography who wouldn’t recognize the white stuff on the ground as snow. If that is true, then seeing detail in every crystal of the snow is not mission critical to tell the viewer the white stuff they are looking at is indeed, snow. With that assumption in place, why would one automatically dial in +1 exposure comp just because you’re shooting in snow? That is the common wisdom and common thread in the emails that are coming in. Exposure is YOUR greatest tool to express the feeling, mood and life in your photograph. Just because you see something white, don’t automatically do anything.

We have two photos here, both of snow. The feel of both is totally different. The top photo has a bluish-gray cast, the bottom photo the snow is your basic snow white. The top image makes me feel cold, that’s why I underexposed it in camera and did not remove the color cast in post. The bottom image, I exposed normally (no comp) and did remove the color cast in post. The key to both images is the RANGE of light in the entire scene  and not the fact there is snow in the scene. I exposed for the subject and not the white stuff. Like with most of my photography, I try to keep the light range within 3 stops. When that’s the case, then I just have to click, the D3′s meter will do the rest. When it’s outside that 3-5 stop range, well then you have to resort to something like this to deal with the greater range of light. Look at the light between the photos in that post and this. Can YOU see the difference in the light falling on the scene? It is exacerbated by the snow, but not determined in whole by the presence of snow.

SO how does Moose expose for snow? Just like any other scene, it depends on the subject, the light on the subject, the light on the rest of the stage and then the story I want to tell within the confines of my viewfinder. Exposure is way too powerful a tool to just dial in some value of exposure compensation. The world doesn’t need another technically perfect photograph. The world needs another photograph with passion to move the viewer!

The Crop Revisited

It must have been the first or at the most, the second crit at school the very first semester of the very first year. A student put up their image up on the screen and it was this little, itty pity image. I scratched my head, the instructor just stared. He took the slide out of the carrousel and looked at it, it was all taped up with silver tape leaving this little aperture.  All Steve said was, “What, you couldn’t have moved closer, changed lenses?”

I seem to have earned quite a reputation for many things, one of them is having a thing against cropping an image. So I’ll say this right off the bat so you don’t have to read any further if you don’t want to, what anyone does with their images is strictly up to them! I am not the photo police! But when photographers show me their images and ask for comments, then they will get my comments and when I see an image has been cropped (yes, I think it’s really easy to see), what screams through my head is, “Couldn’t you have moved closer or changes lenses?”

Back in the day when I started, submitting prints was on its way out, submitting slides was in. When you create a print, you naturally have to crop an image since paper is not the same ratio as a 35mm slide/neg. Since I printed up a storm, I had to crop and learned how to be successful at shooting for that crop knowing I would be cropping when printing. The print would be the final presentation of my vision. Once printing went away and all I shot were slides, then composition was still done in the viewfinder but that was it. There was no cropping to be done, it was all done.

When sending slides to photo buyers, taking your image and applying the very obvious silver tape to “crop” the slide in the slide mount stuck out like a sore thumb. I remember one conversation with a photo buyer complaining about a photographer who had done just that, sent in their slides cropped with silver tape. All the photo buyer could say was, “You have any idea how stuck those images were in the slide page?”  That wasn’t an impression I would ever want to leave with a photo buyer, I could get right in the viewfinder or slides covered with stickem. So what does that have to do with this day and age and digital?

Yeah, you can set a preset with the Crop Tool in Photoshop and crop all day long. And unless you make a print 24×30, you probably won’t see any possible quality loss from cropping. So then why do I not crop my images still? It’s just one of those benchmarks I took hold of that signifies a photographer as, a photographer. It goes along with getting the exposure right and the image sharp when you go click. You compose within the viewfinder and get it right when you go click.

