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Focus Stacking a landscape
July 23, 2023 - I have written before about using a wide-angle lens, not to get more into the image, but to change perspective. Our posi...
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Good landscape photography technique
July 09, 2023 - This is part II of the two-part series about an image taken at Emerald Bay, Lake Tahoe in California. Today I am going t...
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It does not always take much
September 25, 2022 - It does not always take much to make a pleasing image. We may want to give up on photography because we do not have acce...
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Watch the western horizon
July 24, 2022 - My wife and I were out sitting on a ridge, about an hour or so before sunset. I was ready to go home. My son was visitin...
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Know your surroundings
July 10, 2022 - It is strange how, here in Nebraska, the storms (lightning storms) only tend to come an hour or so before sunrise. I am...
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Composition
May 01, 2022 - Let's start with an image:
The light is not good and hence this image is not that great. Nevertheless, what lessons c...
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People, People
November 21, 2021 - I planned a trip to hike the Narrows in Zion National Park during the best time to catch fall color (first or second wee...
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Foreground, middle-ground, background
November 14, 2021 - There is a trusted formula for successful landscape photography. The formula does not suit all scenes but a good number...
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You don't always win
November 07, 2021 - Doing landscape photography is much like having a fishing license and going fishing. The license does not give you the f...
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Dreamy landscapes
October 31, 2021 - I love my landscape images to be pin-sharp front to back. But then again there is space in the creative world for a drea...
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Explore
October 24, 2021 - We are back at the Cholla garden today. You can find this "garden" in Joshua Tree National Park. The garden can be diffi...
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Shooting from elevated positions
October 17, 2021 - I like shooting from elevated positions. The higher your elevation the longer or deeper the foreground - it stretches th...
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Shoot while waiting
September 05, 2021 - So last week we looked at positioning the sun at an exact point in time. That image started about two hours before sunse...
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Positioning the sun
August 29, 2021 - I a recent trip to Joshua Tree National Park I decided to stop at a particular location to wait for sunset. As I always...
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Atmosphere
April 11, 2021 - At times nature just does not play along. Instead of getting upset rather ask what kind of image suits the prevailing co...
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Dead space in the sky
March 14, 2021 - Clouds do not often listen to our pleading to move this way or that way. In fact, skies can be challenging in photograph...
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Shrink your world
March 07, 2021 - A friend invited me to go on a business trip with him. To sweeten the deal he told me that a friend of his informed him...
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Wave action part II
February 28, 2021 - Last week we talked about capturing splashing wave action and freezing the action in mid-air. If you read my blogs regul...
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Zoom out a bit
November 29, 2020 - With wildlife photography, we always want to zoom in close. It is tempting and for good reason as such images are striki...
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Quick takes
May 31, 2020 - Sometimes the unexpected happens, even in landscape photography. So we were on Safari, which means that we are all looki...
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The landscape as backdrop
May 24, 2020 - Usually, the landscape is our image but have you thought of using the landscape as the background? By now we have our wi...
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The intimate landscape
May 17, 2020 - Many experts will tell you that the best views for landscape photography are wide views, therefore we should use wide-an...
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Atmosphere and mood
May 10, 2020 - The atmosphere and mood of an image can play an important part in photography. Some of the best atmospheric and moody im...
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Wait
February 09, 2020 - Everyone left. Why would they stay? After all the sky is dreary. It is cold. Whatever poor light there was is gone and i...
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Telephoto Lens Landscapes
January 26, 2020 - Whenever people think of landscape photography they almost always tend to think about using wide to super wide-angle len...
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Mirror elements
January 19, 2020 - Nature seems rather random in terms of where what grows, flows, or is placed from a compositional perspective. So when w...
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Pay attention to detail
January 12, 2020 - Nature does not place rocks or plant trees where we want them. One challenging thing about photography is that there is...
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Natural Frames
January 05, 2020 - Yes, I have written about using frames compositionally before. Today I am going to be looking at a large frame (not just...
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Neutral Density Filters
December 29, 2019 - I have heard many digital photographers say that they do not use filter because they do everything in post processing. E...
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Depth formula refined
November 10, 2019 - Last week's blog revealed an easy formula that creates depth. This formula is to have a strong foreground, a middle-grou...
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Foreground shapes
October 20, 2019 - You have heard me say that an interesting foreground is good for landscape images. This adds interest and depth to the i...
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Destination Wedding Photography
September 08, 2019 - You are asked to photograph a destination wedding. How is destination wedding photography different from "normal" weddin...
