Pierre Steenberg

Composition

May 01, 2022 • Leave a Comment

Let's start with an image: The light is not good and hence this image is not that great. Nevertheless, what lessons can we learn about composition? When we get to this scene the first thing that drew my attention was the mountain peak and the color of the trees beneath it. So that is our starting point. We now start walking around looking for so...

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Polarize with ultra-wide lenses

April 24, 2022 • Leave a Comment

You have heard me say that we never want to use a polarizer filter on a wide or ultra-wide lens when the sky is included. I am not going to go into the reasoning here since you can search and find the blogs I wrote about that on this site. Even though this is true, that does not mean that we never use a polarizer on a wide or ultra-wide lens. In fa...

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Sand Hill Cranes with the Moon

April 17, 2022 • Leave a Comment

Many people these days will photograph one subject here, another there, and merge the two images. They may even use virtual object to place behind their subjects. These birds with the moon comes from a single exposure with the bird and moon in the very same frame; no cheating. They were taken with my Sony 200-600mm lens. My camera was mounted to...

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Sand Hill Cranes

April 10, 2022 • Leave a Comment

You may wonder why I have not posted new blogs during the last few months. I recently moved to Nebraska and well, moving does not happen in one day. So what is there to photograph in Nebraska? You will be surprised to learn that Nebraska is home to the second largest animal migration on the planet. 80% of the world's population of Sand Hill Cranes...

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Hiking the Narrows

December 19, 2021 • Leave a Comment

I have wanted to hike the Narrows for a long time. The Narrows refer to the Virgin river flowing in a very narrow canyon in Zion National Park. The hike itself presents a few challenges: In winter and spring the water is very cold. In the summer the water level can be higher and the current stronger. In the fall the river is the friendliest, but t...

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Editing

November 28, 2021 • Leave a Comment

Some photographers over edit their images. Most amateurs only make global adjustments. Today we are going to look at a raw file and the finished product. Here we go with the raw file: Please note that we have already roughly set the black point and white point of this image in Adobe Camera Raw (Raw developer software). Here is what I want you to n...

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People, People

November 21, 2021 • Leave a Comment

I planned a trip to hike the Narrows in Zion National Park during the best time to catch fall color (first or second week of November). Since the trip was for photography, I deliberately scheduled the actual hike for a weekday to minimize the number of people I will have to contend with. I was wrong! There were people and more people and more peopl...

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Foreground, middle-ground, background

November 14, 2021 • Leave a Comment

There is a trusted formula for successful landscape photography. The formula does not suit all scenes but a good number of them. To have great depth and interest to pull the viewer into the image the formula says photograph an image with a good foreground, middle-ground, and background. Ask yourself if you have a clear foreground, a clear middle-gr...

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You don't always win

November 07, 2021 • Leave a Comment

Doing landscape photography is much like having a fishing license and going fishing. The license does not give you the fish only the right to fish. You may catch something but then again you may not. Sometimes, you catch a little fish only worthy of being released or if I may use the proper photographic term "only worthy of being deleted." You are...

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Dreamy landscapes

October 31, 2021 • Leave a Comment

I love my landscape images to be pin-sharp front to back. But then again there is space in the creative world for a dreamy landscape. Who says that landscape images always need to be pin-sharp from the foreground all the way to the background? Some may wonder if a landscape image is still a landscape image if the middle-ground and background are ou...

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