Winter Shooting

Well, finals are over and I am a free man for a few weeks. Hopefully I will have the chance to blog a little bit more in my free time.

For this Christmas Eve post I wanted to provide a few links for those looking to go shooting during the few days most of us have off. Winter is a great time to shoot and offers unique opportunities and challenge. I personally have had difficulty creating compelling images that retain detail in the snow and a have a pleasing tonal range across the entire image. White balance can also be tricky in the often cold winter light. Below are links to several articles ranging from how to capture the best winter images, great places to shoot for winter, and even how to best dress and pack for winter photography.

Top National Parks for Winter Photography

More Good Winter Shooting Locations

Capturing Good Tonal Range

Photo Ideas for Winter

Best Practices for Shooting in Cold Weather

Shooting in Extreme Weather

Taming Lighting Extremes

Black and White in Winter

In the spirit of the season I have also included a link to some neat images of Christmas trees. Merry Christmas!

Christmas Trees

Projects

With Thanksgiving last week and school projects this week I haven't had much time for blogging. I did come across some photos over the break, however, that got me thinking about using self-assigned projects to improve your photography. The links below take you to two sites where photographers have given themselves a personal project, and then created some amazing images to meet the project constraints. The first I saw for the first time over the break, and is a photographer who has taken images of Glacier national park over 100 days. The other is the well know project by Jim Brandenburg, where he only took one photo a day for 90 days. Both display some great shots from these photographers.

Chris Peterson: Glacier National Park

Jim Brandenburg: Chased by the Light

Self assigned projects are an excellent way to improve your technique and get interesting shots. More importantly, they help you to see a subject in new ways, and lead to more creative and innovative shots. For instance, you could assign yourself to take as many different photographs of a single tree as possible in 30 min., or lock yourself in a room in your home for 15 min. and take as many pictures in that time as you can. I have given myself a few projects in the past and have had varying degrees of success, but I have always come out of the experience having learned something about photography.

A good book that I have found for developing personal projects is Freeman Patterson's "Photography and the Art of Seeing." It is written more like a workshop than an instructional book, with suggestions every chapter for personal projects. I found many of the projects to be useful, but some of the photographic techniques to be less so. If you use it as a tool to develop personal projects, you should be able to get something out of it.

New Cameras

DP Review has posted full reviews of the Nikon D300s and the Canon 7D. They both look like great cameras. Check 'em out.

Canon EOS 7D
Nikon D300s

The Ethics of Image Editing

I am definitely not breaking new ground here, but have been thinking about this a lot recently and am interested in hearing other people's perspectives.

I started taking photos in high school, when I enrolled in a photography course my school offered. In addition to teaching us about the camera, darkroom, and composition, they taught very basic digital imaging, on what I believe was PS 4.0. At the time I had some concerns about editing my photos, many of which I still have today.

For starters, I will admit that I do some image editing—I actually prefer the term “correction”—in PS after capture. I am not opposed to using PS to edit images, as my many posts on PS will attest. My image editing is limited to color correction, contrast correction, straightening horizons, and some dynamic range adjustments (for instance, if I didn’t use a ND grad filter and wanted to pull the sky out a bit in an image). I know that many photographers would find these adjustments unacceptable. I myself sometimes struggle with how much to adjust an individual image without crossing some ethical line. I have heard people argue that some adjustment is necessary to get an image in line with what the photographer actually saw—i.e. that the photograph is not an accurate representation of the scene and must be adjusted. I buy that, but then wonder how to reconcile that with my admittedly imperfect memory. There are times I am editing an image a week or more after it was captured. How reliable is my memory going to be in reconstructing the scene that I use as a blueprint for editing the image?

I have also heard the argument that using PS is no different than what Ansel Adams used to do in the darkroom. Maybe. But, Adams wasn’t inserting new skies into his photos, and he had only limited control over other aspects of the image. How is using PS any different than darkroom techniques, or using grad ND filters or color filters?

I should state that I consider it absolutely verboten to change the elements of an image. Wild animals should not be added or removed, trees should not be added or removed, more dramatic clouds or skies should not be added. If you didn’t want that tree in the photo, you should have moved when you shot it. This doesn’t always hold, however, as there are times in commercial photography when it is probably ok to add or remove elements of an image. In non-commercial photography, though, it is not allowed in my book.

