Hummer cam!

Did I excite the wrong kind of people with that title? Ah, well, too bad. Courtesy yet again of Jerry Coyne at Why Evolution Is True comes this live hummingbird webcam, and she has zeh babbies right now! That makes a nice subject for me to kick off National Wildlife Week.

You can get more of the details at the host website right here, including read more

Cue Barry White


Yesterday I met a student at the local botanical garden and arrived early, so I did a quick tour. The NC Coastal section had been burned off recently, part of the biological maintenance which helps the new plants grow, but it meant there wasn’t much to see. However, a mourning dove (Zenaida macroura) flew up to a read more

What was I thinking?

So, one of the images in my slide collection is seen, full-frame, at left – this is the small cascade of a feeder stream that leads into Window Falls at Hanging Rock State Park, North Carolina. And yes, it appears I didn’t concentrate on keeping the camera level.

Now, I’m not sure this is really the case. When taking long exposures of running water, they can be deceptive. Water read more

Equinox, schmequinox


When I lived in central New York, I used to laugh at the idea of Groundhog’s Day: “If the groundhog sees its shadow, we’ll have six more weeks of winter.” Seriously, half the freaking country considers mid-March an early spring. And the same held true for the Official First Day of Spring falling on the Vernal Equinox (March read more

Too cool, part eight: It’s not the tool, it’s how you use it


Green herons (Butorides virescens) are cool birds. Small, subtle little guys, they tend to be pretty shy in these parts and not pose for photos all that eagerly – the shot above (and here) was taken at Wakodahatchee Wetlands read more

Just because, part four


I just wanted to throw this one out there, because I liked the effect. It was taken four years ago as an experiment, and came out differently than expected. Take a moment and see if you can figure out how it was produced.

I can provide a clue: Most times, TTL flashes operate by measuring the light that makes it to the exposure meter within the camera, and gets shut off when enough read more

There’s always a way

Skimming through my archive photos looking for a topic for a blog post, I found one! Amazing, isn’t it? Anyway, one of the things I tell my photography students (and anyone else that will listen) routinely is that chasing equipment isn’t the key to getting those wonderful images they’ve been after. I’d use myself as an example, because I’ve worked on a shoestring all read more

Another update

Spurred on by this post, I added a page about exposure to the Tips & Tricks gallery on my main website. It can now be found here, and covers what the camera is doing, what you’re after, and how to achieve what you want.

Exposure isn’t a simple subject, so don’t expect a quick explanation, but hopefully this will help you understand it if you need help. Take a look and see what read more

On composition, part seven: Depth

So our next topic of discussion on the subject of composition is “depth” – what it does and how to present it.

Depth is one of those things that is subtle, but very effective, most especially in landscape photography. Drawing the viewer into the photo, making them feel that they have a window into your image, rather than a flat “painting,” can give a much better impression. read more

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