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on Jul 8, 2020 in Landscape Photography

“Not Why I’m Here …”

I was sitting there very comfortably reading and watching the evening thunderstorm build outside. The light was getting nicer and nicer and there I sat watching it when the lightbulb went off in my head, “I’m not here just to sit and watch it!” I flew out of my chair, grabbed the D6, and attached the 14-24AFS, and walked out the door with just my flaps on. While I got out, I still wasn’t taking the opportunity laid in my lap seriously. As soon as I got out the door though I saw it just wasn’t just a purdy cloud, it was a magnificent sky! The chase was on. The sky was ablaze, the wind was whistling and I was in flaps heading up the sage up our hill! The clouds were moving so I moved as fast as I could to a clearing so take in as much as I could. Set to 14mm, I realized I still didn’t have wide enough glass. I then had to decide...

on Jun 4, 2020 in Landscape Photography

A Posy Photo on Moose’s Blog?

Yep, it’s a flower photo on my blog, what the state of Montana officially calls an Opium Poppy and it’s blooming all over the ranch! A native of Turkey and Iran, how it got to the ranch is a mystery. We’ve not mowed a vast majority of the back nine cause we didn’t know all that was growing there. We saw these plants growing and I thought they were some type of thistle. Then the buds started to appear and my mind said opium plants! Na, how could that be. Then today when I was out with our Red Fox, I saw the first blossom to open. I used the marvelous PictureThis app which told me it’s an Oriental Poppy. I grabbed the D6 / 14-24AFS (the blossom is larger than the front element of the 14-24) took some shots and then came into the web to learn more. There I learned it’s the Opium Poppy, legal to let grow and that the state describes it as an “Annual...

on May 21, 2020 in Landscape Photography

Do Clouds Set The Story?

“Dances with Clouds,” what my good friend Joe McNally called me once. That’s because I turn to the heavens every opportunity I can to get help telling my visual story. Clouds can set the stage, be the background that will make or break your photograph. That is if you take in all the other elements in the frame and incorporate them along with the clouds. Here is my favorite little church out on The Palouse. I visit it at least once every time I’m on The Palouse because it is never the same. When there are no clouds, it is a photographic challenge. When there are clouds, the challenge then becomes what I want to say. Look at these two photographs of the same church shot on two different trips. Do you see the one thing that made me change where I stood and the lens I selected? You might be fooled and think it was the clouds but actually, it was the trees! The trees not only changed...

on May 20, 2020 in Landscape Photography

The Skies are Lighting Up!

The skies lit up last night here in Montana with some great lightning. It’s coming on summer and with them, afternoon thunderstorms which mean great light shows. When the skies start barking, I’m often running to the truck with a camera in hand to chase the storm. These days though, it’s a whole lot easier to work with lightning with Miops! This simple, small, and incredibly effective tool permits you to shoot lightning any time of day with any rig with ease. You can even update the firmware via the mobile app (Mobile App is the why to go!). Charged via a USB port, the Miops simply can’t get easier, well, at least the shooting part. I like to grab the Z7 / Z24-70f2.8 / Miops and sped down the road. The real challenge is finding a spot with a great 360 vista because lightning can be in all directions. To be completely honest with you, I saw much better lightning than I captured but I was having so...

on May 13, 2020 in Landscape Photography

Save Them Afternoons!

With summer heat comes summer afternoon thunderstorms. And with those come great photographic opportunities. Get yourself an app like Dark Skies and tap on the Map function to see how and where the afternoon thunderheads are forming (hit the Play button to see the convection). Then look at a map to find topography that brings the last little bit of drama to a photo and head out. Take a variety of focal lengths from Z14-30 to 180-400VR providing yourself lots of flexibility to work the potential storm. Situate yourself so you are looking either west or west by northwest so you can take advantage of the light. Watch your white balance shooting on Cloudy / 6000k or higher to capture all the subtle shades of red, pink, and orange and underexpose to give them colors punch. Then include something in the frame to give scale making those thunderheads look as powerful as they really are. It’s a great time to get a little wet, a little adventurous, and a...

on Apr 17, 2020 in Landscape Photography

Landscape Out The Window

Cabin fever, landscape photographers are really feeling it judging from the emails of the past week. Getting out on the road, starting the day with a vast landscape stretching before you and then the celebratory breakfast with friends recounting the wonders seen and memories made. I know of no substitution for this marvelous experience other than the real thing. Good thing it’s not too far off in our future. In the meantime, can you sharpen your landscape photographic skills without leaving your home? I think you can and it starts with stretching your imagination! I selected two photos I took standing inside and shooting out a window to illustrate my thought. One is with a very wide angle lens, 14mm and the other shot with a long lens, 200mm. The goal, of course, is to tell a visual story about the landscape and that comes from inside you. The challenge comes from taking what YOU see every day and making a photo that others don’t see every day and...

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