Flowers are usually best photographed on overcast days. The cloud cover acts as a giant softbox, effectively evening out the light by eliminating all dark shadows. Sometimes, this flat, contrast-free lighting is exactly what I’m looking for. Other times, when I’m in the mood to spice...
Continue readingAs exposed surface temperatures cool, atmospheric moisture condenses in the form of water droplets. These droplets, commonly referred to as dew, can form on grass, leaves, railings and even car roofs in the early morning hours. However, it’s the formation of dew on flowers that can turn a...
Continue readingI heard the sound of quick footsteps first. When they stopped I heard a click. Seconds later, the footsteps started again followed by another click. This pattern repeated itself another three or four times. When I finally looked up, I saw a man briskly walking through a cluster of daffodils. He...
Continue readingConventional wisdom tells us to always keep the sun at our backs when taking a picture. This is a pretty good rule to follow for most subjects – especially if you don’t want details lost under a heavy silhouette. However, always following conventional wisdom will usually result in conven...
Continue readingTime lapse video of nature scenes seems to be all the rage these days. Just head over to YouTube or Vimeo and search for “time lapse nature” and you’ll find thousands of clips. Even if you have no interest in shooting video with your DSLR, adding time lapse to your repertoire i...
Continue readingSpring is finally here and the abundance of blooming flowers will soon present an array of interesting photo opportunities. Tulips are one of the first flowers to make an appearance, and are usually photographed in large, backlit colorful clusters. As beautiful as this may be, these types of sho...
Continue readingIn my new eBook Visual Flow: Mastering the Art of Composition, I discuss a number of compositional tools and techniques which have been used by the masters of painting and photography for centuries. Composition—the artistic arrangement and placement of visual elements within the picture fram...
Continue readingPhotography in the tropics can be a very challenging endeavor. Aside from the technical aspects of photography (such as shooting in low light and using fill flash) photographers must also come to terms with the fact that they are now dealing with species and ecosystems that are often unfamiliar....
Continue readingPhotography in Greek means painting with light. Panning is one way photographers can practice painting with light while produce results that resemble real paintings.
The optimal exposure time for panning is (depending on the subject) about 0.8s. If it is too short, the amount of panning is oft...
Continue readingWildlife photography can be very exciting. With your adrenaline running on overdrive, it is easy for photographers to get caught up in the action of the moment and just snap away without giving too much thought to our photography. Despite how spectacular the events you witnessed may have been, t...
Continue readingPerhaps I’m biased, having “grown up” in a film photography world. Back then, more often then not sharing images meant putting slides into slide pages, with twenty images per page. And I actually spent time thinking about which order the images would be presented in and how the...
Continue readingOne of the most important parts of a successful landscape image is sharpness. This is one of those things that you HAVE to get right in camera—there’s no fixing an image that is lacking sharpness in Photoshop. A lot of factors are at play when it comes to controlling the depth of field i...
Continue readingPicture a panoramic image in your mind. It’s horizontal, isn’t it? Of course it is, because a horizontal panoramic image is just the most logical result of panoramic photography. But every now and then, you may want to create a vertical panorama, and that can present some challenges....
Continue readingAs a New England photographer, the couple of weeks of autumn’s riotous punctuation to summer is the one annual opportunity that simply can’t be missed. In my region of southern New Hampshire and Vermont, peak color is usually around the Columbus Day holiday. By mid September I find myself ga...
Continue readingFor most photographers, adding keywords and other meta data to their photos is a necessary evil. Many of us prefer to take photos, and putting in the time and energy to describe them during post-processing isn’t—fun. So we tend to do a minimal job of it.
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