Looking Back at 2022

This is my final blog post of 2022. Going through my images from the past 12 months, I can’t help but celebrate my blessings. What you might (I hope) view as a pretty picture, represents to me a thrilling moment in Nature. And believe me when I say that I remember the experience of witnessing every single image I share here. 2022 was the…

Creative Juices

One of my favorite summer treats is the smoothie I whip up for lunch on hot days. I grab whatever fruit is available, toss it in my Vitamix with a little macadamia milk and ice, and let it rip. Each smoothie tastes different, but it’s always delicious. Why am I sharing food prep tips in a photo blog? Because I can think of no…

Watch Out For That Tree

I’m incredibly blessed to make my living guiding enthusiastic photographers to many of our planet’s most beautiful locations. While this makes my life far too rich for complaint, let me say (without complaining) that a particular challenge imposed by frequent return visits to the same locations is finding unique ways to photograph them. My usual go-to approach at these familiar locations is to play with…

Looking Up Down Under

Are you as thrilled as I am by the mesmerizing images we’re seeing from the James Webb Space Telescope? There’s nothing like a heaping dose of perspective to remind humans of our insignificance in the grand scheme things, and these images deliver perspective in spades. I think my favorite Webb image is the view deep into a seemingly tiny black region of sky that…

Unexpected Rewards

One summer when I was a kid, my family took a camping vacation to the Canadian Rockies. Bits and pieces of that trip return to me as vague memories, but one memory permanently etched in my brain is the color of Lake Louise and Moraine Lake. My dad, a very passionate amateur photographer, was frothing with excitement and must have exhausted half his film…

New Zealand Night

If you know anything about me, you know how much I love the Milky Way—not only to photograph, but also just to look at. And by the Milky Way (since pretty much everything we see with the naked eye is part of the Milky Way), I (especially) mean the galactic core. I think it’s pretty cool to realize that the galactic core photons that tickle…

Before and After

Reflection, Lake Wanaka Willow Tree, New Zealand Sony 𝛂1 Sony 24-105 G 1/20 second F/11 ISO 100 I’m sitting in the Queenstown, New Zealand airport waiting to board the first of four flights that will total 26 hours and land me a mere 2-hour drive from home. While I’m still coherent, I’ll attempt to whip out this week’s (slightly late) blog post, using low…

Resolution Revelation

For years I’ve been pleading with camera manufacturers to stop giving us more resolution, and instead concentrate on things like improving dynamic range and high ISO performance. And while I still think that would be a better approach, I have to admit that I’m loving having all these pixels to play with. The catalyst for my resolution revelation was this New Zealand sunset image….

New Zealand Sunset

This morning, while going through unprocessed images looking for something to blog about, I came across this image from last June in New Zealand. I realize the world probably doesn’t need any more pictures of this tree (which is why I’d never processed it), but after nearly two months of smoky skies that have robbed California of anything close to a normal sunset, sunrise/sunset…

To Polarize, or Not to Polarize

One of my most frequently asked questions during a workshop shoot is, “Should I use my polarizer here?” Of course that’s an impossible question to answer absolutely because as a creative choice, the polarizer decision is rarely absolute. While many people believe the sole purpose of a polarizer is to make the sky darker (deeper blue), blue sky is just a byproduct of the…