New Zealand Rocks

(Yes it does.) This New Zealand winter morning dawned damp and gray, with a layer of low clouds hindering the light and obscuring the peaks. Not awful for photography, but far from the spectacular color and light photographers hope for. My workshop partner Don Smith was battling a nasty (non-Covid) virus, so I was solo with the group on the morning we visited an…

It’s All a Blur

This has always been one of my favorite images. It’s also one of the oldest images in my digital portfolio. I photographed it 17 years ago (!) with my very first DSLR, a Canon 10D. Despite the 10D’s postage-stamp-size LCD, being able to instantly view and refine my images led to an epiphany that permanently altered the way I photograph: Even though photography is…

Creative Selective Focus (revisited)

After a winter that didn’t seem like it would ever end, spring has finally arrived in California. With poppies springing up throughout the state, and the dogwood bloom right around the corner, this seemed like a good time to update my Creative Selective Focus article. In this day of ubiquitous cameras, automatic exposure modes, free information, and powerful processing tools, taking a good picture…

Mastering Focus (Hyperfocal and Otherwise)

What’s the point? It seems like one of photography’s great mysteries is achieving proper focus: the camera settings, where to place the focus point, even the definition of sharpness are all sources of confusion and angst. If you’re a tourist just grabbing snapshots, everything in your frame is likely at infinity and you can just put your camera in full auto mode and click away….