Mar 21, 2018 | Landscape Photography
I love photographing blurred water as much as the next photographer. I love photographing bubbles because that’s the white in our photographs that blur during our long exposures. I’ve written about many different ways of blurring the water over the years except my one favorite way. The most common way we go about this is basically level with the flowing water and then look for the patterns of the bubbles that blur. Just a few times I’ve found water from a different vantage point providing me with my favorite way to photograph flowing water, from above!
The bridge over the Merced River in Yosemite afforded a great view that came with little risk but lots of challenge. The photo I wanted when I peered over the wall was directly below as a tad behind. There was no way I could set up the tripod in a conventional way. I was shooting with my favorite small travel tripod, the Oben CT-2491 which goes flat and being lightweight, easily to hold over the edge. What made the whole thing doable was the D850 fold-out monitor that I could touch to focus and fire using it’s “silent shutter”. This permitted a solid hand on the rig while creating no movement while firing. So with great ease, I was able to enjoy creating some new favorites from above the bubbles.
Mar 7, 2018 | Landscape Photography
Sunrise, sunset and sunrise again the last 24hours at the Grand Canyon. Simply the most gorgeous place to be with a Fisheye lense!
The only “trick” is to watch the horizon and make the decision how you want to tell the story. You can see how I made the call for these three images, each a little different, each accomplished by simply pointing the lens more up or down.
It’s just simply a gorgeous place and photography to bring back the memories just makes it sweeter!
Feb 23, 2018 | Landscape Photography
Yes, I talk about the tools all the time but the one tool I talk about the most seems to get the least amount of attention. That’s the tool between your ears that connect to the thump in your chest. The word photograph means write with light. So in the photographic process, you need to want to tell a story using light as your alphabet.
Yosemite Valley
captured by D850 / 70-200f4
It sometimes reminds me of that question, do you dream in b&W or color? Do you see the romance in a particular landscape in your viewfinder as a B&W or color? It’s important to see it there to see it here! There are subtle but to me important finishing difference between these two photos so when you look at them, they appear the same other than its flavor. And that brings me back to my original question. Your flavor is?
Feb 23, 2018 | Landscape Photography
I LIVE for these kinds of shots! When your subject can be the smallest element in the frame but the one that not only smacks you in the face WHILE telling the story, well they are just gold to me! This was all serendipitous, nothing planned other than my being crazy to stand in a snowstorm looking for opportunities. This delightful image just unfolded and when the person turned to look in the direction of the gorgeous oak outlined in snow, I knew it was a good day to be a photographer. That because I so love tiny!
Feb 22, 2018 | Landscape Photography
Glacier Point
captured by D850 / 70-200f4
Up in The Valley this week and fortunate enough to have snow come in. A real simple click of the moment snow meets granite. A peaceful collision.
Feb 6, 2018 | Landscape Photography
Grand Prismatic
captured by D850 / 18f2.8AF
There is an unspoken ingredient in the photographic chase that can be hard for some. It’s hard because one, it’s an ingredient not in the instruction book and two, even once known it’s hard to conjure up. And that’s an imagination. I often talk about photography is a visual storytelling medium, a way to tap the viewer’s heartstrings. While f/stops and shutter speeds are needed to make some of this process begin, it only travels home when passion drive by imagination wraps up that visual story and takes it to the heart. How can you find your imagination, expand it and exploit it? This was a question a photographer asked me recently and to be honest with you, being one with a vivid imagination, forever, I’m still searching for the answer. For now, I have this.
Grand Prismatic
captured by D850 / 18f2.8AF
Last week we walked about Grand Prismatic in Yellowstone, what one in our group called the World Tour. With D850 / 18-35 or 105f1.4 or 70-200f4 in hand (me with my 18f2.8), we walked around the boardwalk and I called out all the continents I saw in the snow that had landed and melted shapes in the springs. It might be Greenland or the Rookies or Serangetti Highlands. And in doing that, for some the whole world of texture, color and photography opened up. We all had a ball and it was based simply on a vivid imagination. So when you’re out shooting next time and wanting to take your photography to the next step and that histogram and gettin you there, you might think of what it starts with …
