Deciphering natural order

I’m often asked if I placed a leaf, moved a rock, or “Photoshopped” a moon into an image. Usually the tone is friendly curiosity, but sometimes it carries hints of suspicion bordering on accusation. While these questions are an inevitable part of being a photographer today, I suspect that I get more than my share because I aggressively seek out naturally occurring subjects to isolate and emphasize in my frame. But regardless…

Enjoying Yosemite in a fog

One of Yosemite’s most underrated winter treats is the radiation fog that hugs the valley floor on cold, clear, still mornings. Unlike the advection fog that drapes the San Francisco Bay Area (among other places) when (relatively) warm, saturated air passes over the colder ocean and blows inland, radiation fog forms in place  when plummeting overnight temperatures cause airborne water vapor to condense. A sheltered valley with a cold river, soggy meadows, and a…

Photographic matchmaking

While everyone loves a pretty scene, I’m afraid our aesthetic sense has been numbed by the continuous assault of “stunning” images online. A picture grabs our eyes on Instagram or Facebook and we reflexively click Like and move on to the next (similarly) stunning image. The photography equivalent of pop music, formula fiction, or (most) network television, these images exit our conscious about as fast as they entered because they fail to make…

Fall color explained

Like most photographers in the Northern Hemisphere, my fall color season is about finished. But things are just ramping up along the streets near my home in California’s Central Valley (where winter doesn’t really begin until December, and spring’s first blooms start to pop up at the end of January—sorry). While there’s not a lot for me to photograph in my neighborhood, the opportunity to partake of the visual feast…

How do you do that?: Properly expose a full moon

The problem Cameras struggle to capture simultaneous detail in bright highlights (the moon) and and dark shadows (the landscape)—capturing one or the other is easy, but both? Not so much. A full moon is daylight bright, but because a full moon rises at sunset and sets at sunrise (more or less, depending on exactly how full the moon is when it rises/sets, and the elevation of the horizon the…

Supermoon

The media tends to distort facts and blow events out of proportion. Perhaps you’ve noticed. The latest example is this week’s “supermoon,” an event heralded on TV, in print, and online like the Second Coming. Okay, now for a little perspective. Despite hype to the contrary, a supermoon occurs at least twice, and up to five times, in a year. In fact, our last supermoon was all the way back…

Yosemite Autumn Reflection

Tomorrow I start the final workshop in the busiest workshop season I’ve ever had—since mid-August I’ve led 8 of my own workshops, and assisted Don Smith with 2 of his, in four states from Hawaii to Utah. I’ve photographed lots of great stuff, and met many fantastic people, but I’m looking forward to a few consecutive days in my own bed, and an opportunity to share more new images…

Nature’s transcendent moments

It’s a rare photo trip that doesn’t include a moment to savor, a special confluence of location and light that seems to virtually assure great images. But every year or two I get to witness something that transcends photography, a moment that will be forever etched in my brain, camera or not. These moments are special not simply for their visual gifts, but also for the emotional…

Winter is coming

While every season in Yosemite offers something that makes it special, the most beautiful place on earth is at its most beautiful when every exposed surface for as far as the eye can see is made brand new and pristine by a blanket of fresh snow. But capturing Yosemite’s winter magic isn’t a simple matter of showing up on a winter day with a camera. At just 4,000…

Practicing what I preach

The morning (last week) I started this post I was photographing South Tufa at Mono Lake in 26 degree temperatures. It’s hard to believe that less than three weeks earlier I was wearing a tank top, shorts, and flip-flops while photographing orchids in Hawaii. And later today I’m off to Moab, Utah. I’d taken my Hawaii workshop group to Lava Tree State Park, long a personal favorite spot…