Spring in Yosemite

People ask all the time for my favorite season in Yosemite, and I really can’t give them an answer that doesn’t sound like a press conference by a waffling politician—there are things I love about each season in Yosemite, so asking me to choose is like asking me to pick a favorite child. But what I can do is tell you what I like…

All I want for Christmas….

I returned late last night (well, early this morning) from my 2013 Yosemite Moonbow and Wildflowers photo workshop will lots of great new images and two fewer teeth. True story. The images I can verify; the teeth you’ll need to take my word for. Read on. Chapter One: In the big inning Twenty years ago I lost my two front teeth in a freak…

A background check we can all agree on

*    *    *    * Distractions We photographers often concentrate our attention so closely on our primary subject that we’re oblivious to the subject’s surroundings, forgetting that everything in our frame potentially competes for attention with our subject. Eye-pulling distractions frequently skulk about the frame’s edges, but for most photographers a more insidious problems is the stuff lurking in the background. Regardless of…

Closer than the eye can see

*    *    *    * Photography’s gift isn’t its ability to show the world we already know, photography’s gift is its ability to reveal a world we haven’t imagined. I found this poppy on a visit to Point Reyes about nine years ago, just one of thousands sprinkled among a collage of swaying wildflowers. Before this day I’d aborted any attempt to…

Juggling Cats on Maui

Coordinating all of the rapidly changing exposure and composition variables sometimes feels like juggling cats (thankfully without the bloodshed). The difficulty is compounded by the unfortunate need to simultaneously process input from two sides of the brain (creative and logical) that don’t often play well together. For me an image usually starts with a feeling or connection, not just the scene’s now, but also for its what-might-be….

Getting the shaft at Antelope Canyon

How to photograph Antelope Canyon Not long ago I wandered into a Peter Lik gallery and did a double-take at a floor-to-ceiling print of “my” Upper Antelope Canyon image. You’ve probably seen a million versions of the shot: I have no idea whether mine came before or after Lik’s, but it’s safe to say that there were many before both of us, and many since…

March madness

*    *    *    * Scheduling most workshops at least a year in advance, it’s easy to forget that distant dates will eventually become current dates. And so as 2013 approached I started looking somewhat askance at my spring schedule. Hmmm…, only four days at home from March 7 to March 29—what in the world had I been thinking? Ten days circling…

In my right mind at the Grand Canyon

Photographing the Grand Canyon isn’t easy (I’ve said this before) The Grand Canyon is a very difficult place to photograph. Or more accurately, the Grand Canyon is a very difficult place to photograph well. More than any place I photograph, the Grand Canyon incites right/left (creative/logical) battles that can kill an image. Despite (and likely because of) the Grand Canyon’s sweeping grandeur, you can’t expect to simply walk…

Reliving the dream: Comet PanSTARRS above the Grand Canyon

*    *    *    * A couple of weeks ago I wrote about fulfilling my Comet PanSTARRS dreams from atop Haleakala (the location of PanSTARRS’ discovery) on Maui. After nearly a year of anticipation, being able to photograph this beautiful comet paired with a new moon had left me sated. And anyway, with the comet fading fast, I had no illusions that I’d be able…

Things on Maui are looking up

*   *   *   * I love seeing something I haven’t seen before. For a life-long Mainlander, Hawaii is rife with these opportunities: boiling calderas, rivers of lava, volcanic beaches, dense jungles teaming with color and exotic wildlife, and a seemingly infinite variety of waterfalls. But none of this quite prepared me for Maui’s bamboo forest. I knew of the bamboo forest,…