When I look at the work of those who I hold in high regards, Jay Maisel, Joe McNally, Dave Black, Joel Sartore, Wayne Lynch and others, they do all their cropping in the viewfinder as well. I’m sure there are a lot more and there’s a reason for that standard. Arranging the elements in the viewfinder so the subject pops and the rest of the elements support the subject while telling the story, well, isn’t that visual story telling? That’s my definition of photography. There are definitely pros and cons to this standard. The pros are the workflow is simpler and faster (important when you’re in the business of selling images) and quality assured. Cons, the biggest one is it makes taking the photo one helluva of a lot more challenging when you know you’ve gotta get it right when you go click. And when you don’t have it, you don’t go click.

You might have heard I don’t like my images cropped even when they are used editorially. That’s true, I get kinda serious when an photo buyer wants to edit my click. I mean, why buy the photo in the first place if you don’t like it? If you got a copy of my book Captured, rest assured those images aren’t cropped either. I was very blessed in that I had the best in the biz, Jess laying out the book honoring my no cropping request. In those regards, I am totally, completely, out there on my own. I am a nut! And that’s the whole point!

Just because that’s my standard, it does not mean a single other photographer has to follow it. But if you ask me about your photo, heads up. It’s my own quest in being a better photographer, to get it right when I go click. I rather love being able to say, “What you see is what I saw in the viewfinder” when it comes to the crop (landscape & aviation images are often finished in PS. Wildlife images are not). When you don’t give yourself the option to “fix it in post,” photographers push themselves. This always make a better click and the story telling, the subject, that passion of that click becomes clearer and clearer. We all must find whatever the tools, techniques and personal vision at the camera and the computer that work best for you.  For me and my photography, that means using my feet and lens to put in the viewfinder what it is I want to communicate to you the passion I’m feeling at moment.

Share the Season – This Lit’l Piggie

Rodger simply has a great image! Just soak it in. Here’s the story behind it

This is our oldest daughter “helping” us sting Christmas lights. Our second child was due the following March. We decided to use that years Christmas card to tell our friends and family if we were expecting a boy or another girl. Borrowing from the old mastercard ad campaign, the card read:
1 string of Christmas lights: $3.00
A large bag of M&M’s to keep her on the couch: $4.00
Finding out she’ll have a little sister next Christmas: Priceless.
Canon 350, Kit lens 18-55 @ 35mm, ISO 400, 1/8s @ f/4.5

iPad BT Journal vol 14.1 Back Issue Released

Brent has released the next in the series of Back Issues for our iPad version of the BT Journal. This is a back issue so it’s not included in your subscription. Click on BT Journal in your Newstand and you’ll see it there available for purchase. This issue features our last visit to the magical Brooks Falls and its grizzly bears. Brent packed it with a ton of more info and images and the Pg28 classes are there as well. Enjoy!

Sign up for Workshop – Get a Print!

Star Trails – Alabama Hills, CA Feb 15-17
Photoshop for Shooters – Mammoth Lakes, CA April 27-28
Mono Lake – Mammoth Lakes, CA May 17-19
Short Lens Course – Mammoth Lakes, CA 22-23 June
Photo Bi$ – Mammoth Lakes, CA 13-14 July
Photoshop for Shooters – Mammoth Lakes, CA 28-29 Sept
Mono Lake – Mammoth Lakes, CA 19-20 Oct
Short Lens Course – Mammoth Lakes, CA 2-3 November

There are all based in the beautiful Eastern Sierras, a region John Muir called the Range of light. A photographers paradise, it’s here waiting for you and your passion!

Sharon & I wanted to make signing up a little more special so for those who sign up for one of these workshops before 31 Dec, 2012 will receive a 22×17 autographed print of their choice (an image you find on either of my two websites that I’ve taken). Now, you can keep the print or give it to someone as a gift this Christmas. To sign up, give Sharon a call (9-5PST M-F) @ 760.924.8632 or 661.204.1506. Looking forward to shooting with you!

