Blurred water: Fiction and facts

Some people don’t like the silky water effect. While I agree that at times it verges on cliché, the truth is that fast water illuminated by anything less than full sunlight usually offers little choice. In those conditions the question isn’t whether to blur the water, it’s how much? The argument against blurring moving water that always amuses me is the one that says…

Cameras are stupid, Part deux

Okay, let’s review. Would you really allow your camera to choose the focus point for this composition? (Hint: No.) Like exposure, focus is not an absolute that can be determined by sterile, binary analysis; rather, focus is a creative choice that profoundly affects the result. That’s because creating the illusion of depth in two-dimensional image means composing elements at different distances throughout the frame. Unfortunately,…

Cameras are stupid

In a previous life I spent several years doing technical support. For me job-one was convincing people that, despite all error messages to the contrary, they are in fact smarter than their computers. Most errors occur because the computer just didn’t understand: If I misspell a wurd, you still know what I mean (rite?); not so with a computer. A computer can’t anticipate, reason,…

Discover your inner Magellan

Sometimes I wonder if humans’  inherent need for discovery has been dulled by the proliferation of artificial stimuli. Television, movies, the Internet, and video games are indeed pretty amazing, but if Magellan were alive today, do you think he’d be riveted to “The Discovery Channel” or hunched at his computer, probing Google Earth? If Magellan had a camera, would he be online mining GPS coordinates…

It’s in the bag

Probably the question I am most asked is some variation on, “What lens should I use?” While I’m happy to answer questions, this one always makes me cringe because the implicit question is, “Which lenses can I leave behind?” What many photographers fail to realize is that the “proper” lens is determined by the photographer, not by the scene. While there’s often a general…

Happy Birthday, Dad

  Today would have been my father’s 81st birthday. Dad was one of those people who did everything well, but I don’t think there was anything he enjoyed more than photography. His work kept him so busy that the only time he ever got to take pictures was when he was on vacation, but he made up for lost time then. I’ll be eternally…

My very own Everest

Highway 49 is a meandering, two-lane road connecting the historical dots in California’s Gold Country. Each spring the route is framed by countless scenes like this, scenes that seem to grab your steering wheel and force you to the side of the road for a closer look. Often it’s difficult to find a place to park safely, especially on weekends, when drivers’ attention is more…

Aloha!

The last few years I’ve spent quite a bit in Hawaii, but I really can’t say which island I prefer. All have gorgeous around-the-clock weather, more waterfalls than you can count, dense and colorful rain forests, and spectacular volcanic beaches. More recently my photographic attention has been focused on the Big Island and Maui, but I feel like I’ve just scratched the surface. Both…

Are we having fun yet?

Every once in a while, when I’m really bored, I’ll surf over to one of the photography forum (discussion) sites, only to be instantly reminded why it’s been so long since I visited. The litany of complaints, insults, and one-upsmanship makes me wonder whether there are any photographers who truly enjoy their craft. Of course I know there are, because I meet them all…

A landscape photographer’s time

On my run this morning I listened to an NPR “Talk of the Nation” podcast about time, and the arbitrary ways we Earthlings measure it. The guest’s thesis was that the hours, days, and years we measure and monitor so closely are an invention established (with increasing precision) by  science and technology to serve society’s specific needs; the question posed to listeners was, “What…