The questions that I have had more recently have to do with high dynamic range (HDR) images. Where is the line when it comes to using HDR techniques, or is there a line? I believe that there is a line somewhere, but I don’t know where it is. Using HDR a photographer can create some pretty amazing stuff.

People trust photography in a way they don’t any other art form. Photography is often held to a higher standard of truth than painting because of its documentary nature—people understand that clicking the shutter captures one moment in time and expect a photograph to depict just that. Doing anything else without explicitly stating it seems deceitful.

I did come across some old Galen Rowell articles on the subject that are interesting:

Digital Decisions, April 1998

Digital Film Images, December 2000

Digital Deliberations, April 2001

PhotoshopNews

Here is another great site for PS info. This one is less focused on instruction, but has a lot of news and updates and loads of links to other PS sites. Check it out.

http://photoshopnews.com/

Featured Professional: Craig Blacklock

This week's featured professional photographer is Craig Blacklock.


















Blacklock's photography is a bit of a departure for me, as he focuses most of his work on Lake Superior and the area, not the west or desert southwest. His images can be divided into at least three categories: Lake Superior shots, horizons, and intimate nature scenes. His intimate nature scenes are what I enjoy the most about his work, though many of his Lake Superior shots do an amazing job of communicating the power of the lake.

I enjoy his intimate scenes, or wilderness portraits as I think of them, quite a bit. They give us a glimpse into the inner nature of the natural world, just as a good human portrait gives us a glimpse into their nature. They show us more about the character of the natural world.

As mentioned above, Blacklock also has a series, and even a book, of photographs devoted solely to horizons. It is an interesting subject and surprising how many unique photos you can get of the horizon.














































Website: www.blacklockgallery.com

All images ©Craig Blacklock; used with permission.

Ansel Adams in Color

I ran across this book at Barnes and Noble the other day and spent some time looking at it. I am very impressed. I own a couple of Ansel Adams books and am a huge fan of his images. I would expect that there isn't a nature photographer out there who can't trace his interest in nature photography back to Adams in some way. He did amazing things for photography and conservation. It is especially nice to see color images that he made, as most of us have never seen them and think of him only as a b&w photographer. I will be adding this book to my collection soon.

I am surprised at the controversy over the book being ginned up by some about whether the book should have been published or not (see the comments on the Amazon page to get an idea). Who are these self appointed gatekeepers of Adams' legacy anyway? Apparently it was Adams' wishes to have none of his color photographs published, as he didn't feel they best represented his vision. The problem is, is that we are getting that information secondhand; maybe he said it, maybe he didn't. Either way, the photos give us a look at another facet of Adams. It can only be for our good to see these images. Certainly, as one comment I read noted, these aren't his finest photos. Who cares? They are still great shots, better than I take. And they help me to learn a little more about Adams' and his creative vision, if only to tell me what his vision wasn't. I have a hard time believing that the art world would be in an outrage if a new Van Gogh painting were discovered, one that was supposedly to remain private.

Good Article

I just ran across this article at Outdoor Photographer's website. This guy has some neat images. Check it out.

Lynda.com

I know that I posted about this a few weeks back, but I want to give another plug to Lynda.com for their PS tutorials. I just finished a 12 video series on sharpening in CS4 and was amazed how much information was contained in the tutorials. I started another series on color management a week ago and have only been able to get through about half of the 40+ videos in the series. That's how these courses and video series are--very thorough. The information is incredibly in depth and dives into the mechanics of how each tool and feature works, which is important to understand, I think, if you want to become a capable PS user. It covers all editions of PS back to 6. And, despite the stern vibes the sideburned librarian is shooting off, the instructors are all entertaining to listen to. This site is the go to site for PS info.

If you don't have access to it through school, work, or whatever, I think it is worth the $25 a month if you are serious about getting better at PS.

Featured Professional: David Whitten

The latest addition to the Featured Professional series is Oregon based photographer David Whitten. I just recently discovered Whitten's photography and know very little about him. I do know that we share the same passion for the western US, a passion that is evident in his photos. I found his site while searching the internet for photos of one of my favorite places: Utah's Uinta Mountains. Whitten has an entire series dedicated to the range, which was enough to get me interested in his work. I have posted a few of his photos below. You can find a link to the site and more photos below.










