A National Park Secret

America’s National Parks have always been busy in the summer, but in recent years the summer crowds have virtually overwhelmed many of our parks. Between gridlock on the roads, more cars than parking places, and hip-to-hip tourists at the vista rails, what was once an opportunity to commune with nature has become a survival of the fittest endurance test. My solution has been to…

Going wide

After years of drought, in spring of 2016 I had the good fortune to photograph Yosemite Valley with actual flooding—nothing devastating, just enough for the Merced River to overspill its banks and create reflections where meadows normally exist. One such location was a spot beneath El Capitan, where I found myself faced with the challenge of capturing more scene than my 16-35 lens could…

Workshop prep: It’s more than just showing up

A couple of years ago a friend joined a New Zealand photo workshop and found that his leaders had never been to New Zealand. In lieu of scouting, these leaders had done a lot of googling, studied some maps, and read a few guides. During the workshop, they were still trying to put things together without firsthand knowledge of drive-times, the length (or difficulty)…

Meeting a celebrity

For those who don’t recognize it, this is the much-photographed willow tree that inhabits Lake Wanaka on New Zealand’s South Island. I’ve seen it described “the most photographed tree in the world,” and while I doubt that’s true, it is at least among the world’s more photographed trees. Seeing a popular subject like this for the first time is a lot like meeting a…

Winter in July

I’ve been home from New Zealand for less than 24 hours, and I already miss it. I miss the mountains, the fiords (AKA, fjords, but when in New Zealand…), the lakes, the rivers, the skies, the people, and the winter—right now (when it’s 105 in Sacramento), especially the winter. FYI, picking a favorite season for photography is kind of like having to pick a…

Greetings from Tomorrowland

One of my favorite childhood books was “Upside-Down Town,” about a little town where everything was opposite the rest of the world. People walked backward so they could see where they’d been, stores paid people to take their goods, and (my personal favorite at the time) schools were only in session on holidays. That’s kind of the way it feels visiting New Zealand in…

Yosemite game-changer

“Game changer” is most certainly a cliché, but every once in a while I get to use the term without shame. I used it when I switched from film to digital; again when I discovered that the Sony a7R (and now the a7RII) gave me 2- to 3-stops more dynamic range than my Canon 5DIII; one more time when I first turned the Sony…

Happy Father’s Day, Dad

June 2017 This summer it will be 13 years since I lost my dad to Alzheimer’s disease. He would have turned 87 next month, and I have no doubt that his body would still be going strong if the Alzheimer’s hadn’t taken over. Sadly, it’s difficult to fully appreciate a parent’s influence until they’re gone. We’re certainly aware of the love, wisdom, advice, discipline,…

Starry, starry night

Few experiences in nature surpass a dark sky brimming with an impossible number of stars. The darker the sky the better, and the sky doesn’t get much darker, or more impossible, than a moonless night at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. I schedule my annual Grand Canyon raft trip for the week of the new moon to ensure the darkest skies and the most stars;…

Seeing the future

Ansel Adams and visualization Most photographers know that Ansel Adams visualized his prints, and the darkroom work necessary to create them, before clicking the shutter. This ability to look into the future of each capture is part of what set Ansel Adams apart from his peers. But Adams’ extensive darkroom work is often cited by digital photographers defending their over-processesed images. We’ve all heard…