Landscape photographers work primarily in natural light, which presents a few problems - for starters, the most beautiful lighting conditions each day last for no more than a few hours. Other times, sunsets will be lost behind cloudy skies, making it impossible to see a landscape at its best. When...
Essays and Inspiration Category Archive - Page 21
Drone Photography in Iceland
A few weeks before visiting Iceland, I made a last-minute, semi-impulsive decision that changed the dynamic of my entire trip — I bought a drone for landscape photography. My reasoning was simple: I had one, specific photograph in mind, but I could only take it from above. In Iceland, there is...
Photographing in Iceland
I still have Iceland on my mind. Over the past two weeks, I saw the greatest sunset and the strongest winds of my life; I walked through a pathless desert to the edge of a canyon, and I climbed a glacier lit by the midnight sun. Iceland is stark and surreal...
Death Valley in Infrared
Now that I have my Nikon D800E converted to infrared (big thanks to Ilija at Kolari Vision for an amazing conversion job and Bob Vishneski for inspiration and tips), I am experimenting with some infrared photography when I have a chance. During my last trip to Death Valley, I armed...
Photographing the Milky Way in the Cederberg
A week ago I got the opportunity to spend a long weekend in South Africa's Cederberg Wilderness Area. While there, we enjoyed two cloudless nights, during which the stars were exceptionally bright. In fact, in this remote part of the world the stars are always exceptionally bright compared to the...
Art, Not Furniture
It’s supposed to move you; to generate an emotional response. It’s about how it makes you feel, not just about how it looks. Anything from a single plain colour to highly complex dendritic patterns will have an effect of some kind. As photographers our judgement is sometimes so clouded by...
A Ribitting Morning
The Royal Botanical Gardens in Burlington Ontario (Canada) recently hosted a display of frogs from around the world. Frogs: A Chorus of Colours was an interesting, educational exhibit as well as an opportunity to capture some images. These kinds of events always present challenges for photographers. The display cases are...
Visualization: The Hunt for the Light
In my recent essay on visualization, I discussed the historical and modern day significance of this concept in photography as well as the role that a composition card serves in bridging the vision in the mind to its tangible realization into an image. In this follow-up essay, I will discuss...
The Truth in Photography
It is evident to me that images can carry and convey truth - small and capital T - and that most people aren't actually talking about truth when they talk about objectivity and subjectivity. Strong statement, I know, but I think as usual, the people using the Internets simply bring...
On Shooting Yourself…in Street Photography
If you become a student of street photography, the curriculum is littered with advice and maxims on what defines and makes a “good” street photograph; I use the word “littered” intentionally – because much of that curriculum is just that… things that can be tossed out. Within that heritage, I...