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Know when to stay after sunset
July 21, 2019 - How can we know when to stay after sunset? Is it possible to know some time before sunset that the period after sunset i...
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Summarize the scene
July 14, 2019 - With macro photography we go very close to show what we don't often see or look at. When we struggle to see great compos...
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The sun
June 09, 2019 - The sun plays a major role in just about all landscape images (except for night photography). It is the primary source o...
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Get close
April 07, 2019 - I am a big fan of getting close to things to enlarge them and to give them importance in the scene. The object you get c...
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Foreground Lines
March 31, 2019 - I have said this many times but it remains important. Foregrounds can often make landscape photographs. An interesting f...
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Photographing Arches
March 17, 2019 - Rock arches almost always seem to be candidates for good imagery. They almost represent victory, they stood standing. Th...
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Balance and weight
March 10, 2019 - Visual object carry weight. The darker the they are the more visual weight the represent. The larger they are the heavie...
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Reset the Sun
March 03, 2019 - At our Namibian photography workshop (2018) we were shooting a sunset. I got some very nice images. However, all good th...
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Lines and Texture
February 24, 2019 - Look at this image for a little while:
Typically I want to go with the color and where the action is. In this image t...
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Movement and life
February 17, 2019 - Movement and life add a lot of interest to landscape imagery. While in the desert in Namibia photographing I took this i...
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The human element in landscapes
February 10, 2019 - I shoot for a major photo stock agency. My agency will not sell an image with a person in it without me having and suppl...
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Curved lines
February 03, 2019 - Some images are static while others are dynamic. Great compositional tools to help us make more dynamic images are curve...
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Shutter Speeds and Landscapes
January 27, 2019 - For a lot of landscape photography the shutter speed plays second fiddle because depth of field tends to be more importa...
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Capturing the essence of a place
January 20, 2019 - The late Ron Levy, a great photographer and friend, always said that he does his best work after just being in a place,...
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Using Shadows
January 13, 2019 - I am still writing about the desert this week. This is a harsh place and I attempt my best to capture and show that feel...
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Flare
January 06, 2019 - I generally hate flare. To remove flare (which content aware cannot fix) you can create a new layer and set the blend mo...
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The sun as the image
December 30, 2018 - When I was still growing up the adults always used to tell me that you shoot with the sun behind your back. Everytime th...
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Foreground as the image
December 23, 2018 - You often hear me say that depth is what makes good landscape images. To create good depth we need a strong foreground,...
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Simplicity with wonder
December 16, 2018 - Sossusvlei is one of the most photographed landscape hotspots in Southern Africa. This place is the home of some of the...
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A special day
November 18, 2018 - A wedding is a special day! As a photographer, I have had many wedding shoots over the years. Many of these days were ve...
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Shutter Speeds
July 08, 2018 - Before I take any picture I always ask myself: "Is there movement in scene?" If the answer is "no" then I really do not...
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The human element in landscape photography
June 17, 2018 - When I learnt photography a few purists attempted their best to instill in me the principle of not every including any m...
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Balance, lines and depth
March 18, 2018 - Landscape photography often requires balance. Different colors have different weights. Darks are heavier than lights. Ob...
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Nasty conditions may present opportunities
January 28, 2018 - For the last two weeks' blogs we are visiting Deadvlei in Namibia. The wind started blowing harder and harder. When you...
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Wait for the right moment
January 21, 2018 - Even fleeting moments have the right moment. Since fleeting moments do not last shoot them fast. Once you have a few ima...
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Go where the action is
January 14, 2018 - Deadvlei is an ancient dry pan with dead acacia trees surrounded by sand dunes. Deadvlei is located in Sossusvlei, Namib...
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Sand dunes
October 01, 2017 - Sand dunes are fascinating and they can be very photogenic. How do we bring the best out in them?
Here are some tricks...
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What about the road?
September 24, 2017 - When I was learning the craft of photography I was very young. I attended photography clubs for years. They taught me mu...
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Animal landscapes
September 17, 2017 - Animals can greatly help your landscape images. They add a sense of scale. They tell a story. They tend to evoke questio...
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Distance on a flat image
September 10, 2017 - You will hear me say this over and over again. We want people to look into our images rather than from side to side. Let...
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Maximizing skyscapes
September 03, 2017 - What is the most interesting, the land or the sky? Whichever is the most interesting should be emphasized. If it is the...
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After sunset image post processing
August 27, 2017 - Let's start with the image today:
This image was taken well after sunset. The foreground was pretty dark by now. Yet th...
