Kilauea Milky Way fun (with the a7S)

Rain in Hawaii is great for almost everything—it fills the waterfalls, cleans the air (for the best sunrise/sunset color), sparks rainbows, and makes photographing Hawaii’s lush foliage a joy. But it’s not so great when your objective includes stars. And based on the forecast for this year’s Hawaii Big Island workshops, our odds for finding the Milky Way above Kilauea weren’t too good. But a…

Appreciating the small stuff

Posting as much as I do here in my blog and on Facebook, it’s sometimes easy to be sucked into sharing images that I know will generate the most enthusiastic response. But that’s not a complete reflection of my relationship with nature, or the reason I take pictures for a living. So every once in a while I find myself needing a reset, a re-focus…

Fallen color

When you’re surrounded by beautiful scenery, it’s easy to overlook the small details that make a scene special. But there’s no substitute for the pleasure that comes from spending a little time in a scene, identifying its intricacies, and creating an image that conveys this connection to others. Capturing these intricacies can be the most rewarding aspect of photography, because they’re almost always uniquely reflective your…

Going long

It’s no secret that a prime benefit of mirrorless photography is the smaller form-factor of the bodies and lenses. And while I was looking forward to lightening my bag when I made the switch, it turns out that my first mirrorless thought wasn’t, “Oh gee, this bag is so light!” (it was). My first thought was actually, “Oh gee, look at all that extra room!” While everyone knows that nature…

The dark night

How to offend a photographer Gallery browser: “Did you take that picture?” Photographer: “Yes.” Gallery browser: “Wow, you must have a good camera.” Few things irritate a photographer more than the implication that it’s the equipment that makes the image, not the photographer. We work very hard honing our craft, have spent years refining our vision, and endure extreme discomfort to get the shot. So while the observer usually means…

Hurry up and wait

Photographing lightning is about 5 percent pandemonium, and 95 percent arms folded, toe-tapping, just plain standing around. A typical lightning shoot starts with a lot of waiting for the storm to develop and trying to anticipate the best (and safest) vantage point. But with the first bolt often comes the insight that you anticipated wrong and: 1) The lightning is way over there; or 2)…

Our first date: First impressions of my Sony a7R II

Love at first sight My Sony a7R II arrived Wednesday, but my schedule limited my use to staying home and familiarizing myself with menus and overall handling. If you’re familiar with Sony’s e-mount mirrorless bodies, you’ll be able to hit the ground running with the a7R II. The menu system is the same, though of course there are few new features. The buttons and controls have moved a bit…

The camera’s vision: Light

Something I teach, write, and lecture on frequently (ad naseum?) is the photographer’s obligation to understand, not fight, the camera’s vision. Some people get this; others, not so much. So here I go again… Visual “Truth” is relative Without getting too philosophical, it’s important to understand that, like your camera, your view of the universe is both limited and interpreted. In other words, there is no absolute visual truth….

Blue moon

As you no doubt know, the moon orbits Earth, which orbits the sun, and the percentage of the moon we see each night (its phase) changes with the angle connecting Earth, the moon, and the sun. The lunar cycle—the time it takes the moon to circle Earth and repeat a phase (due to Earth’s orbit of the sun, the moon actually has to travel a little more than a…

The Secret Weapon for Overcoming Unsung Landscapes

I travel a lot. A lot. Don’t get me wrong—I know I’m incredibly fortunate to see and photograph the things I do, but sometimes it’s nice to be home. Despite the world-class locations I get to visit, I don’t cease being a photographer just because I’m home. I spend a lot of time exploring and photographing the unsung landscapes near home, landscapes that few would cross borders…