Breaking My Own Rules

My goal is to create images that celebrate Nature, images that allow viewers to imagine a world untouched by humankind. So it makes sense that I avoid including anything manmade in my images. But I also rail against (most) camera clubs for their rule-bound creative constipation, and those strong feelings collided earlier this year on a chilly January night Iceland. I resolved the conflict…

2024 In the Mirror: The Night Sky

This is my third and final post looking back at my 2024 photography experiences. Next up: 2024 Highlights—my favorite images of the year. My relationship with the night sky predates my photography life. In fact, for most of my photography life, cameras weren’t even capable of capturing dark skies well enough to do them justice. That changed with the advent of digital capture, and…

One Click Wonders

For as long as I can remember, I’ve gazed at the night sky in wonder. Around the age of 10, my wonder was augmented by inquisitive fascination that I pursued in books, magazines, and through the lens of my very own telescope. Throughout my adulthood, I longed to express that celestial wonder with my camera, but for years was thwarted by the camera’s inability…

Channeling the Donner Party

Landscape photographers know suffering. With no control over the weather and light, we’re often forced to sacrifice comfort, sometimes even safety, in pursuit of our subjects. Cold, exhaustion, sleep deprivation, hunger—it all goes with the territory. But in the long run the successes, though never guaranteed, far outweigh the sacrifices. So, when my wife and I scaled the short but steep trail (336 stairs—I…

A Slippery Slope

I’ve visited New Zealand each (non-Covid) winter since 2017. And every year, from the day I return my wife has to endure weeks of my raving about how beautiful (and clean, and friendly, and quiet, and pretty much perfect) New Zealand is. So this year we decided to add 10 days to my New Zealand stay, and Sonya flew down to meet me after…

Aurora Dreams

Even without the northern lights, there’s enough stuff to photograph in Iceland to more than fill a 10-day winter workshop. But I’d be lying if I said the prime goal of every person who signs up for an Iceland winter photo workshop isn’t the northern lights. And Don Smith and I do our best to fulfill these aurora dreams, but that of course isn’t…

A Dose of Perspective

Nothing in my life delivers a more potent dose of perspective than viewing the world from the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Days are spent at the mercy of the Colorado River, alternately drifting and hurtling beneath mile-high rock layers that reveal more than a billion years of Earth story. And when the sun goes down, the ceiling transforms into a cosmological light show,…

That Time Elon Musk Photobombed My Workshop…

Last week’s Grand Canyon Milky Way shoot almost didn’t happen, but by the time all was said and done, we ended up with far more than we’d bargained for. My Grand Canyon monsoon workshops are ostensibly about photographing all of Grand Canyon’s unrivaled beauty, but ask anyone who signs up and they’ll tell you their number one goal is lightning. About 70 percent of…

Smart Luck

Once upon a time I posted a rainbow image on Facebook and someone commented that getting a shot like that is simply dumb luck. After having a good chuckle, I actually felt a little sad for the commenter. Since we all tend to make choices that validate our version of reality, imagine going through life with that philosophy. No one can deny that photography…

Greetings from Down Under

It’s hard enough sticking to my (self-imposed) weekly blog schedule when I’m home and just doing the daily stuff necessary to keep my business running. But for the last week Don Smith and I have been cavorting about the New Zealand countryside with a dozen awestruck photographers. So I’ve dusted off a still relevant blog post from 4 years ago, updated it, and added…