For my first major trip of 2018 I set my slights on a location I had not visited since I was a kid in the back seat during a family vacation – Death Valley. I distinctly remember driving through Death Valley during some family vacation, it was late enough that the rental Town Car had an outside temperature gauge which was of course an interesting stat for a dash through the valley in what was most likely June, but I’m also fairly certain we didn’t stop to experience the valley …
Landscapes 201 – The Magic Hours
“Noon” – a four letter word to a landscape photographer. There is nothing more important to the quality of our landscape images than the quality of light entering the front element of the lens and ultimately onto the sensor or film. There are two distinct times of day when the light of the world is at its best; sunrise and sunset. These two times are known as the Magic Hours and each is split into two halves. The Blue Hour and the Golden Hour. Blue Hour occurs in the period …
The Adventure Truck
I started in photography in early 2012, by 2013 I was taking out of town and out of state photography trips on a fairly regular basis. As my camera kit grew, and I rediscovered my interest in camping as well, it soon became obvious that my current truck just wasn’t fitting my needs any longer. The 2003 GMC Sierra was a great truck, but a regular cab truck and camera gear just didn’t mix well. I was piling up my passenger seat with the camera bags, making taking another person …
Photo Backup – Local Storage Options
Looking to improve your photography storage and backup solution? Start Here – Photo Backup Strategies It only takes one frantic heart stopping moment when your hard drive fails to wish you’d been more prepared. Especially if it’s at 3am after an all night editing blitz to get a client’s set finished for delivery the next day. I’ve heard enough of these horror stories to know it can and will happen – usually at the most inopportune time. Most of the time, a photo can only be captured once. You only have the …
Astrophotography Lenses – Beyond the f-number
Just getting started in Astrophotography? Please check out my introductory article, ‘Astrophography – Seeing the Light in the Darkest Places’ first before you dive in here. It’s been recently updated for 2017! Astrophotography is a wonderful, and at the moment wildly popular, style of photography. From the peace that comes from sitting in the still darkness taking in the sights of the night sky, to the wonder of seeing far more than the eye can behold light up the back side of your camera’s screen after each click – there …
Landscapes 201 – Preparing for the Shoot
In Landscapes 101, I discussed 10 top tips to kick start your thinking on how to improve your landscape photography regardless if your subject is your local park or Arches National Park in Utah. In Landscapes 201 will break this down further by diving into much more detail on a number of these tips. This series is geared towards preparing for a major photography trip to a landscape photography destination, be it Olympic National Park, the beaches of Mexico, dark skies of West Texas, or deep in the Smokey Mountains. In …
The Plight of the 50mm Lens
Go ask almost any forum filled with Photographers “What is the first lens to buy after the kit lens?”, and the answer is often ’50mm’, ‘Nifty Fifty’ and so on. The 50mm has no shortage of fans. Simply Google ‘Why every photographer should own a 50mm’ and you’ll get dozens of articles from some of the biggest photography websites around. However, go back into those same forums you started at, and ask ‘What’s your least used lens’, and amazingly, the 50mm also gets mentioned a fair bit. And this got me …
Show & Tell: Rocky Coast Long Exposure
When myself and a group of six other photographers started discussing where we wanted to go on a Pacific Northwest photography adventure one name kept coming up: Thor What does the Norse God of Thunder have to do with Oregon? It is the name of a geological formation on Cape Perpetua on the central Oregon coast. I had been there once before, two years prior, and while I was happy with the photos at the time, having researched other photos at the location told us one thing – sunset was the …
Landscapes 101 – Beyond the pretty snapshot
Every photography site out there seems to have one, the “How to improve your Landscape Photography” article. Usually they have 5, or 10, or even 12 bullet points that cover the same general set of tips to taking better landscape photos. And this is mine. Why should you read it? Well, for starters, you’re already here, so you might as well. Additionally, I’m not so far removed from ‘before I knew these tips’ that I’ll assume you already know why they are important. I’m going to take the time to say …
The PNW Chronicles – Central Oregon Coast
What I consider the Central Oregon coast and what locals might consider it may in fact be slightly two different regions, though I’m sure there’s a lot of overlap. What we can probably agree on is that the cities of Lincoln City, Depoe Bay, Newport, Waldport, Yachats and Forence would be considered on the central coast. I’ve spent most of my time in the stretch around Newport as my parents, until just recently, had a summer home there. Both of my two major photo trips to Oregon have included several …
Sailing the British Virgin Islands aboard Arabella
I’ll never forget the look on my friends face when she said she was leaving the company we both worked for and was taking a position on a yacht to be a deck hand and steward. It was the same look I get when I start planning my next photography adventure – only this was that glimmer a hundred times over. She was, to put it lightly, floating on air. And soon she’d be floating on the ocean – aboard the gorgeous 3-masted schooner Arabella. As she gushed over the …
Exceeding Photoshop’s PSD 2GB File Size Limit
I remember when my family got their first computer. It was an Acer, it was this huge, heavy, dark colored tower case and even heavier 15″ CRT monitor. It was top of the line, Pentium 100 mhz (yes, mhz), and it had a 1 GB hard drive. Our neighbor exclaimed that we’d never possibly fill up a 1 GB hard drive. Six months later my father was none too pleased when I proved the old phrase “where there’s a will, there’s a way.” Somehow, over a 56k modem, I had …