Colorado has had an amazing run off this year, the snow just keeps melting, and the rivers keep flowing. The Poudre River near my house has been at flood stage for weeks, and is finally starting to recede. This meant there were photo ops that were unique with the big whitewater. The narrows of the Read More
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Nikon Advertorial
Back from Alaska, now working on two editorial assignments, summer is a busy time. Had a great shoot with the folks in Alaska, tons of logistics go into making this shoot work, thanks to all who helped out. Once again we got lucky with the weather and had some sunny skies and 1am sunsets. Really enjoyed Read More
Alaska Factor
In Alaska right now on an assignment. Had the chance to see friends with my family beforehand. We used to live in Alaska, and still love many aspects of life up north. One thing we talk about is the Alaska factor. The Alaska factor refers to how everything seems bigger and almost surreal up here. Read More
Underwater fill flash
We are lucky to live right near a scenic river and big reservoir in Colorado. Our front yard in the summer looks like a yard sale of boating gear. One day whitewater kayaks, the next day sea kayaks, and the next day canoes. Since my wife likes to sea kayak as much as she can Read More
Underwater High Speed Sync
Some folks have emailed wondering how I got some earlier images that seem taken underwater yet still triggering flash above water. I have been using some fantastic gear by AquaTech to get these unique perspectives. Here is a recent shot from floating in a snowmelt river using an AquaTech D300s housing and an SB900 housing. Read More
New York Times interview
I have continued to experiment with high speed sync, with a few new points. I continue to have success shooting at any shutter speed I want with my D300s, it nevers misses a shot or clips the flash. This image of the skateboarder was shot midday using 1/8000 as the shutter speeed with the Ranger Read More
High Speed Ranger Sync Round 3
So far I have only looked at using the fast flash sync speeds using the Pocket Wizard Flex System for freezing the action. What else can you do with that lightning fast shutter speed? How about using wide open apertures to create selective focus in an image? I was shooting fly fishing the other day Read More
More Ranger/Hypersync news
I have continued to work with the Pocket Wizard Flex Mini TT1 and ST4 with my Elinchrom Ranger (see last post). Here’s the good news. After more experimentation, I can sync my D3 at 1/1000 at full power. And even at 1/1250 I get minimal flash fall off and clipping. 1/1250 will freeze most subjects Read More
Elinchrom Ranger using PocketWizard Hypersync; 1/8000 sync speed possible
If you are an action shooter like me, then you need to shoot at fast shutter speeds..1/1000 or faster to capture the action. But using flash at this speed required high speed sync, which in turn meant using multiple speedlights to get enough power to illuminate the subject. Speedlights work well, and have some advantages Read More
Half pipe ski shoot
April is a great month to shoot skiing in Colorado. Warm temps, blue sky days, and midweek very few skiers on the slopes….no lift lines. I wanted to shoot a classic sunstar jump image, which meant two things. First, I needed a skier that can fly high out of pipes and off jumps. Enter Dave, Read More
Use natural reflectors
I recently finished another photography training video for Kelby Training, this one on winter sports. We had a blast with Scott, Matt and Adam before the video shoot, shooting straight through a huge blizzard and wallowing through snow drifts. Check out Scott’s blog for more details. One of the athletes we got to photograph was Read More
Throw out the background
Just back from Patagonia, had a good trip with everyone, and some great laughs! We photographed a wide range of subjects, from landscapes, ice climbers, wildlife to tango shows. Some of my favorite images from the trip are portraits. Backgrounds are an important part of a portrait, they either add some context to the image, Read More