Oct 2, 2019 | Wildlife Photography
Ever since I saw my first photo of a Northern Gannet over thirty years ago, I’ve longed to see it with my own eyes. Bird Rock at the Cape St Mary’s Ecological Reserve is the site of the Northern Gannet nesting colony. Just a tad short of the eastern point of North America, this lone sea stack starting in May, is the home to forty thousand plus Gannets for the few months they come off the sea to set forth the next generation. It’s a sight and sound I have longed to witness and it is nothing like I imagined. It is so much more!
The photographic challenge smacks you right in the face when you walk up to the edge. How do you tell the story of this natural wonder, nesting Northern Gannets of Newfoundland? Standing back and shooting the entire coastline (Z6 / Z24-70f2.8) is one option but then, who are all the white dots? You focus on just an individual, even one propositioning a hopeful mate (D5 / 180-400VR), and you lose the mass. I’m a couple of days into this challenge and after the first day, I knew I was close, but no cigar. The second day I was closer … I have more days to tell the story in my photos of one of many.
Sep 26, 2019 | Wildlife Photography
The Alaskan Sea Otter is an incredibly charismatic critter that you simply fall in love with the first time you see them! The first otter biologist we worked with called them Teddy Bears of the Sea and the next biologist called them the Clowns of the Sea. They are both and so much more. When you’re on the water with them, they share their world with you as they sleep, eat, swim and of course, constantly replenish the air in their thick coats. It’s soooo easy to get caught up in all of this as you watch them in your viewfinder and forget the one very important element, the background.
Sea Otters tend to have light-toned heads, more so as they get older. Since the mind’s eye goes to light and bright first, this basic physiological characteristic makes it really simple to make the Otter in their watery world pop in your photo no matter how small it is in the frame. That’s unless you lose track of the bright highlights/reflections of the water surrounding them. That’s not to say those reflections from the sky need to be entirely eliminated, but minimized doesn’t hurt your visual storytelling. You want your viewer’s eye going to just one place in your photo, to that cute Sea Otter!
Photos captured by D5 / 180-400VR from Karls magnificent boat on Kachemak Bay, AK
Sep 23, 2019 | Landscape Photography
Alabama Hills
captured by D3x / 24-70f2.8
Yeah, it’s simply gorgeous out! Spent the morning stacking firewood with the clouds floating past overhead and the gorgeous light that is, fall. I have basically every minute between now and Thanksgiving planned to be out amongst the leaves to drink in every drop of light pouring through them. It comes to fast each year and goes by even faster!
Conway Summit
captured by D3x / 24-70f2.8
As I mentioned in my podcast today, I think the Eastern Sierra (this is Conway Summit) will have a good fall color show. You need two key ingredients for fall color, wet late spring and a good cold snap. We had the snow in May and we just had a quick storm blow through a week ago with its cold temps. That is setting up the eastside for good color. If you need hints or ideas on how to work with fall color, be sure to check out my KelbyOne Classes on Moose’s Fall Color Class. And be sure to get out and play in the leaves, it’s good for the soul!
Sep 18, 2019 | Wildlife Photography
Back in the ’80s after I had bought the 800f5.6 EDIF, I was haunting the rocky shores of Monterey a lot. Being on the edge of Monterey Bay, there are small little pockets of birds, not particularly rare, just rarely seen and even more rarely photographed. They grabbed my imagination, especially the little Black Turnstone. A tad smaller than your fist, I got a photograph of one way back when that I’ve always truly enjoyed. And for decades that one image satisfied me, until about a year ago. I had never gone back and looked for or photographed the Black Turnstone since them early days. Last year, I got the hankering to go and improve on my old photo. I’m glad I did!
Living at the splash zone on the rocky shore, those rocks and splash are very much a part of the Black Turnstone. The three elements I need to tell the story are already dictated, I just had to combine those elements to tell its story. Shooting with the D5 / 180-400VR hand-holding, I was able to get out on the rocks easily. I then looked for the Turnstone on good looking rocks with a great splash background. Then watching the biology, made the click with that small gesture came to life. While I have a new favorite Black Turnstone image, I won’t wait that long to go back and improve on it!
Sep 17, 2019 | Landscape Photography
The wind was howling through Nevada yesterday with 40mph gusts. It whipped the snow-laden clouds about in gorgeous forms (first Sierra snow fell yesterday). It also did a number of vehicles, flinging a 16 wheeler off the highway and stopping all traffic in both directions for four hours. We came upon the scene just after the incident so we were stuck. We were entertained with great conversation and scenery outside our windows. The light was gorgeous light so I braved the elements and made some clicks.
How windy was it? It took my rear lens came out of my hand and flung out of sight in a heartbeat! Braving the sensor dust I knew was coating my Z6 in the wind, I attached the FTZ / 105f1.4 and spent an hour with the ever-changing landscape. With the fierce wind, the apertures in the clouds came and went and with them, new light on the same scene. If I wasn’t stuck on a two-lane highway at an accident scene with 40mph gusts, I would have shot a time-lapse which would have been spectacular. Perhaps it was a good thing I was forced to stop cause otherwise I would have probably just enjoyed the view rather than record and share it. Simply, spectacular!
Sep 3, 2019 | Landscape Photography
When we caught up with our dear friend Richard the other morning, he was so excited to go off to work. And he’s retired! He’s a biologist and he was asked to work the Spring Fire. A naturally caused fire from a lightning strike a month back, it’s burning in an area that just recently burned and has never burned in the largest stand of Jeffrey Pine in the US. We think of fire as a bad thing but it’s is a natural part of the system, when the system is not broken. In the remote area where the Spring Fire is burning, it’s pretty natural so for scientists, is a burning laboratory where they are discovering all sorts of new things about the system. I was very pleased this morning I could take this photo for Richard which I know he’ll love after he shakes off the dust and washed off the ash from the fire. Oh, the body of water is Mono Lake. And the photo, a simple click taken with the Z6 / 70-200f4.