Here’s a couple of love notes from our recent Mono Lake & Photo Bi$ Class

The Sierra’s are an awesome location to photograph, having your insight from a photographic and historic perspective adds imensly to enhancing the experience. This was the best workshop I have attended. The kick off dinner at Giovanni’s really helped set the stage and alowed folks to meet. Focusing on shooting only helped us grow a bit at each shoot, I know I did. I really liked the diversity of the locations as it forced us to adapt. shooting Mono Lake three times really helped me. i know I said after the first sunrise that I had a hard time photographing Mono Lake but, the sunset was much better and I like the images from Sunrise better too. I like how you don’t setup a shot for everyone and we all shoot the same think. Rather, you expect and encourage us to make our images our own, very cool.
Tom Walker

fantastic Mono Lake workshop. I like your style of teaching and active critique in the field. I’ll be back!
Barney Koszalka

Wanted to thank you both again for a great weekend at your photo biz class.
Good news, I’ve been shooting a touring horse show that’s starting out in San Diego as the design firm that I work for is branding the show and we are using my images to create the show collateral. Yesterday our client emailed saying that they have the cover of Horseman’s News magazine. So while I haven’t sent a text photo package out yet, and my client paid for the cover I still wanted to share with you that one of my images will be on the cover of the December issue of Horseman’s News.
I’m putting what I learned to use, the first thing I did was research the magazine and I found out that they are the largest equine publication on the West Coast, printing 25,000 copies a month. Based on those numbers I was able to negotiate a nice usage fee with my client. Thanks for sharing all of your insight in the biz class and giving us the tools of the trade.
Ryan Skinner

It was an absolute pleasure to spend time with you and Moose, and to learn so much. Oh my gosh, that business class has absolutely changed how I look at everything. The night the class ended, I started a complete re-write of my 1500 word article (desperately needed), have started shooting new pictures for it and am looking for an avenue to publish it.
I am looking at where photos are used everywhere…I had kind of looked at that before, but now I am looking harder than ever, which is opening up my mind to more ideas and possibilities. I just can’t express enough how great that class was and how thankful I am that I was able to attend.
Kristina Jacob

Share the Season – Folks are Really Getting into it!

There are getting to be just too many great images for me to keep up!! Here’s some more highlights!

The Fetcher Barn at Steamboat Lake, Steamboat Springs Colorado. My buddy and I were out photographing barns and old cars (there was no snow to ski on!) and remembered this old barn from another shoot years ago, but with terrible lighting then. Came back and was rewarded with a beautiful sunset this time.

Image taken on November 26, 2012, using Nikon D90, Sigma 28-105 f2.8 lens, 3-shot HDR f/22 at ISO 200, processed in Nik HDR Efex Pro 2.

For a four year old, not a lot beats a tractor ride in the snow. Living in Western Washington, snow sometimes doesn’t make an appearance all winter. We were lucky on a weekend visit with my parents to get several inches overnight to enjoy. It was all gone by the next morning. This was taken in Spokane, WA with a Canon 7d and Canon 50mm lens.

Have to be real honest…picking winners is going to be a bitch!!!

Share the Season – I Love the Whimsy!

There are some great images over on the Share the Season page, many are just flat out fun! Like this image from Mark, it just makes you smile when you look at it. Here’s his story…

Tired of the usual out-of-focus tree shots, I wanted to figure out a new, different way to capture this year’s tree. So, with a bit of experimentation, some slippery socks and a longer-than-usual exposure, I came up out with this wildly colorful image a Christmas Tree. As for the location, it was shot where our tree stands in our living room within our home.

Nikon D7000; Tamron 17-50 2.8 @ 22mm; f/8; 2.5sec

Share the Season – Great Prize Addition!

Ya Baby! My good friends at Lexar have added to the fun of Share the Season by giving 2 – 32GB 400x SD cards! This will be ONE prize for one of great photographs being posted. Thanks Lexar and thanks for all of you who have submitted an image already! And what are the rest of you waiting for?

Share the Season – I Love Simple!

