An important part of travel photography are portraits. I know that people photography is not everyone’s favorite thing, but photographing daily life, emotional moments and ceremonies let others experience the destination through your photography. Everyone relates to people. You have two approaches to travel portrait photography; journalistic street photography where you don’t want to alter Read More
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Travel Photography Approaches-Photograph the light, not the subject
Ever wander into a busy market and be overwhelmed with what to shoot? So much chaos going on, it can be intimidating to figure out how to create a nice image. Shop owners hustle by, pedestrians speed down the street, dogs bark in the alley…what to do? Try this approach…photograph the light, not the subject. Read More
Travel Photography Approaches-Fluid or Static?
I’ll be heading to Europe soon, first Sicily, then to Spain in May (still spaces available). I can’t wait to get back to travel photography…so many subjects, styles and techniques that all blend together in creating images. As a rule of thumb, there are two main approaches to creating travel images. Fluid or static…hunting or Read More
Arctic Portraits
On many of our workshops we try to create at least one portrait. We’ve found through the years that even though many participants don’t think they are interested in taking people pictures, they just might be surprised. This is so important in growing creatively as a photographer…trying something new, experiment with new subjects and techniques. Read More
-20F below Z9 winter test
I just returned from two weeks photographing Aurora near Fairbanks Alaska. I knew it was going to be cold; riding in the hotel elevator the printed weather page on the door said the temp was -25F. But I love super cold weather, and couldn’t wait to try out the Z9 in these conditions. Our first Read More
Northern Lights White Balance
One of my favorite photographic subjects are the northern lights. It is hard to beat watching a dancing aurora display in frosty subzero temps in beautiful winter landscapes. Green, purples and even reds will show in the night sky. But in winter this does present a challenge. The snowy foreground often looks green or off Read More
Alaska Covers
Alaska is our second home…Cree and I lived there for over a decade, and we continue to make numerous trips each year for assignments and workshops. Last summer we had a fantastic shoot for the Mat-Su visitor bureau. One day on the shoot we loaded up a helicopter with models and flew into very remote Read More
Mounting camera for landscapes on a gimbal head
I often travel with two tripods. One is my larger RRS TFC 3 with a large gimbal head; the other is my Ascend -14L with head built into the tripod column. But sometimes while using my telephoto lens on my gimbal head I want mount my landscape camera onto the tripod. If I attached the Read More
Lightroom ‘Intersect Mask’ feature
Lightroom (and Photoshop) has another way to further refine your selection using the new masking tools. It’s call Intersect Mask, and here is how it works. Take a look at this image at top…a portrait of a friend during an adventure sports workshop in Alaska. Using the new ‘Select Subject’ feature, let’s first see how Read More
Reducing bright halos around selections.
We’re in the middle of an online class right now discussing the new masking features in Lightroom and Photoshop. If you work in Lightroom, this is a major update and allows a lot more power in selective editing. With just one click you can select a subject by a number of methods, invert, refine and Read More
Z9 Wide Area Large Autofocus
Cree and I just returned from three days of shooting in Jackson, Wyoming. We used to live in Wyoming, and love the Tetons. It also gave me an opportunity to continue to explore the autofocus options of the Z9. One thing is very obvious about the Z9, similar to otherl mirrorless cameras; choosing the Read More
My Z9 Settings
I have had so many questions on Z9 settings that I decided to do a blog post on it. The Z9 menu system is the most extensive on any Nikon camera, so there are a ton of options. Also, because you can customize so many buttons and modes there are lots of ways of setting Read More