A Diamond in the Surf

With a break in my workshop schedule (and to prepare for my upcoming 2025 Highlights post), I’m working hard to catch up on this year’s unprocessed images. Moving more or less chronologically, I’m really having a blast—such a blast that balancing this processing with family Holiday priorities and the endless demands of running a business, my weekly blog schedule has slipped a bit. But…

Speaking of Highlights…

Fjadrargljufur, Iceland In our annual Iceland photo workshop, Don Smith and I start with an assortment of must-see locations we’d be remiss to pass on: Kirkjufell, Glacier Lagoon, Diamond Beach, and Vestrahorn, to name a few. These Iceland highlights are well-known and photographed enough that they probably had much to do with the workshop students decision to sign-up for the workshop in the first…

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…

If You Can’t Join Them, Beat Them

If you’ve ever photographed the slot canyons of Northern Arizona, you have some idea of the Iceland ice cave experience. Beautiful for sure, but mixing herds of gawking tourists with tripod wielding photographers, in a confined space, is also a recipe for frustration. While I’d say that Upper and Lower Antelope Canyons (the most popular of the Arizona slots) are probably more crowded than…

Making the Scene

Every photographer loves creating unique images. Planning workshops more than a year in advance, I always try to maximize my groups’ chances for macro events might enable my group to capture something special—things like Horsetail Fall or a moonrise in Yosemite, lightning at Grand Canyon, the Milky Way in New Zealand or Grand Canyon, and the northern lights in Iceland. (I’m not complaining,) but…

Twin Peaks

In the canon of iconic Iceland mountains, Vestrahorn is rivaled only by Kirkjufell, the much-photographed wizard-hat on Snaefellsnes Peninsula. While Kirkjufell’s acclaim is much deserved, as a photographer, one thing in particular that distinguishes Vestrahorn from Kirkjufell for me is its variety of compositional options. Kirkjufell is arguably Iceland’s most visually striking mountain, but the vantage points from which to photograph its distinctive outline…

Shock and Awe

That night at dinner, one person in the workshop group asked if there was a chance we’d see the northern lights, or if he could safely have another beer. I laughed and told him, while I can’t predict the future, I’d be shocked if the northern lights happened this night and to just go ahead and have that beer. I’ve never been happier to…

Iceland, Weather or Not

As I’ve probably said a million times before, and likely will say a million more times, the best weather for photography is the worst weather to be outside. I mean, why else would Don Smith and I schedule a workshop for Iceland in January? Of course our number one reason for an Iceland winter trip is the northern lights, which means winter clouds aren’t…

Organic Discovery

When I sit down each week to write a new blog post, I usually have a general idea of where I want to go, but little plan for how I’m going to get there. I’ll start with a couple of relevant sentences, then just see where that leads me. Depending on the topic, and my state of mind at the time, the effort that…

Go With the Flow

Despite many visits to Diamond Beach over the last half-dozen or so years, I still don’t feel like I’ve mastered the iceberg blurred water shot to my complete satisfaction. But I keep working on it, and this year I was at least was able to capture something I like. In previous visits, when my attempts to capture the perfect motion blur shot failed, I’d…