It’s just a clean, simple click with great light that says it all. Here’s Mark’s story:

Christmas tree lot in Briskeby, Oslo. Walking home after the daily rounds of lunch and groceries. We had about 6″ of snow over the last 24 hours with another 8″ on the way by tommorrow. Can’t wait to get out and see what we find. Nikon D600, Nikon 24-120 f/4 . Shot at f/4, ISO 12800, 1/180s

Share the Season – Love the Int’l Flavor!

This contest is bringing so much that I didn’t expect! Besides being able to help some folks with finishing ideas, I’m seeing parts of the world I’ve never seen personally and I’ve loving that. Salvator has been posting some killer images, here’s one I really like and it’s story.

This photo shows the zoomed in view of the chimneys of the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul shot from a high building that sees the Palace roof. A photo I am pretty fond of. Shot with my Nikon D700 and 80-200f/2.8 lens and 2x teleconverter at 200mm (400mm). ISO 400 f/11 1/800 sec.

To see all the great images, head here and be sure to take time to read the stories, they are great too!

Share the Season – Feel the Warmth!

You can just feel the warmth and it makes you wanna jump in and snuggle up next to the fire. Talk about nailing the Share the Season theme, Donald did a great job! Here’s his story:

My brother’s and I stayed in my cousin’s cabin high in the Rocky Mountains during our winter Colorado elk hunting trip. At 9000ft, the sky was full of stars, the air was dry and crisp, and it was peacefully silent. On our last night up there, I stayed outside alone in -10 degree weather for about an hour taking long exposures of the area until ice crystals covered my lens and I couldn’t shoot anymore. This was one of the most beautiful areas I have ever photographed.
Camera: Nikon D300s Lens: Sigma 18-50mm 2.8
Location: Rocky Mountains, Colorado

Share the Season – “Wildlife!”

It’s got snow, it’s gotta critter (ya,that counts to me) and it has a great feel in its tonality. I think Christopher has a great image here! Here’s his story behind the photo:

Brand new to your web site… and it’s awesome! I am from the High Desert area of southern California. This image was taken in Rexburg, Idaho. My oldest son is in University there. I was driving around the downtown area, and on a street one row back from Main Street was this cabin/home with tons of birdhouses, old cars with tree trunks growing through them, and this adorable cat sitting on a hand-made bench. It was like a photo set: choose what you want to photograph… and they’ve got it. My camera is a Nikon D90. The lens is my almost always used 18-200mm. 1/60 sec @ f5.6 – 200mm, & ISO200.

Share the Season – KISS Just Works!

Andrew has got it nailed with his entry! It’s KISS time – Keep It Simple Stupid. Great light, background, focus, subject and atmosphere, it simply grabs your eye and I love photos that have all those elements beautifully combined within their border. My hats off to him, idea, execution and delivery…well done! here’s the story behind the photo …

My wife and I wanted to create a few images for our holiday cards to send out to family and friends. It was an unexpected surprised when we woke up on Dec 1 and was snowing outside. I immediately wanted to rush over to the in-law’s house and take a photos of my daughter. I’ve been wanting to get photos of her in a light snow fall. This is one of my favorites from that day.

Nikon D700, 70-200mm f/2.8, located in my in-law’s back yard.

You too can enter Share the Season, see your images there!

Share the Season – It’s Getting Better Every Day!

Man, the quality of images and number of entries is growing everyday and here’s an example. You simply can’t help but smile! And many will say of course….how cute! Here’s the story behind Chuck’s photo.

Here is one from a recent family studio shoot. This little girl was a blast to photograph! This was shot along with numerous others for Christmas Portraits / Christmas Cards. This little 6 month old girl was a natural behind the camera. I used a Nikon D3s with a 24-70 lens. AB800 Strobes and Pocket Wizards to trigger.

Churchill Birds – A Short Slideshow

I created this simple slideshow to answer a common question of late about our K&M Adventure to Churchill. And if popular, I might post more on various topics.

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