Sunrise, Wonder Lake and Mt. McKinley, Denali National Park, Alaska














Huckleberry Creek, Willamette National Forest, near Oakridge, Oregon














Beargrass, near Blair Lake, Willamette National Forest, Oregon

Website: www.davidwhittenphoto.com

All images ©David Whitten; used with permission.

Photoshop Tutorials

Things are busy in school, so I haven't been able to blog for awhile. Despite taking all of my free time, I do enjoy school and occasionally I find something neat that I can use for photograhy. For instance, I was perusing the school website where you can download various free software programs and found a link to a PS tutorial website that I had never seen before. It is called Lynda.com and has over 42,000 instructional videos, 670 courses, and over 200 full time expert instructors. Just to be clear, the site has tutorials for all sorts of applications, not just PS. So, some of those 42,000 tutorials are for Illustrator, Aperture, MS Office, etc.

The downside: it isn't free. It costs around $25 per month to use the tutorials, which is a bummer. But, if you are serious about getting better and want to learn at your own pace, then this might not be a bad idea. The tutorials are serious stuff, not just showing you how to do one thing, but actually getting you inside the feature and teaching you the mechanics of it. It is a bit expensive, but is something to consider.

DP Review

The photography site that I visit the most of any other sites is DP Review. It is a UK based site, I believe, and focuses primarily on camera reviews; although, they do have some photography tutorials and forums and other things. I go here every few days to get photography news and check on new camera previews and reviews. They have the most thorough camera reviews of any other site I have seen.

Right now they are previewing two cameras that I am excited about: the Canon 7D and the Leica M9. I am sure they will both be amazing cameras and I look forward to reading their full reviews.

If there is one drawback to the site, it is that they take a long time once a camera is announced to actually test and review it. No doubt most of this is not their fault, and has to do with the timing of the manufacturer's announcement and how quickly they are able to get a unit to test. But, it can be frustrating to hear about a new camera and not get the full details on it until six months later.

Featured Professional: Andy Cook

West Dallas Creek

It's probably about time to feature another professional shooter, since I haven't done one in awhile. This time around I am featuring the work of Andy Cook, a Colorado based photographer. Andy photos have been featured in several publications and he has even published a book called A Guide To Colorado's Best Photography Locations. I think it is fair to say he knows a lot about shooting in Colorado.



















St. Mary Falls

Many of his photographs are shot in Colorado and make me want to go backpacking when I look at them. His work is idyllic--a description that I think gets overused these days, but is very appropriate for his photos. His images make me think of places I love and places I want to go. I also like that the photos don't call attention to themselves. They portray a scene and do it effectively. They allow you to immerse yourself in the subject without having to say to yourself "Wow, how did he get X effect?" These are just straightforward photos of beautiful landscapes that would make any backpacker or outdoor lover weep.

When visiting his site, make sure to check out the panoramas. You can follow the link here. His best shots are among the panoramas.

Sneffels Autumn Sunset














Fisher Towers (I had to include this one because it is taken near one of my favorite places--the big bend of the Colorado River NE of Moab)

Website: www.rockymountainreflections.com

All images ©Andy Cook; used with permission.

Macro Photography

I came across some pretty amazing photos and wanted to post a link. You can check them out here. I checked on several of the photographers credited and they all looked legit. I know that I say that this blog is for outdoor and landscape photo enthusiasts, but I had to show these. I am impressed by great photography however it comes packaged and these shots are great photography. Not to mention that most of the subjects are plants and insects, which most people would consider nature. Enjoy!

Park City Trip

Before school started back up I took a short vacation to Utah and spent some time in Deer Valley and Park City. For the better part of one morning I visited the galleries of three very impressive photographers. Two of them--Thomas Mangelsen and David Schultz--I have featured on the blog in the past. The other--Gary Crandall--I hope to feature shortly. They all take stunning photos, and, as I have mentioned in my posts, their work must be seen in person; their websites don't do them justice. Part of the experience is seeing these photos in poster size. Next time you head to Park City for Sundance or to go skiing, take a little time to check out their galleries. They are all on the east side of Main Street and are all within just a few blocks of each other.

