Utah has never been high on my list of places to visit. Having grown up in an arid, dusty landscape (northern Pakistan), I always gravitated towards greenery and the ocean. A couple of things happened that gradually changed that sentiment. First, as my interest in landscape photography grew, I kept...
When to Use a Higher ISO for Landscape Photography
For landscape photography, most of the time, you’ll end up using your camera’s base ISO. That’s the power of a tripod; it lets you set long enough shutter speeds to capture a bright photo, even in dark environments at low ISO values. However, settings like this do not work for...
Best of 2016 – Part Two
In Part 1 of Best of 2016, I showed images from my trips to Death Valley NP, Joshua Tree NP and Saguaro NP, then finished up the post with two of my favorite images from Istanbul, Turkey. In this second part, we will be touring through the Rocky Mountain region...
Five Hidden Landscape Photography Tips
I've heard a lot of "hidden tips" for landscape photography over the years. Most of them weren’t helpful at all. But, along the way, I have collected a handful that really are useful — nuggets of wisdom that I still use today, and that I recommend to other photographers as often...
Rule of Thirds: Does It Really Work?
Perhaps you read our composition tips for landscape photography and realized something interesting: It never mentions the rule of thirds. If you aren’t familiar with this technique, you’re rare — the rule of thirds is, by far, the most common rule of composition you’ll find in photography. But does it actually...
Seven Tips to Pick the Perfect Shutter Speed in Photography
Shutter speed is one of the most important settings to know as a photographer. It doesn't get any more fundamental than this. To be specific, shutter speed is the length of time your camera sensor (or film) is exposed to light — essentially, how long your camera spends taking a...
What is F-Stop and How Does it Work?
As a beginner photographer, you might have heard of such terms as f-stop or f-number and wondered what they actually mean. In this article, we will dive into these in detail and talk about how to use them for your photography. Why Aperture is Important As we have previously defined,...
Street Scenes from Islamabad
Islamabad is the capital city of Pakistan. Contrary to some negative media depictions, it is a clean, beautiful and well-planned city nestled in the foothills of the Himalayas. I was born and raised there. I left at the age of 20, when I immigrated to the US. Like all displaced...
The Joy of Travel Photography
As I write, I’m looking back on my 36 years as a professional photographer with fondness and gratitude. I chose this profession because I wanted to travel and earn a living while doing so. It’s been an amazing three and a half decades and I’m still excited every time I...
How I Learned to Separate Details
A few weeks ago, I visited Casa Mila, also known as La Pedrera in Barcelona Spain, which in 1984 was declared a World Heritage site by UNESCO. It was the last civil work designed by renowned architect Antoni Gaudi, who was the best-known practitioner of Catalan Modernism. When visiting La...