One Night, Two Moons

I wrapped up this year’s workshop schedule at the beginning of this month and am now enjoying a much anticipated Holiday breather before my schedule ramps up again in January. This isn’t exactly a vacation, because the end of the year is when all my permit reporting and next year’s permit applications are due, and my 2025 workshop prep starts to ramp up, but…

Do You Really Need a New Camera?

I had an idea germinating for this week’s blog post, but when Sony announced the brand new α1 II Tuesday, I pivoted to an experienced-based public service message. (You’re welcome.) As you may have noticed, a new camera purchase is a significant investment. Nevertheless, for many photographers the new camera decision seems more emotional than rational. Case in point: Me. That is, once upon…

Dome Sweet Dome

Poll 100 random people about the feature they most associate with Yosemite, and you’ll probably get a variety of answers. Near the top of the list will be El Capitan and Yosemite Falls. Bridalveil Fall might get some love too. But I’d wager more than half of the votes would go to Half Dome, both for its striking profile, and for the way it…

Gifts From Heaven

As much for its (apparently) random arrival as its ethereal beauty, the appearance of a comet has always felt to me like a gift from the heaven. Once a harbinger of great portent, scientific knowledge has eased those comet fears, allowing Earthlings to simply appreciate the breathtaking display. Unfortunately, scientific knowledge does not equal perfect knowledge. So, while a great comet gives us weeks,…

Full Contact Photography

Years ago, my brother Jay and I were photographing an autumn sunrise at Mono Lake’s South Tufa. Among the first to arrive at the lake, we’d set up at the spot I’d chosen the prior evening, but soon South Tufa’s shoreline was jammed with jostling, elbow-to-elbow photographers. Scanning the line of overlapping tripod legs, I was baffled because, unlike many popular photo destinations, South…

No Sky? No Problem…

Anyone who has been in one of my photo workshops will confirm that I’m kind of obsessed with skies. Not just the good skies, but the bad ones too. While the sky can add a lot to an image, it can detract just as much. Viewing images online and in my workshop image reviews, it seems that many people pay outsize attention to the…

Eastern Sierra Love

I just returned last night from my annual Eastern Sierra autumn trip. Each time I’m there, I marvel at not just the quality of the scenery east of the Sierra Nevada, but even more impressive to me is the variety of the scenery. I’ve always believed if America could do it all over again and allocate it’s national parks before a varied assortment of…

Danger in Paradise

Battered for millennia by earthquakes, floods, volcanic eruptions, and tropical cyclones, it’s no wonder Hawaii’s residents keep one eye on the ocean, the other on the mountains—all while closely monitoring the sky overhead. I’ve visited each of Hawaii’s major islands many times (okay, so technically, on Oahu I haven’t been outside the airport, which is its own sort of disaster), and have personally experienced…

Full Circle

For many people of my generation, their earliest memories of landscape photography are some version of Dad pulling the family wagon up to an iconic vista and beelining (camera flapping around his neck) to the railed viewpoint to snap a few frames—if you were lucky, he’d take long enough for you to use the bathroom. In most cases these pictures would be quickly forgotten—until…

More Than Skin Deep

Beauty In the eye of the beholder, more than skin deep… We’ve all heard the clichés implying that beauty is both subjective and personal, and like many (most?) clichés, they’re founded in truth. Landscape photography is the glorious pursuit of natural beauty, however we choose to define it. In my mind, the beauty of the subjects I pursue transcends the visual and is rooted…