I also got to spend some time shooting, which is rare these days. I have posted a couple of shots below and would appreciate any feedback!
























Websites:
www.westlight.net
www.imagesofnature.com
www.dancingcrane.com

Featured Professional: John Fielder

Routt National Forest Horses

Again, my apologies for not posting for a while. I am excited to get back to the featured photographer post. This weeks featured photographer is John Fielder, a Colorado based photographer.

Corn Lily and Sneezeweed-Weminuche Wilderness

Mr. Fielder’s shoots almost exclusively in Colorado, and is an old school tough guy who shoots 4x5 and humps all of his gear—including film and holders, tripod, and lenses—with him on his backcountry excursions.

Avalanche Creek Pond - Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness

I haven’t had the chance to visit his gallery yet, but I am impressed with his work and his sense of purpose. Mr. Fielder is a stated conservationist and uses his photography to advance causes important to him. His love of Colorado and nature is evident in his photography, which makes his photos that much more interesting.

Website: www.johnfielder.com

All images ©John Fielder; used with permission.

Blogging takes a back seat again

My apologies, dear readers, for my absence. I have been working all summer long at an internship for a packaged goods company, and have recently been very busy and unable to devote time to blogging. I am sure that I haven't been missed.

I wanted to post today about Photoshop, as I have been using it quite a bit the last few days, but unfortunately not for editing photos. In my internship I have been working to develop a new product and as part of that have been mocking up a package design. The design of the package ultimately resides with an agency that we pay to do that kind of thing, but I have been putting together elements that we would like included so that we can send the agency an idea of what we are hoping for. This project has reminded me how lacking I am in PS skills.

Photo editing ethics aside (I would like to discuss them in a later post at some point), I think it is very important that anybody who considers themself a serious photographer today knows how to use PS. And I mean know PS. Most of us can click the auto tone, auto contrast, etc. commands or do the minor levels or saturation adjustments. What I mean is that it is important to know how to adjust color (or remove it altogether) with the channel mixer, to know how layers and masks work, to know what luminance is, and so forth. Knowing these things can help us to take our photographs to a new level.

Unfortunately I don't understand even a fraction of what is available in PS. I have, however, been trying recently to find some sites that can give me the most basic of instruction. I have included these sites in my list below:

Photoshop Essentials--this is a good site with some very helpful tutorials. There content isn't comprehensive and is definitely not geared to the outdoor photographer. But, still, it does teach some good, basic PS concepts.
Julieanne Kost's Blog--this site is a bit more advanced than Photoshop Essentials. Ms. Kost is what I would call a PS power user and her blog is linked to on the Adobe PS site. Good stuff, but maybe not the first place to look. A great place to learn PS keyboard shortcuts.
Adobe PS Help--this is Adobe's actual help page for PS. The material isn't super in depth, but it has info on just about everything. This is a good place to look for basic inquiries, but will almost always lead you to google a topic to learn more about it.

As stated in past posts, I hope to add even more sites to this list and the links list to the right. Being able to master PS is an essential skill and helpful in more areas than just photography.

Featured Professional: Michael Fatali

Today I feature the work of photographer Michael Fatali. Mr. Fatali is a Rockville, UT based photographer who concentrates most of his work in the desert southwest. He spent most of his youth in Arizona, where he became intimately familiar with the desert. His full bio is here.


















Canyon Voices

I am a big fan of Mr. Fatali's work. He is another photographer whose work is best seen in person, which you can accomplish by visiting his galleries in Henderson, NV or Springdale, UT. Springdale is where I first saw his work, when his gallery was still in the same building as the Pizza and Noodle company. I wandered over while waiting for a table in the restaurant and was quite impressed. I became more so when I learned that his photos are captured and printed without using any color modification at all--no filters, no post process saturation, nothing. He shoots with a view camera and makes some pretty impressive prints. A poster sized print of the image below (of the sacred datura and Great White Throne) is on display in the lobby of a Springdale hotel, which is the first thing you see when you walk in.


















Angels Before the Throne

If you are ever in Zions National Park or Springdale--and I recommend to everybody to visit Zions at least once in your life; it is the Yosemite of the Southwest--then check out his gallery. I don't think that he is in the Pizza and Noodle building any longer, but he shouldn't be hard to find. He also gives instruction and guides field trips.


















