May 6, 2015 | Landscape Photography
One of Sharon’s and mine favorite past times is to wonder through Central Park in spring. It is simply a magical place where life is renewed. We wondered for about four hours watching the critters, from squirrels to people with great delight. I cruised with the Df / 85f1.8AFS clicking and elements came into play that said, spring in the park. Now it’s well known I’m don’t do macro, flowers very rarely so to post such an image is rather amazing! And wouldn’t you know it, when we came upon these tulips and I decided it would make a cool photo, the wind came up! Shooting at f/1.8 I focused on the one flower you see sharp and then ripped of over 30 images. I have one, just one where that one tulip is sharp. But that’s all I need, just one, to remind Sharon & I of our delightful walk during spring in the park.
Apr 29, 2015 | Landscape Photography
Sharon and I ended up walking 9 miles with the London Nikon Group on a Photowalk of epic proportions! Twenty-five folks meet at Big Ben (the bell, not the clock) and for hours and hours walked, shot, laughed and as advertised took the Yank for a walk. I wish I could share with you everything that was shared with us as it was stunning! We did many of the iconic London things and then we did some of the more hidden sights. For example you’ll see a green detail shot in the slideshow below. That’s from one of the last 11 taxi stands from the turn of the century. The group was simply brilliant with all they shared and the excitement they had to share it. Half way through the day we had a great lunch in the bottom of an old pub down a tiny alleyway, so English is was killer! We finished off our day at the Tower Bridge with gorgeous skies. It began at 09:30 and ended at 18:30, a nine hour photowalk! Sharon & I want to thank the ENTIRE group for such a brilliant day and taking us under their wings to share THEIR London with us. I’m still shaking my head realizing this adventure, these new friends all come from photography. The power of the click … wow!
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Oh … what did I walk with? I had the Df, 24f1.4AFS & 85f1.8AFS
Apr 28, 2015 | Landscape Photography
Sharon and I left for London starting off on our three hour drive from our home to Reno. We have done this drive hundreds of times, the truck know the road so well, I can sleep in route. That was not the case this morning. I’ve been very fortunate to enjoy sun rise in the Eastern Sierra for decades, but none come close to the majesty we had this morning! It made the drive one that is burned in our hearts as it was so glorious! The sad note, had to keep going, had a plane to catch to England and that was frustrating to be polite!
Finally, at Bridgeport, 45min in our drive I could stand it no more! I had to pull over and at least make one click as a preservation of this special memory of the beginning of our trip. So I grabbed out of the Think Tank Int’l the Df / 24-70AFS and shot for a couple of minutes before jumping back in the truck, speeding back up the highway. The photos you see here have had nothing in post done to them, they are straight out of the camera. That’s just how perfect it was!
The Pano was assembled in less than 30sec in Adobe Camera Raw. If you didn’t know, ACR now has AMAZING HDR and Pano assembly built-in (LR isn’t the only Adobe product to have that upgrade!). As you can see, it looks just a marvelous as the single click with, just a single click in ACR. It’s just one of many reasons you should have Photoshop CC in my opinion. Cause when you have such a spectacular site as we did creating such deep memories, finishing should be as simple as the view, creating the every lasting joy.
Apr 22, 2015 | Landscape Photography
It’s a day to celebrate the treasures we’ve been so fortunate to embrace. The wonders this planet has to share are incomprehensible. Take your camera out and tell its story and share it with everyone. Remember, your photographs can change the world!
Apr 14, 2015 | Landscape Photography
Simply by putting the word Crop in the title of this post, I increased my site traffic today by 20%! Cropping is a hot topic and why, because it is truly poorly understood. I’ve written about The Crop many times before but this is not a repeat of those. Cropping, be it in the viewfinder or in post, why? What makes cropping so powerful, so misunderstood and misused? In looking at a ton of images lately, when I make the comment that this or that element is distracting, 100% of the time the solution voiced back to me to solve this problem is, crop! But cropping is not a solution but rather, often becomes the problem. Like every single tool and technique in photography, there is a place when cropping should be used.
Is there one time cropping especially in post shouldn’t be used? IMHO ya, to make the subject size larger! Having the subject smacking the viewer right between the eyes is the goal. It’s how we tell it’s story. This necessity though doesn’t dictate the subject fill the frame. Rather, the subject can be the smallest element in the frame and still smack the viewer right between the eyes. What about when it’s not subject but an unwanted element? Well, crop is often the common answer. When you do that, aren’t you quite often throwing the baby out with the water? Ya, you crop out the unwanted element but what about the other elements that go with it? Aren’t they part of the story being randomly tossed for the sake of that one unwanted element? When you took that photo, the majority of the elements in the frame are important to you which why they are there. So why randomly throw them out later?
I prefer to do all my “cropping” in the viewfinder. I understand many love to do it post, and that’s just fine. But in either instance, what is the crop based on? That’s the disconnect I’m finding a lot this past month and that disconnect comes from what I just spoke about. I put up these two images I recently took on an Oregon beach and the coastal redwoods of California as an example. Shot with the D750 / 24-70AFS, the subject in both of these images are elements kissed by the light. So the subject in its most simplest terms is, light. I physically moved to arrange the elements as you see them here based on that subject, the subject I want to share with you. The subject is what YOU make it to be and the rest of the photo, the story YOU want to tell about your subject. When it comes down to the crop then, when to do it, how to do it and where to do it like everything else in photography comes down in answering the question, “What’s the subject?”
Mar 27, 2015 | Landscape Photography
Another location at Callaway Gardens we shot at was at Sibley Gardens. This is a marvelous place to shoot with so many options and besides the gardner, I was totally entranced with the blooming Cherry Trees. It started off shooting wide with the 14-24AFS but soon abandoned it and its perspective. Why? I wanted that oriental feel to the photo, what you might see in a painting but with that wide lens, while I got the sweep of the branches, there was simply to much other junk in the photo taking the eye away from that sweep. Had to go to plan B.
What was plan B? Go the opposite direction from wide, go long! I went with the Df / 300PF because it permitted isolating those elements of the Cherries I liked while excluding those elements I found distracting. What made it all work were the overcast skies. That flat light kept the blossoms from blowing out and use the natural topography of the trees to create lights and darks showing the shape of the tree. Good stuff. It was a fun challenge and turned out to be a great lesson for folks. And as it turned out, a couple of cool clicks I like enough to share with you. And for me to have a posey photo I want to share is saying something.