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Anticipate good shooting opportunities
August 20, 2017 - It was a long day. We had been up since just after 4 am. We spent all day driving and hiking. We had kept a schedule sim...
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Special phenomena
August 06, 2017 - I am no weather scientist; I wish I was as it may come in very handy in the field of photography. I was shooting a seasc...
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Maximizing rainbows
July 23, 2017 - Who does not love a great rainbow?
It is the rainbow that makes this image. I have said this many times before; when th...
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Using height
July 09, 2017 - There are more ways to create depth beyond just using lead-in lines and light. One can use height. Yes, when you are sho...
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Foreground, middle-ground, and background
July 02, 2017 - Not all photographs are the same. Not all landscape photographs subscribe to the same recipe. Some of them work very wel...
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What you need to make day-time lightning images
June 25, 2017 - Let's look at our example image first today:
This was taken late one afternoon. This was a fairly fast moving storm....
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Lightning adds interest
June 18, 2017 - All of us have seen some great images of dramatic lightning. Most of those images are taken at night. Those images are e...
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Good light
June 11, 2017 - Have you ever stood before a wonderful scene in poor light? How did the images turn out? That bad, uh? Yeah, I have cert...
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Too much cloud-cover?
June 04, 2017 - You are on location. The scene is beautiful. You have all the makings of a good image, but one element is missing. The m...
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Combining lead-in lines with light drawing the viewer in
May 28, 2017 - Over the last month of so, we have been spending a lot of time with lead-in lines. By now you should know how important...
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Using multiple lead-in lines
April 09, 2017 - Last week we looked at S-curves to lead the viewer into the image. This week we are looking at using multiple lead-in li...
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Looking for curves
April 02, 2017 - Curved lines are more dynamic than straight lines. They take you into the image. They create flow. Sometimes they are ve...
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Strong foregrounds
March 26, 2017 - Strong foregrounds often make strong images. In landscape photography that is usually true if that strong foreground tie...
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Elevation
March 12, 2017 - Most people walk out to a scene and plonk their tripods down when they have selected a spot to shoot from. They then set...
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Using lines
February 26, 2017 - If you regularly read my blog you will know that I am a fan of creating depth in many of my landscape images. I have wri...
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Human elements in landscape images
January 29, 2017 - Many purists who shoot landscape images believe that genuine landscape photography is not to include any man-made elemen...
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Draw the viewer in
November 13, 2016 - You have read me say this over and over. I cannot say it enough. Amateurs look at an image from side to side - laterally...
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Reflections in water
November 06, 2016 - Reflections in water can greatly improve an image. Many times the reflection cuts the image in two because it cuts right...
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Cloudy days and post processing
September 18, 2016 - Many photographers prefer not to shoot landscape imagery when it is overcast and cloudy. While it is true that this kind...
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After the rain
April 03, 2016 - When a storm is through get out to shoot. Water adds interest to most shots. Go to locations where the water forms ponds...
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Executing a planned shot
January 10, 2016 - So last week we explored the planning process. I visited the area in question. I found a few compositions that I think w...
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In search of images
January 03, 2016 - Many photographers find many of their images within an hour or so from where they live. When I lived in Hollister I cert...
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So what is all that dynamic range good for?
December 20, 2015 - Many Canon photographers have claimed that they do not need all that dynamic range. Let me just say that not needing som...
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Landscape while on safari: Part II
November 01, 2015 - Most of us do not live within a game park or some place famous for safaris. That means that we have to travel to where w...
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Landscape while on safari: Part I
October 25, 2015 - You are in a game park. Animals abound. Your camera is mated to a long lens. You shoot animals all day, every day. As yo...
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Harsh(ish) Light - Soft Light
March 15, 2015 - We cannot overemphasize the difference light makes to photography. Photographers have to learn to read light and know wh...
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Canon 50 MP Monster ...
February 08, 2015 - Some time ago I spoke about gear (which I don't often do) and more specifically about mirrorless offerings. Thursday nig...
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Working fast ...
September 28, 2014 - One thinks of landscape photography as a slow endeavor. In deed I have waited many hours for the light to change; many t...
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Change your position, change the perspective
August 24, 2014 - This trip to Newfoundland was the first time in my life that I saw an iceberg. Growing up in Africa does not particularl...
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Find a foreground element
August 17, 2014 - Last week we talked about shooting in the woods. A great topic to shoot in forests is footpaths. They form good lead in...
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Animals as part of the landscape
May 18, 2014 - Taking photographs of animals is great fun. We love to watch them. They are often very photogenic. Working close to anim...
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