Go With God's Speed

Website: www.fatali.com

All images ©Michael Fatali; used with permission.

Ah, the memories...

It has been a long time since I posted last. I have been out of town and busy with a project, which prevented me from posting as I would have liked. My apologies, gentle readers.

I am going to keep today's post short, but I wanted to take the time to lament the decline of film. I am no purist who insists that photos need to be taken on film only and developed and printed by hand without using any enhancing techniques like dodging and burning. I shoot digital and love it. But, this past weekend I was doing research on old film cameras and thought back to my days of shooting Velvia 50, trying to find a processor who could do E-6 quickly (or at all, for that matter), then sitting in my college library for hours using their Coolscan to scan my images one by one. Very rarely has viewing a digital capture been as exciting to me as was looking at new slides under a loupe at the lab. Those images were always very detailed and saturated and the wait for them made them that much more exciting.

Obviously digital has incredible advantages, not the least of which is being able to correct your images in the field thanks to the viewscreen and historgram. Memory cards are less cumbersome than the equivalent amount of rolls of film, and digital image quality at this point most certainly matches, and possibly exceeds, that of 35mm.

But, film was pretty great. I feel bad for kids who will grow up only taking pictures on digital autofocus cameras. I hope that film sticks around for a while yet.

Featured Professional: Marc Adamus

Seasons Gone By, Glacier National Park, Montana

Marc Adamus is this week's feature professional photographer. I am a newcomer to Marc's work, having first seen his site about a year ago. He is an Oregon based photographer and has published photos in many different places. His bio is available here.



















No Way Out, Escalante Wilderness, Utah
















Going to the Sun, Glacier National Park, Montana


I'm impressed by the composition of his photos. These aren't postcard shots, but compelling photographs. I'm familiar with some of the places that he has shot and am glad that he didn't just stand in line to take photos from the same spot as everybody else. He has some really original photos of places that tend to get over shot.

website: www.marcadamus.com















Amazing Paradise, Zion National Park, Utah

All images ©Marc Adamus; used with permission.

Sharpness

Readers of this blog (all three of you) may have noticed in my Featured Professional posts I have mentioned sharpness as being a defining characteristic of outstanding photographs. In fact, I think of sharpness as being one of the most key aspects of any good nature photograph. Obviously there will be many photos that for artistic purposes won’t be sharp in all areas of the photo. But, it is important, I think, that the subject of the photo, whatever it is, be tack sharp. In the case of landscape photos, this will include the majority of the photograph.

I personally have trouble with this, and perhaps that is why I feel strongly about it. Since becoming serious about photography several years ago I have made taking sharp photos one of my goals. Over time my photos have improved as I have purchased a newer and more stable tripod, started using a cable release and mirror lockup, and keeping my aperture closer to f/8 or f/11. I am sure there are other little things I can be doing to get sharper photos as well. I have, however, yet to see the results I would like. I have come to the conclusion that I need better glass. The lenses I am using are not the cheapest, but not the nicest either. Once I graduate I hope to invest in some more expensive glass, maybe even a few primes. Hopefully that will solve my problem.

In my search to improve my photography, I came across some articles that are helpful, and have linked to them here. The first is about hyperfocal distance and the second lists various tips and ideas to maximize sharpness. I have also added one more that briefly discusses hyperfocal distance within a larger discussion of depth of field. It is from the excellent website www.luminous-landscape.com and is worth reading.

Featured Professional: David C. Schultz

Moose in Abion Basin, Wasatch Mountains, UT

This week’s featured professional photographer is David C. Schultz. David is a Park City, Utah based photographer with a background in fashion photography. He changed gears in the 80s and started shooting landscape and wildlife and has since traveled to Patagonia, Antarctica, Alaska and other amazing places to pursue his craft. His full bio is available here.












Antarctica, Iceberg, Deception Island

I’ve visited David’s gallery in Park City, and quite honestly, you won’t get the full impact of his photos unless you visit and see his prints. His website showcases some great shots, but his photos are best seen large. His prints are very sharp for their size, making it hard to believe they weren’t shot medium format.












