Death Valley National Park is one of those rare places on this planet that does not cease to amaze every time you visit it. Thanks to its unusually dry weather conditions, cold winters and extremely hot summers, the park goes through a number of transformations throughout the year. And such changes can be observed in many of its rich and diverse landscapes, especially if you pay a visit at the right time of the year. I have visited Death Valley as early as January and as late as April (you certainly do not want to be there past May, as the temperatures in late spring and summer can soar as high as 130F!) and I have also been there once in the fall. Each time I visited, I saw something unique that I had previously never seen before, especially once I started exploring the park a bit more than just the main roads. In this article, I would like to hopefully show just some of the beauty of the stunning and the ever-surprising Death Valley National Park and show you some of my most favorite parts of the park I like to visit.
Seeing Your Photos with a New Eye
The more you edit a particular photo, the more likely your eye is to grow weary of the changes that you make. Personally, after spending a few hours editing a single image, I begin to lose my ability to tell a good edit from a bad one – presenting a clear problem for making more edits. To some degree, this is even true after a two- or three-hour break; the photo is still too familiar to see with a fresh eye. In this quick article, I will cover a couple ways to look at your photos from a different perspective, including my personal favorite tip in photography.
A Visit to Ruthven Park – and Possible Reader Event
I recently spent a couple of enjoyable hours at Ruthven Park in Cayuga, Ontario, and thought I would share a few images with readers. [Read more…]
Image Blending: The Landscape Photography Revolution
The transition from film to digital was one of the most dramatic shifts in the history of photography, and countless new techniques arose along the way. Everything from exposing to the right to the ability to review photos on-the-fly dramatically changed the photographic world. Of all these changes, though, one has transformed landscape photography far more than any other: the advent of digital image blending.
California Dreaming
We were in the Marina of Santa Barbara and I was looking for a cheap restaurant. Then I spotted On The Alley and rushed to the place. The song California Dreaming (a hit of The Mamas & The Papas) was playing and the attendants were dancing animatedly. When they saw me, they blushed. I just laughed and they immediately started serving me (and the service was excellent). I and my wife, Nina, enjoyed the food and left the place very happily after having a delicious raspberry pie with ice cream for dessert.
Iceland – Exploring the Ring Road
For those of us living in the US or Europe it can be a daunting challenge to search for a nearby destination in which we may truly immerse ourselves in nature, specifically without enduring months of near bankruptcy directly afterwards. There are still plenty of hotspots left, especially in Northern Europe, but the signs of civilization can leave one feeling placed in an artificial bubble, albeit a beautiful one. Like it or not, this often is translated into the images we take.
A Sad Tale of Photographing in Yellowstone
I just got back from a trip to Yellowstone National Park to test out the Nikon D500, Nikon D5 and Pentax K-1 DSLRs (reviews to be posted soon) and I wanted to share my experience, specifically my frustrations with visiting and photographing this amazing location, which has been my top spot for many years for photographing both wildlife and landscapes. I spent a week in Yellowstone and my original plan was to stay there for longer if needed, depending on how much wildlife I would encounter. But I had to cut my trip short, because I was just getting tired of seeing the same behavioral patterns of park visitors over and over again – to the point where it was just getting absurd, abusive and downright stupid.
Postcard From The Isle of Wight
Not another postcard article, surely? Relax, it is in no way attempting to reach the calibre of the excellent recent articles on here. Just think of it as filler or a break from the technical stuff with some images that are merely intended to bring a place to you and to encourage people to go out shooting.
Wildlife Photography Tips – Putting It All Together
There are some basic aspects of photography that one would have to strive to master no matter what type of photography you do – and these are light, composition, content, timing, camera settings, presentation. There is plenty of information on these subjects that is well written and very useful. In this article I wanted to bring attention to some less thought of elements of my photography (mainly wildlife) that I find are extremely important, and why they are important to me. These same topics also happen to be items that were heavily commented on by readers in my past articles on PL.
A Few Different Ways to Adjust Image Brightness
A good looking image consists of many different things, most of which are subjective. In this article I want to briefly discuss one specific variable, which is image brightness. While I don’t plan on going into much detail and getting very technical, I do want to show you how you can adjust image brightness and the final look of your image using a few different methods in your post processing software. Although I’m using Lightroom, the method and concept should be similar regardless of what software you prefer using to edit your images.
