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 21, 2018 | Wildlife Photography
There are so many “things” that go into a photograph! There is the great, brand, f/stop, shutter speed and of course, the Photoshop concerns. The one “thing” that I find many photographers don’t consider or act upon is the most important element to go into a photograph, themselves! Ya, there are all the worries, the … will this qualify for the camera club judging or the … will I get a bunch of likes on Facebook, but what about your wants, desires, your favorites? What is it YOU want in your photograph? This is the most difficult because all I just listed and more plus the fact there is no, (insert your name here) Menu Setting or Slider that automatically puts (insert your name here) instantly into the formula. Do you even know what that might be if you could have such a setting?
I can tell you some of mine, the Glossy Ibis above is a good example of them. All my images require light, not just light but a light that captures the imagination to tell the story. Then, there is what you see is what I saw, no cropping or post finishing. That’s a must in my critter photos (landscape and aviation see Photoshop but still no cropping)! Next, I have to have the light that’s going to lead your eye through the frame. Then the critter has to share with all of us that moment of, of, of, well there’s the important part that I don’t have a word for. I hate to say gesture because so many don’t understand this important element in a photograph. With the Glossy Ibis, it’s not just its stare but how the light brings out the white eyebrow above the bill that follows the stare that goes with the curve of the bill that the light kisses that are framed by the reeds … etc, etc, etc. That’s the gesture that made me stop to wait for the moment.
And that, in a long-winded explanation is what I wait for in all my photographs that I want to share, to reach out to the viewer and if all goes right, grabs heartstrings. But I know that’s what I want, what I’m looking for, what I need in my own mind as a formula that BEGINS the photographic process. That “other stuff,” the technical is there, in the background, for a heartbeat and then it’s thrown by the wayside as it comes time to record the moment. I think knowing YOURSELF is really the key here more than knowing brand for exposure equation. I honestly feel you need to know what’s in your favorite!
Feb 12, 2018 | Wildlife Photography
FL Red-shouldred Hawk
captured by D5 / 800mm
The magic of flight that birds appear to do so effortlessly is a photographic storytelling challenge. That’s because as we watch it in real time, the mind fills in lots of gaps so all that registers is that magic. But when you take just one moment from that flight, that single moment in flight might not translate that magic that we’re after. How do you bring home that elegance of flight in your photo to share with others? As you watch them ring up, raptors make circles and in that circle there is a photograph and only one moment. In that moment is the elegance but how do you capture that?
It all starts really with the gear you’re shooting with, in this example, I used the captured by D5 / 800mm but an easier set up for most would have be something handheld like the 300PF on the D5. The gear gives you not only the image size but ability to isolate the flight from the background. There is a general rule in bird flight photography, don’t photograph them with a gray background. The 800mm permitted me to grab the small slice of blue in the gray. Then in watching the Red-shoulder circle, I watched and shot ONLY when it was coming into the light AND it was looking around and not just straight down (other photo shows when not to click). In the lower photo you can see where even though the hawk is lit, the feeling of the magic of flight doesn’t come through. It’s a challenge to get the shot but just keep in the back of your mind, you want to say in your photograph the elegance of flight!
Feb 6, 2018 | Wildlife Photography
FL Brown Pelican
captured by D5 / 800mm
There are those moments when the air is still, the light has kissed it when the subject comes through to be blessed by it. With the D5 / 800mm mounted we had such a moment with this Fl Brown Pelican glided past. Our moment of zen.
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 …