Mt. Timpanogos, Wasatch Mountains, Utah

When I visited his gallery several years ago he had a business card holder on a desk with his business cards in it, each one with one of four of his images on the reverse. I fished around in the stack until I got all four and then took them home and taped them above my desk to keep me inspired as I worked. I have since lost them, but still remember how much his images influenced my shooting at that time.

Take a look at his website when you get a chance. And if you are in the area for skiing or for Sundance, drop by his gallery.

David's website: www.westlight.net

All images ©David C. Schultz; used with permission.

Photography Books

As I mentioned in my post about Thomas Mangelsen, I enjoy looking at other photographers' work. No two people see the world the same way, so it is fascinating to see how other photographers view the world through their respective photographs.

However, I don’t like to purchase other people's photographs. As much as I like to look at them, I dislike buying other people’s photos because I am more interested in taking great photos and printing them myself. The one exception I make in my no-buy-photo rule is photography books. For a few bucks you can get anywhere from a few to several dozen of a photographers best shots, and frequently get good tips or the photographer’s thoughts that go with them. I have purchased many photo books and have a list of many more that I would like. Buying these over sized coffee table books drives my wife crazy, but I can’t get enough of them. So, today, I would like to make a list of what I think are some of the best photography books around.

Best Photo Books (in no particular order)

1. Looking for the Summer, Jim Brandenburg: This is Brandenburg’s follow up to the very successful Chased by the Light. Both books have amazing photos, but in my opinion, Looking for the Summer slightly edges out its older brother. It was, I believe (someone correct me if I’m wrong) the first photography book to be shot entirely in digital and displays some of Brandenburg’s sharpest photos. Great shots of northern Minnesota and the Lake Superior area.










2. Yosemite and the Range of Light, Ansel Adams: A classic book by arguably the greatest landscape photographer ever. Some of his best images were taken in Yosemite and the High Sierra and are included in this book. Another great recent book of Adam’s photos is Ansel Adams: 400 Photographs.














3. Big Sky: Wild West Panorama, Tim Fitzharris: A book of exclusively panoramic photographs, taken in the western US. This book shows off some of the amazing views the west has to offer. The photos are tack sharp and excellently done, made possible by Fitzharris’ stitching together of several portrait orientation medium format shots for each individual photo.










4. Rock Stars, text and photos by Heinz Zak: This is a book for rock climbers. It features Zak’s pioneering climbing photos along with short bios of the world’s most influential sport climbers (as opposed to mountaineers, alpine climbers, trad climbers, etc.). For anyone who was an active climber during the rise of sport climbing in the 1980s and early 1990s, this book is a must have. Sadly, I think it is out of print and hard to come by. Get it if you can.


















5. Intimate Landscapes, Eliot Porter: Porter was a student of Ansel Adams and a pioneer of landscape photography. He has several good photo books, but this is my favorite. Also check out The Place No One Knew for photos of Glen Canyon before it was flooded and buried under Lake Powell.














6. Galen Rowell: A Retrospective, Galen Rowell: A collection of the best photos from Rowell’s substantial collection. His untimely death was a terrible loss and felt keenly by those who took up photography based on seeing his photos or reading his articles.













These last few are not photo books exclusively. In each, the photos accompany a original text.

7. Walden, text by Henry David Thoreau, photos by Scot Miller: Thoreau’s classic work put together with Miller’s inspired photographs. After looking at Miller's photographs you get a good idea of what inspired ol’ Hank to take to the woods.












8. Slickrock, text by Edward Abbey and Phil Hyde, photos by Phil Hyde: This book has my vote for best photo/book combination out there. Abbey was a preeminent writer of conservation issues (while at Stanford he studied under the greatest western writer ever) and Slickrock is one of his great works. Not as entertaining as Desert Solitaire, but still impressive. Hyde’s photos are works of art. They look a bit dated in today’s super saturated digital world, but they are good stuff. For a former westerner such as myself, it is hard to look at these photos and not get homesick. Slickrock has been out of print for 20+ years and is hard to find. If you can get your hands on a copy, buy it!


















9. The Yosemite, text by John Muir, photos by Galen Rowell: I can’t say enough about this book, so I will say only a little. An incredible text by the father of conservationism, and some of the best photos ever taken by the man who inspired thousands (I have no source for this claim, but it sounds right. Who is going to argue with me?) to take up landscape photography.














What are some other must have photo books?