Jul 11, 2019 | Landscape Photography
There is a section of track up by Big Timber MT that goes for miles dead straight nearly due east. If you are lucky, you’re at the right section so when the sun rises, you have it dead center over the tracks right on the horizon. Or if you’re me, you geek out a little with a map, compass and sunrise chart to put yourself at the right section at the right moment. It’s really no big deal, it’s just one of those little challenges that if everything works out, you have a photo of shinny railroad tracks. If not, you don’t. In this case, Z7 / Z24-70f2.8 (-2exp comp, 8kWB) was in the right place. Not earth shattering but in its own way, satisfying.
Jul 9, 2019 | B&W Photography, Landscape Photography
When you put your camera up to your eye, how do you arrange the elements? How do you expose? And most importantly, how do you tell the story of your subject, your find? These are very common questions that either goes unasked in the picture making process or, if asked, stump the photographer. Perhaps putting the photograph into simple terms might help in this quest.
Been up in Montana shooting, such a gorgeous place with a great history. How do you put that into a photo? You might by summing it up with three thoughts: big sky, the west, romance. With those thoughts, you might go wide rather than long. You might find a subject that looks old and western and you might tie that all up in black and white. For me, this meant shooting with the Z7 / Z14-30 and putting it into B&W mode which then turned the whole process to a basic, “point and shoot.” That’s simple and with that simplicity, fun! It starts in the mind, runs through the heart and ends up in the camera.
Jun 27, 2019 | Wildlife Photography
Mountain Goat
captured by D3x / 600mm
While we mammals tend to love the warm days of summer, those who grow long, thick, winter coats to not! Most big game falls into this category and you can tell this time of year who they are. That’s because they are molting. Really, they look like they’ve run into a hungry flight of moths! While I don’t say it out loud in their presence, they’re ugly. What do you do when you have a shot like this of an Mtn Goat nanny & kid and moth is molting?
Mountain Goat
captured by D3x / 600mm
You take the picture of course! But you try to minimize the “molt” however you can. In this case, the kid’s gesture of “You want me to go where?” as he looks down the cliff was the best that could be done at this moment. Are there other options? It really depends on the situation but shadows, body positioning, size in frame, action, and gesture are all tools you can use when they fit. But until all the hair molts and the new grows in for winter (usually late fall), they are simply looking the worse for wear. And remember that as long as they have that long fur, water is even more important. Find the water and often you will find them.
Jun 21, 2019 | Landscape Photography
Summer means afternoon thunderstorms in the Eastern Sierra (so carry your Miops lightning trigger, always!). The normal process is traces of clouds at sunrise and by late afternoon … kabommmm! Well, the wx pattern has set up so we have no thunderstorms for the next two weeks. Clouds are forming over the crest in the afternoon so it’s not totally bald skies. You wanna find a location that is going to have good afternoon light and think B&W. This shot taken a week ago at Rock Creek Lake with the Z7 / Z24-70f2.8 is a morning shot. It was a gorgeous morning but our last thunderstorm day. This kind of morning shot might be possible now, briefly, just as the sun rises at 04:30. Otherwise, you gotta scrap for clouds. It’s still gorgeous but the extra drama just isn’t happening at the moment.
Jun 14, 2019 | B&W Photography
I got up at 01:00, drove to the airport and headed off to Spokane to spend the weekend with the kids. I had planned on doing a couple of more pilot portraits for my long term project while in Spokane so brought my studio lights, the Profoto B10 kit (now three heads). When I touched down, Brent informed me that if I wanted to get one of the pilots, I needed to shoot it that night as he was heading out to fly and then off to a conference for a week. I reached out to the pilot, made the plans for 18:30 and I soon found myself at the airport again, a different one and for a lot more fun. Little did I know, I’d be running into “competition” (in a fun way)!
We arrived at the hangar only to find Brent’s flight instructor Ben, having his engagement photo being taken (Congrats again Ben & Mary Kate!) by the bride’s to be mom. While the kids looked nice and they had Ben’s Cessna 150 out there, it was a rather simple photo shoot affair (simple P&S camera). So while they did their thing, I went about setting up for my pilot portrait at sunset. All was fine, they do their thing and I doing mine until Ben pulled out of the hangar the plane I WAS GOING TO USE for my portrait! Well, now the clock was ticking and I figured if I politely jumped in and shot the portrait, they might be done faster, so I did.
Not really a fair comparison, but the single Profoto B10 with its 2′ Octa was no competition to mom’s pop-up flash. I threw the kids in front of Wendy May, took one test shot to confirm my ratio and then shot off some frames. Now me being me, I set the Z7 / Z24-70f2.8 to B&W as I knew they would look really dramatic on camera’s LCD. It really grabbed the kids imagination with the first one I showed them. I then possed them to look like there are truly in love and shot some more. They didn’t know the B&W would also be a color photo as well, they just knew I was really making them look good (and mom said the pressure was off her photography). The best part, I got the plane back so could do my pilot portrait which really turned out nice. So while truly blurry eyed, it was another great night on the field with a plane … and people … and gorgeous light!
Jun 13, 2019 | Wildlife Photography
Blackpoll Warbler
captured by Z6 / 800mm
There is one overwhelming temptation in wildlife photography that almost no photographer can pass up. And that’s the minute detail that you see and miraculously captured and so you want to share that photo with the world saying, “Look what I captured.” The problem is, the detail is so small, only you see it cause it’s your photo. I learned this a long time ago at the merciless hands of a photo editor who asked if I was going to supply all their readers with a magnifying glass so they could see what I saw. Yeah, that comment left a mark but it was an important lesson I’ve never forgotten. Case in point …
Blackpoll Warbler
captured by Z6 / 800mm
I was at the marvelous Magee Marsh a couple of weeks ago. Such a brilliant locale for great bird photography. I was shooting with the Z6 / 800mm cause my subjects are already really small, about the size of your thumb. This Blackpoll Warbler like many of the warblers were fueling up for the trip across the Great Lakes. They were eating nats the size of a pinhead. If you look at the photo with the arrow, you can see the nat. You can only see it because I inserted an arrow. In the photo without the arrow, the warbler just caught the nat. Truly a fun capture. Now without this lengthy caption or the photo with the arrow, you would have no clue of that minute detail. The point to this is, when you have to point out the small detail to someone else to explain your photograph, yeah, that’s too small!
